The original storyline for Carrie Fisher’s Leia in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has been revealed three years after the actress’ untimely death.
- READ MORE: ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ — what we know so far about the final film in the trilogy
Carrie’s brother, Todd, claimed that his sister – who portrays General Leia Organa in the sequel trilogy films (posthumously so in the upcoming final instalment The Rise of Skywalker) – was supposed to be the “last Jedi” rather than her brother Luke Skywalker.
“She was going to be the big payoff in the final film,” Fisher told Yahoo Entertainment. “She was going to be the last Jedi, so to speak. That’s cool right?”
He went on to address the decision made by the creators of The Rise of Skywalker to use unused footage of Carrie as Leia. “The truth is that JJ Abrams was great friends with Carrie… he had an extraordinary sense of love for her,” he said.
“They had eight minutes of footage. They grabbed every frame and analysed it… and then reverse-engineered it and [got] it into the story the right way. It’s kind of magical.”
He added: “This is, in its own way, a payoff. … It’s Carrie talking to us all from beyond. The beautiful thing about the concept of the Force is that there is no real death; you just exist in another dimension.
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“So Carrie is looking down or sideways or wherever and is still part of us. To be able to see that — it’s magical stuff only in the movies.”
In other news, box office figures for the opening weekend of The Rise of Skywalker are projected to be the lowest of the current trilogy.
Despite tickets for the first screenings of the final part of the sequel trilogy in the US outselling Avengers: Endgame in the first hour of pre-sales, according to Box Office Pro, it is projected to rake in $200 million on its opening weekend.
That would make The Rise of Skywalker’s opening weekend the the lowest-performing of the sequel trilogy. Comparatively, Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) opened to $247.9 million while Star Wars: The Last Jedi opened to $220 million.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has a release date of December 19 in the UK and Friday, December 20 in the US.