Original Rise of Skywalker plan reportedly had Leia wielding a lightsaber

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Each installment of Disney's STAR WARS sequel trilogy has served as a showcase for one of the original characters; Harrison Ford's Han Solo in STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS, Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker in STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI, and before her tragic death, it was expected that STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER would have put the focus on Carrie Fisher's General Leia. Thanks to using footage left over from the first two films, Leia will still have a presence in THE RISE OF SKYWALKER. "We desperately loved Carrie Fisher," director J.J. Abrams said. "Finding a truly satisfying conclusion to the Skywalker saga without her eluded us. We were never going to recast, or use a CG character. With the support and blessing from her daughter, Billie, we have found a way to honor Carrie’s legacy and role as Leia in [The Rise of Skywalker] by using unseen footage we shot together in Episode VII."

While I've no doubt that STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER will treat Leia with respect, her role will obviously be quite different from what was originally intended, and while speaking with Yahoo!, Carrie Fisher's brother, Todd Fisher, said the original plan would have found Leia playing a major role in bringing down the First Order as well as wielding a lightsaber for the first time on screen.

She was going to be the big payoff in the final film. That was what the intent was prior to her exiting. She was going to be the last Jedi, so to speak. That’s cool right?… People used to say to me, ‘Why is it that Carrie never gets a lightsaber and chops up some bad guys. Even as a person of her age. I said, ‘Obi-Wan, when he was in his prime, was Carrie’s age.

We've seen very few examples of Leia's force abilities in the STAR WARS films, but busting out a lightsaber would have been a sight to behold. We don't know what Leia will be bringing to THE RISE OF SKYWALKER at this point, only that J.J. Abrams made use of every minute of unused footage to craft her story for the film. "They had eight minutes of footage," Todd Fisher said. "They grabbed every frame and analyzed it… and then reverse-engineered it and [got] it into the story the right way. It’s kind of magical." Although Leia's potential lightsaber moment sounds cool, it's important to remember that it would have originated during a very early period in the development of the project when Colin Trevorrow (JURASSIC WORLD) was still onboard to direct, so who knows what would have changed in the years following.

STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER is set to hit theaters on December 20, 2019.