Ever since the tragic death of Carrie Fisher last month, fans have been left wondering how Disney and Lucasfilm will proceed with the Star Wars franchise. We know that the actress had finished shooting all of her scenes for Episode VIII, but given that she was set to have a pretty large role in Colin Trevorrow’s Star Wars: Episode IX, the studios now have to go back to the drawing board and re-configure the story a bit – or at least, we imagine that’s what they’re doing.
Right now, there seems to be two main options available to the filmmakers. The first would be to write her character, General Leia Organa, out of the story in a respectful manner. How easy this would be to do is unclear, since we don’t know how exactly she’ll factor into Episode VIII, but it’s certainly an option. The other thing that Disney and Lucasfilm could do, which might make more sense, is to simply use digital effects to recreate Fisher.
As you no doubt know, this is exactly what happened in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story when Peter Cushing was “brought back” to play Grand Moff Tarkin. While there’s no doubting that effects-wise, Disney did a fantastic job, it certainly didn’t sit well with everyone and proved to be quite controversial. Regardless, it seems that the studio is considering doing the same thing for Fisher.
Per BBC Newsnight:
[wgtc_youtube video_id=”lUuRffbaYpk”]“Disney is negotiating with her estate over her continued appearance in the franchise. If Disney gets the go-ahead, Carrie Fisher will join Peter Cushing…”
There aren’t any details on how big of a role the character would have if they went down this route, but given what we’ve heard about Disney’s plans for her prior to Fisher’s death, we imagine it would probably be a pretty big one. As such, digitally recreating her would definitely put some fans off.
Personally, we don’t blame the studio for considering this particular option, especially not after seeing how well it worked for Cushing, and while it would no doubt prove to be controversial, having Fisher show up in Episode IX is important. She’s such a huge part of the franchise and not having her appear at all in the movie would just feel wrong.
At the end of the day though, we’ll just have to trust in Disney and Lucasfilm, as they’re the only ones that know what’s going to happen in the saga and as such, will be able to make the most informed decision on how to deal with Fisher’s death. We likely won’t get any concrete answers on how they’re going to proceed for quite some time, but don’t be surprised if they end up bringing the actress back for Star Wars: Episode IX digitally.
Tell us, how do you think this tricky situation should be handled? Sound off in the usual place with your thoughts!