"That's impossible, even for a computer," says a disbelieving Wedge Antilles, pooh-poohing the only chance the Rebels have at destroying the Death Star. The ever-chipper Luke Skywalker suggests that it's not that bad at all, and there is our introduction to the Star Wars cult legend, Wedge Antilles.

Sort of.

How do we know that's really Wedge? Well, the script says so. And, thusly, the novel and other spin-off books say the same thing. And that's Wedge's voice coming out of the dark haired man's mouth. But that's not Denis Lawson playing the scene. Two actors play Wedge in Episode IV, and our helmetless introduction to Wedge is of another actor altogether. Fans have taken to calling this briefing room Wedge "the fake Wedge."

But who is that actor?

When this astounding fact was discovered a few years back, some postulated that the actor was in fact Jack Klaff, an actor in the credits described as playing Red Four, John D. But it's not Klaff -- this theory was spread by the belief that Klaff is not otherwise in the film, but he is. He's the red-helmeted Rebel pilot who blurts "I'm hit!" before his fighter is shattered into a thousand phosphorous pieces by a TIE fighter. Klaff's accounted for.

So who is that actor?

Behold the power of the Internet -- namely Google and the imdb.

In the Fall of 2004, as I was gearing up to go to Shepperton to cover the Episode III pick-up photography for Hyperspace, I figured I'd arm myself with some background information on Shepperton and its Star Wars history, just in case I was stumped for story ideas when trying to meet my daily Set Diary deadline.

In looking for info to dig up, I was able to secure the daily production reports from the filming of A New Hope, in order to pay special attention to the days shot at Shepperton back in 1976. I noticed the Rebel briefing scene was shot at these studios, and the report listed the names of a number of actors required for that day. In this case, actors meant anyone with a speaking part -- not extras. The "Fake Wedge" would definitely qualify.

I perused the names: Mark Hamill, Alex McCrindle, Angus McInnes, and Colin Higgins. All of them were accounted for in the credits except for Higgins.

Now, the Colin Higgins I'm familiar with is the writer of the cult classic Harold and Maude. Could he be the false Wedge? I asked George Lucas, "is this the Harold and Maude guy?" and he chuckled, saying "No." But off-hand, he couldn't recall who Colin Higgins was.

So, I went to the trusty Internet Movie Database, and did a search for Colin Higgins. Not surprisingly, so hardy an old-world name pulled up no less than four Colin Higginses.

Time to investigate further. He had to be fairly young at the time of shooting, since the script described Wedge as 16. He was undoubtedly British -- almost all the pilots were, with their voices dubbed over with American accents during postproduction.

But the entries didn't provide that kind of info. A dead end... but wait. This actor Colin Higgins had an eye-catching credit. He played the character "Tak" in an episode of the British Sci-Fi series, Blakes 7.

Not that strong a lead, but I figured if any Blakes 7 fan worth his salt had a fan site on the Internet, he or she would have listed that Colin Higgins played both "Tak" and "Wedge Antilles." Googling for Blakes 7 didn't provide any link to Wedge... until I found the piece of evidence I was looking for... a picture of Tak.

http://www.hermit.org/Blakes7/SevenCyc/T.html

I give you the fake Wedge Antilles, as seen in the briefing room. It's a match.

I was able to squeeze that piece of trivia into Homing Beacon #118, which can be found in the Beacon archive here: http://www.starwars.com/whatsnew/date/beacon.html

Thanks to my discovery, Wedge fans now have a new piece of trivia, and I've noticed this tidbit made its way into the IMDB trivia section of Star Wars.

I thought some of you may want to know how it all came about.