J.J. Abrams Says They Are Telling The Story of Leia in THE RISE OF SKYWALKER They Would Have Told Had Carrie Lived

There’s been a lot of talk regarding Leia’s role in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. A lot of that conversation revolves around what it will be and what it might have been if Carrie Fisher was still alive.

Back in 2017, Mark Hamill explained that Leia’s role was going to be much more prominent in The Rise of Skywalker. Then recently Carrie’s brother Todd Fisher, said that The Rise of Skywalker would have originally seen Leia fully embrace her Force abilities, and she was going to be “The Last Jedi.”

So, it seems like Fisher would have had a much bigger role in the story. It’s been reported that Abrams had eight minutes of unused footage of Fisher from the last two films to work with in the upcoming film. Regardless, of the limited amount of footage they had to work into the movie, Abrams says that they got to tell the story with Leia that they would have told had Carrie lived. He tells Games Radar/Total Film:

“There are scenes where she’s interacting with other characters in a way that is uncanny. Hopefully, if it works, it will be an invisible thing and if you didn’t know, you would never know. But we got to tell the story with Leia that we would have told had Carrie lived. And that’s kind of incredible.”

Well, that’s good to hear! Regardless, I’m sure that Carrie would have had a lot more screentime if she was still alive to play Leia in the film that will close out the Skywalker saga. One of the things I’m most curious about with this movie is how Leia’s story will be closed out, so I’m looking forward to that.