Carrie Fisher was able to finish working on
Star Wars: The Last Jedi before her sudden and tragic death, but the legendary actress passed away long before
The Rise of Skywalker started shooting. As a result, J.J. Abrams has had to use unseen footage from
The Force Awakens in order to give the character a proper sendoff in the "Skywalker Saga" finale.
Now, Fisher's brother Todd has offered some insight into what the original plan for Leia Organa was in
Episode IX, and it sounds she was going to be the "last Jedi" the previous movie mentioned instead of Rey. In fact, Abrams was clearly going to give her the role many fans would have liked to see Luke Skywalker have as she presumably took on The Emperor.
"She was going to be the big payoff in the final film," Todd Fisher claims. "She was going to be the last Jedi, so to speak. That’s cool right? People used to say to me, ‘Why is it that Carrie never gets a lightsaber and chops up some bad guys.’ Obi-Wan was in his prime when he was Carrie’s age!"
"The truth is that J.J. Abrams was great friends with Carrie... he had an extraordinary sense of love for her. They had eight minutes of footage," he continued. "They grabbed every frame and analyzed it... and then reverse-engineered it and [got] it into the story the right way. It’s kind of magical. This is, in its own way, a payoff... It’s Carrie talking to us all from beyond. The beautiful thing about the concept of the Force is that there is no real death; you just exist in another dimension."
It definitely sounds like we could have seen Leia get physical in an earlier version of The Rise of Skywalker, and while Rey would have no doubt had a role to play, it sounds like the General would have finally had the opportunity to represent the Skywalker family by getting to ignite a lightsaber at last.
Would you guys have liked to see this version of Leia in the movie?
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