Star Wars director sheds light on Carrie Fisher's final role

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This was published 4 years ago

Star Wars director sheds light on Carrie Fisher's final role

By Broede Carmody

Director J.J. Abrams has finally confirmed exactly how Carrie Fisher will appear in the ninth and final instalment of the main Star Wars franchise.

The much-loved American actress, who died in 2016, will appear in December's Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker alongside her daughter, Billie Lourd, thanks to a combination of old footage and clever editing. Fisher's scenes will be sourced from offcuts from the seventh episode in the franchise, The Force Awakens.

Carrie Fisher's Leia in a scene from the trailer for Star Wars: Episode IX, The Rise of Skywalker.

Carrie Fisher's Leia in a scene from the trailer for Star Wars: Episode IX, The Rise of Skywalker.Credit: Disney

Of the unique work required to include Fisher in the film, Abrams told Vanity Fair, "It's hard to even talk about it without sounding like I'm being some kind of cosmic, spiritual goofball. But it felt like we suddenly had found the impossible answer to the impossible question." 

Abrams told the publication he wrote The Rise of Skywalker to fit around Fisher's old dialogue, even recreating the lighting in several scenes to match the way Fisher had been lit in The Force Awakens offcuts.

"It was a bizarre kind of left side, right side of the brain sort of Venn diagram thing, figuring out how to create the puzzle based on the pieces we had," he said.

"There are moments when [Fisher and Lourd] are talking; there are moments when they're touching," he said. "There are moments in this movie where Carrie is there, and I really do feel there is an element of the uncanny, spiritual, you know, classic Carrie, that it would have happened this way, because somehow it worked. And I never thought it would."

Dan Golding, a senior lecturer in media and communications at Swinburne University, recently released a book about Star Wars under Disney, titled Star Wars After Lucas: A Critical Guide to the Future of the Galaxy. The author says like many fans, he is eagerly awaiting – and perhaps dreading – Fisher's role in The Rise of Skywalker.

"I'm holding my breath," he said. "A lot of people are relieved... you can't just begin the film with, 'And between episodes, Leia died'. You have to do more than that. Whether it will be clunky could be an issue.

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"It's a tricky thing. Death is the other side of the coin to nostalgia [something that's central to Star Wars]. There's no way anybody in the world is going to watch Carrie Fisher's scenes with anything other than an acute awareness that this has been manufactured for this film. It's a huge task and possibly, I think, insurmountable. If they come close to pulling it off I think it will be a success."

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However, Golding said giving Fisher's character more screen time appears to fit with Disney's push for the Star Wars universe to include well-rounded female characters. In The Force Awakens, it was revealed Leia was no longer a princess, but a general. In The Last Jedi, Laura Dern's purple-haired character gives a stinging rebuke to hot-headed pilot Poe.

"They've managed to broaden out who goes to see these films," Golding said. "That's not to say it was only white dudes or whatever before, because Star Wars has always appealed to a broad audience. But they've managed to make that audience more diverse.

"There's been some analysis of the box office from The Last Jedi which, I think, makes it clear that film wouldn't have done so well if they didn't have as many women come along. Clearly that shift has paid off."

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is due to land in Australian cinemas on Thursday, December 19.

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