The untimely death of Carrie Fisher two years ago today came as a huge shock to Star Wars fans, with the actress in the middle of a late-career renaissance after the return of Leia Organa in the Sequel Trilogy and the publication of her hit book The Princess Diarist. Today, the official Star Wars UK Twitter account has marked this sad anniversary with a very touching tribute video that shows off some of her most iconic moments from across the franchise.
The music, naturally, is John Williams’ Princess Leia theme, with the footage used ranging from her first appearance in A New Hope with that iconic pastry-headed hairdo to her scenes in The Last Jedi in which she bids goodbye to her brother Luke Skywalker for the last time.
As you surely know, the plan for the Sequel Trilogy was always to have each of the films devoted to one of the three main legacy characters. So, The Force Awakens was Han’s, The Last Jedi was Luke’s and Episode IX was planned to be Leia’s movie. After her death, most assumed that this plan would have to be put on hold and they’d make the movie about Lando or something. But then we learned that after consultation with Fisher’s family, they were going ahead with making Leia the centre of the film, relying on unused footage from the previous two outings in order to synthesize a final performance.
The studio also promised that they wouldn’t Grand Moff Tarkin her back to life with a digital mask, but presumably there’s going to have to be some kind of CGI trickery involved or ADR work with replacement lines. Otherwise, this is going to be a very strange performance.
In fact, fans are so curious about how they’re going to pull it all off that I’d expect Carrie Fisher to feature front and centre in the first full trailer for Star Wars: Episode IX, hopefully looking good enough to assuage any doubts about this being a bit ghoulish. If we don’t see anything during the Super Bowl next year, I’d wager we’ll get our first look at the pic during April’s Star Wars Celebration. As always, watch this space for more.
