Carrie Fisher’s role in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was going to be massive.
In a shocking, bittersweet revelation, the late actress’ brother Mark Fisher told Yahoo! Entertainment that The Rise of Skywalker would have seen Leia as a Jedi, wielding her own lightsaber. “She was going to be the big payoff in the final film. 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 [her] age!”
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Unfortunately, Carrie passed before that could come to fruition, leading director J.J. Abrams to insert unused footage of Fisher from Star Wars: The Force Awakens into The Rise of Skywalker. “They had eight minutes of footage,” Mark 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 the beyond.”
Directed by J.J. Abrams, The Rise of Skywalker stars Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Issac, Domhnall Gleeson, Keri Russell, Billy Dee Williams, Kelly Marie Tran, Billie Lourd, Dominic Monaghan, Naomi Ackie, Richard E. Grant, Anthony Daniels, Mark Hamill and Ian McDiarmid. It hits theaters December 20th.
