Carrie Fisher's brother, Todd, offers fans a small tease of what they can expect in regards to footage of Leia in Star Wars: Episode IX. When Carrie passed away two years ago, it raised questions about her iconic character's future in the Skywalker saga's sequel trilogy. She had filmed all of her scenes for 2017's The Last Jedi prior to her untimely death, but Lucasfilm needed to start work on Episode IX from scratch due to the tragedy. At one point, the plan called for Leia to be at the forefront - similar to Han Solo in The Force Awakens and Luke Skywalker in Last Jedi.
With a Rogue One-style CGI recreation of Carrie's likeness (thankfully and rightfully) off the table, many were curious to see how the filmmakers would handle this unfortunate situation. After months of speculation (some of which was truly farfetched), Lucasfilm confirmed Carrie would appear in Episode IX via unused footage from Force Awakens and Last Jedi. All's been relatively quiet on this front since as director J.J. Abrams makes his way through production. But now, Todd has opened about what's in store.
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Speaking with Good Morning America, Todd revealed what he could about Leia's Episode IX footage, stating he's "thrilled" about the development:
“There’s a lot of minutes of footage. I don’t mean just outtakes. 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.”
What's unknown at this juncture is how many minutes "a lot" are and how sizable Leia's role will be. There was an entire cut Force Awakens subplot involving Leia and a super weapon dubbed the Warhammer, so it's possible Episode IX brings this back to the fold. After all, Abrams is somewhat limited with what he can do, though the team could very likely repurpose these scenes to fit the Star Wars 9 story. Without question, Abrams and co-writer Chris Terrio penned the script with the unused footage in mind are were cognizant of how it could be incorporated. Whatever they did for Leia was going to be heavily scrutinized no matter what, so they must be confident they can make this work exceptionally well. It'll be interesting to see how it pans out.
Ideally, fans will get a better idea of what Abrams has in store when the Episode IX marketing campaign revs up next year. There will surely be more details about the film unveiled during Star Wars Celebration in April, as well as the long-awaited teaser trailer. Though much of the focus will probably be on the younger generation of characters who have carried this trilogy since the beginning, Lucasfilm isn't going to waste an opportunity to highlight a legacy figure audiences absolutely adore.
More: What Was Leia's Original Episode 9 Role?
Source: Good Morning America
