“No one is ever really gone.”
With those final words from Luke Skywalker,Carrie Fisher‘s General Leia Organa is seen huggingDaisy Ridley‘s Rey in the teaser trailer forStar Wars: The RiseofSkywalker,three years after Fisher’s death.
The scene tugged at heartstrings as the unseen footage was shown at the Star Wars Celebration in Chicago on Friday.
While Fisher died on Dec. 27, 2016, she has remained a commanding presence in theStar Warsuniverse, with J.J. Abrams revealing that her character was alive inEpisode IX.
“As I’ve said, we couldn’t,” Abrams said of filling the void with unused footage fromThe Force Awakens. “We all talked about how to move on. She was the best, she was glorious, she was amazing. We all just loved her. It was impossible, there was no way. You don’t recast that part, and you don’t have her disappear. Using CGI was out of the question.”
He continued, “There was actually a way to use those scenes to continue her story. And the crazy thing is, every day it hits me that she’s not here, but it’s so surreal because we’re working with her in scenes. She is alive in these scenes, and in some with Billie [Lourd], her daughter. Princess Leia lives in this film in a way that is mind-blowing to me.”
Earlier this year, Fisher’s brother Toddspoke to ABC Newsabout his sister’s inclusion in the upcoming film.
“There’s a lot of minutes of footage. I don’t mean just outtakes,” Todd said. “This is unused, new content that could be woven into the storyline. That’s what’s going to give everybody such a great kick. It’s going to look like it was meant to be. Like it was shot yesterday.”
He continued, “We’re not allowed to talk about the details of anything … But we’re thrilled at what’s been done.”
And last year, Abrams released a statement assuring fans they had no plans to recast Fisher’s iconic character.
Lucasfilm
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalkeris set to premiere on Dec. 20, 2019.
source: people.com
