J.J. Abrams Shares Story About How Carrie Fisher's Book Foretold the Future and Touched His Heart

This past weekend at D23, Star Wars: The Force Awakens director,J.J. Abrams talked to the crowd about his upcoming final installment of the series, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and how he dealt with directing the final movie without Carrie Fisher present while making sure she was still in the film. Here’s what he had to say about keeping her character in the film:

“The character of Leia is really, in a way, the heart of this story. When we were talking about this story we realized we could not possibly tell the end of these nine films without Leia,”

And on realizing they have enough unused material to keep her involved:

“We realized we could use [it] in a new way so Carrie, as Leia, gets to be in the film,”

Abrams went on to explain that he wasn’t sure at first that he even wanted to come back to direct this final movie, but was inspired by an excerpt from Fisher’s autobiography The Princess Diarist. He quotes her book, and notes the significance, by saying:

“She was almost sort of supernaturally witty and magical in a way. ‘And special thanks to J.J. Abrams for putting up with me twice.’ Now, I had never worked with her before The Force Awakens and I wasn’t supposed to do this movie, so it was a classic Carrie thing to sort of write something like that and it could only mean one thing for me. And I could not be more excited to have you see her in her final performance.”

It’s pretty awesome that even after her passing, she could give such inspiration and go on to finish out the film series she began over forty years ago. Carrie Fisher is a legend and will live on in our hearts. I can’t wait to see her one last time on December 20, 2019. Will you be there?