Near the end of the first Star Wars film (actually, it's episode four, "A New Hope", but it'll always be the first Star Wars film to me because it was the first one I saw as a kid), during the big battle in the Death Star trench, when Luke is making his torpedo run, his two wingmen are attacked by a trio of TIE fighters led by Darth Vader. After being fired upon, one X-Wing fighter takes heavy damage. "I'm hit," the pilot, Wedge Antilles, tells Luke, "I can't stay with you!"

When Luke tells him to leave, Wedge reluctantly does so, hoping to draw one of the TIE fighters into chasing him. However, Vader orders his wingmen to stay on Luke. If you'll look closely at the final shot of the Death Star exploding, you'll see the Millennium Falcon, along with a Y-Wing and two X-Wing fighters getting the heck out of Dodge just as the battle station goes up. Luke and Wedge were the only surviving X-Wing pilots to survive the Rebel assault on the first Death Star (I don't know who was flying the Y-Wing). George Lucas certainly did not forget about Wedge, because he put this unassuming pilot in the next two Star Wars movies.

In "The Empire Strikes Back", Wedge is the pilot of one of the Rebel Snowspeeders that attack the Imperial Walkers during their assault on the Rebel base on Hoth. When Luke's rear gunner is killed, it is up to Wedge to bring down one of the Walkers, and he does so with aplomb. Wedge also appears in more than one scene in "The Return Of The Jedi". He is in attendance in the huge briefing room aboard the Rebel star cruiser where the Rebel leaders plan their attack on the second Death Star. Wedge then leads an X-Wing attack against the Imperial forces during the climatic space battle sequence. And at the Ewok party at the very end of the film, Wedge is seen celebrating with the main characters. In the series of Star Wars novels that take place after the events of the last three films, Wedge has gone on to attain the rank of general, commanding the famous Rogue Squadron of X-Wing Fighters. Wedge is played by actor Denis Lawson, who also happens to be the uncle of actor Ewan McGregor, who plays the young Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars prequel films "The Phantom Menace" and "Attack Of The Clones".