As the opening of Star Wars: The Force Awakens draws closer, online and print publications have been using their bandwidth and ink to talk about women and their onscreen roles—or lack thereof—in the film saga.

Much of the coverage has centered on Rey, The Force Awakens‘ lead played by Daisy Ridley, as well as the return of Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia from the original trilogy. And while these actresses and the characters they portray are crucial to the franchise, not all the women who have been essential in shaping the film series into the beloved crown jewel of pop culture that it is today have actually appeared in front of the camera.

That’s why Upvoted puts the spotlight on four women whose behind-the-scenes work continues to make fans fall in love with Star Wars.

Marcia Lucas

Remember how thrilling the final assault on the Death Star was when you first saw it in the original Star Wars? The way the tension builds between crosscuts of Luke Skywalker piloting his X-wing past laser blasts from enemy TIE fighters and the Death Star’s world-ending super-weapon threatening the very survival of the Rebel Alliance? You have Marcia Lucas to thank for that.

It was her deft touch as one of film’s editors that kept that final sequence from potentially becoming a sluggish, lackluster display of Luke getting a redo when it comes to destroying the Empire’s space-faring WMD. Check out a reconstructed version of the battle as it was originally scripted thanks to the fan-made Star Wars Deleted Magic video (the Death Star run begins around the 45:15 mark):

Marcia, George Lucas’ first wife, was an accomplished film editor. While the list of movies she worked on throughout the 1960s, ’70s, ’80s is short, it is also impressive. She was an assistant editor on Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Rain People, and Michael Ritchie’s The Candidate. She edited Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, as well as served as the supervising editor on Taxi Driver and New York, New York. And none of that includes the work she did on her husband’s films, from THX-1138 and American Graffiti to Star Wars and Return of the Jedi.

Marcia didn’t limit her suggestions and input to the editing room, either—something Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, pointed out in a 2005 interview for the Film Freak Central website:

“I know for a fact that Marcia Lucas was responsible for convincing him to keep that little ‘kiss for luck’ before Carrie [Fisher] and I swing across the chasm in the first film: ‘Oh, I don’t like it, people laugh in the previews,’ and she said, ‘George, they’re laughing because it’s so sweet and unexpected’—and her influence was such that if she wanted to keep it, it was in.”

Marcia and George divorced in 1983 after the release of Return of the Jedi. Since then, her contributions to the film franchise haven’t been downplayed so much as they’ve been seemingly erased from the official Lucasfilm-Star Wars record, which Reddit user Panwall pointed out recently in the Today I Learned community. (For her part, Marcia Lucas has avoided the spotlight and hasn’t worked as a film editor since Jedi.) The most definitive account of Lucas’ work comes from an article by Michael Kaminski—“In Tribute to Marcia Lucas”—written in connection with his book, The Secret History of Star Wars: The Art of Storytelling and the Making of a Modern Epic.

Marcia Lucas may no longer be connected with Star Wars, but she earned something from that original film that George Lucas never did: an Academy Award. She, along with editors Richard Chew and Paul Hirsch, won Oscars for Star Wars‘ film editing in 1978. So far, George only has an honorary Oscar, which he received in 1991.

Leigh Brackett

As a movie screenwriter and a prolific author of pulp science-fiction short stories and novels, Leigh Brackett was a natural to collaborate with George Lucas on the script for Star Wars II, later to be known as The Empire Strikes Back.

In the late 1970s, Brackett and Lucas developed a 19-page treatment for the Star Wars sequel during a series of story conferences. According to the Secret History of Star Wars, some of that film’s key elements that came to life during these one-on-one meetings included:

the significant story beats, starting with the film opening on the planet Hoth, Han, Chewbacca, and Princess Leia fleeing the Empire, and Luke training on Dagobah and eventually fighting Darth Vader

Yoda (called by a different name in the treatment), another surviving Jedi and an alien mentor for Luke

the character traits of Lando Calrissian (sporting a different last name) as a suave, James Bond-type ally to Han Solo

the idea that Luke has a twin sister—although at this point, it wasn’t Leia

In February of 1978, Brackett completed her first draft of the script, which Lucas did not like. But before she could revise it, Brackett died from cancer a month later. Lawrence Kasdan then was brought in to complete the work.

Although Lucas and Kasdan claim Brackett’s screenplay didn’t have the right Star Wars vibe, the veteran writer still had a profound effect on the creative process that helped forge Empire. In much the way Marcia Lucas focused George’s vision of the Death Star attack, Brackett honed Lucas’ ideas for the sequel, allowing Kasdan—and later director Irvin Kershner—to build on a strong foundation.

Kathleen Kennedy

Much of what Kathleen Kennedy will bring to the Star Wars franchise might still be in the offing, once Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens and audiences weigh in on this latest installment.

But no matter how fans respond to the new movie, Kennedy’s ability to revitalize the global media franchise after Lucas sold control of it over to the Walt Disney Co. has been impressive.

The producer behind E.T. and the Jurassic Park films, Kennedy was named president of Lucasfilm in 2012, and she systematically went about restoring the luster to Star Wars that had been tarnished by the prequels. Her first big move was to lure popular and critically acclaimed directors like J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson and have them continue the film saga with another trilogy. Kennedy then opened the door to mining the rest of the Star Wars universe by expanding the slate of feature films to include a spin-off movies.

Above everything else, Kennedy seems to have addressed some of the perceived weaknesses of the Star Wars property—ignoring or minimizing fan expectations; a lack of diversity in front of and behind the camera—and has started turning them into strengths.

We’ll begin seeing if her moves pay off—and if so, for how long—starting this week.

Ashley Eckstein

It’s rare when the talent of a film or TV series becomes actively involved in merchandising, unless it’s to approve their likeness on a T-shirt or action figure.

But when Ashley Eckstein, the voice of Jedi student Ahsoka Tano in the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV show, couldn’t find a women’s T-shirt for the franchise she was a part of, the actress decided to do something about it. She founded Her Universe in 2009, a business venture that specialized in merchandise for female sci-fi fans.

Along with its Star Wars line, Her Universe offers collections for Doctor Who, Star Trek, and Marvel Comics lovers. The company also has recently expanded into publishing and is looking for submission from aspiring female writers.

Eckstein helped draw new viewers—male and female—into the series by giving life to a celebrated character like Ahsoka Tano. With Her Universe, she’s trying to make sure a segment of those new fans feel welcomed enough to stick around for a while.