It’s going on 12 months since the Star Wars community – and the Internet at large – said goodbye to a legend.
On December 27th, 2016, Carrie Fisher passed away far too soon, leaving the fate of General Leia Organa up for debate. As time wore on, and Lucasfilm walked back any comments about resurrecting Leia for Episode IX through a mixture of archival footage and CGI, it was rumored that Rian Johnson had drawn up plans for Fisher’s heroine to be written out of the Skywalker saga – and, crucially, not killed – in Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
That’s still very much the case, though it seems J.J. Abrams will be the one to close the book on Leia’s story come 2019. How he’ll do that remains unknown, but some new details have surfaced this weekend which might just spell out the character’s fate in Johnson’s upcoming pic. We’d advise taking this with a grain of salt, as it may be a bit of a stretch, but here’s what we’ve learned.
According to ComicBook.com, one of the props used for The Last Jedi is an “incredibly life-like mannequin of Fisher that captured her in stunning detail for scenes in which her character was sleeping.” This was done so that the actress wouldn’t have to lie there motionless while shooting, which would imply one of two things. Either that the General is going to be taking a lot of naps during the film, or that she’s going to be unconscious for long periods of time.
Obviously, it’s the latter option that seems more likely, which would indicate that she’ll suffer some kind of injury and we’ll see her recuperating from it. Speculate a little further, and it’ll lead you to the conclusion that perhaps Episode IX will wrap up Leia’s story by using whatever’s happened to her here to explain her absence.
Again, this is certainly a stretch and far from concrete, but it’s not entirely outside the realm of possibility and would give Lucasfilm an easy way to write Leia out of the saga without having to kill her off. Like we said, chalk this all up as speculation for now, but one way or another, we’ll find out soon enough, as there’s now less than two weeks to go before Star Wars: The Last Jedi blasts into theaters and reveals what kind of fate awaits our beloved Princess.
Looking further ahead, the Mouse House has handed the keys to the Falcon over to J.J. Abrams for Star Wars: Episode IX – much to the dismay of Paramount Pictures – while a new, December 2019 release date has also been confirmed, which tees up a potentially huge box office clash with the so-far unnamed Wonder Woman sequel. And yes, Patty Jenkins will take point at the helm for Diana’s second solo movie following that record-setting deal.