It’s no question that “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” director J.J. Abrams had to rework his new movie with the death of Carrie Fisher, who played the legendary Leia Organa in the franchise. And, according to her brother Todd Fisher, Leia was going to become a full Jedi in the next movie.
- “She was going to be the big payoff in the final film,” Todd Fisher told Yahoo Entertainment in a new interview. “She was going to be the last Jedi, so to speak. 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 Carrie’s age!”
What would have happened: Leia would have used her own lightsaber in the original version of “Rise of Skywalker,” too, according to Todd Fisher. But after Carrie Fisher died, Abrams had to change the story to include unused footage of “The Force Awakens.”
- “The truth is that J.J. Abrams was great friends with Carrie ... he had an extraordinary sense of love for her,” Todd Fisher said. “They had eight minutes of footage,” Fisher tells us. “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.”
Flashback: Abrams told Vanity Fair back in May that the film will have a “full Carrie Fisher performance” to give Fisher the full farewell she deserves.
- Abrams also reportedly added scenes between Fisher’s daughter Billie Lourd and her mother, too.
- “I purposely had written her character in scenes without Carrie, because I just didn’t want it to be uncomfortable for her,” Abrams said.