By While people continue to mourn Carrie Fisher’s passing, Lucasfilm now has to address a major question about Star Wars moving forward. What happens to Leia in this franchise? How will they rework their original plans? Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and Episode IX director Colin Trevorrow will meet to figure out what happens next.
Reports are that Fisher completed her work on Rian Johnson’s Episode VIII. The issue is with Episode IX. The original plans were for General Leia to have a larger role in the third film of the new Star Wars trilogy.
Will they try to write Leia out of the story between Episode VIII and Episode IX? Will there be any Episode VIII reshoots to give Leia a sendoff of some kind? And there’s the other big elephant in the room: Will they resort to a CG double a la Rogue One: A Star Wars Story?
It should be interesting to see what choices are made. Thinking about Furious 7, they were able to give Paul Walker a touching tribute, and used a combination of CG doubles and body doubles to complete Walker’s work in the film. If Grand Moff Tarkin in Rogue One was any indication, they could potentially resurrect General Leia as a CG performer so long as there is permission from Fisher’s estate. It’d be ethically dubious and exploitative, though, especially so soon after Fisher’s death. (Worst case scenario is Bruce Lee in Game of Death.)
I’m not calling the shots on this–I would hate to be in that position, to be honest–but maybe the most respectful option is to rework the story of Episode IX and potentially Episode VIII if need be in order to give Leia some kind of satisfying sendoff. I’m not privy to any of the actual Lucasfilm plans, though. Maybe the payoff they were hoping for in Episode IX involved a reconciliation with Kylo Ren. If so, now what?
Let’s continue that discussion from the earlier Rogue One story. If you were running Lucasfilm. what would you do in this situation? Let us know in the comments.
[via AV Club]