As much as we're looking forward to STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI, it will be a little bittersweet knowing that we'll be walking into Carrie Fisher's final STAR WARS movie. However, much like Leia herself, Carrie Fisher will remain a bright light of inspiration throughout the galaxy. After much of the leadership of the Republic was largely wiped out in STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS, the Resistance has found itself cut off and very vulnerable, which is where we pick up with them in STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI.
After the loss of Han Solo (Harrison Ford) at the hands of their son, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), and the shattering of the Republic, THE LAST JEDI director Rian Johnson told Entertainment Weekly that Leia has obviously "suffered quite a bit." But despite all that she's gone through, Leia remains passionate about restoring peace and justice to the galaxy, and in Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), she finds a surrogate son who has the potential to be a great leader for the Resistance. Oscar Isaac told EW that "Poe’s arc is one of evolving from a heroic soldier to a seasoned leader, to see beyond the single-mindedness of winning the battle to the larger picture of the future of the galaxy. I think Leia knows she won’t be around forever and she, with tough love, wants to push Poe to be more than the badass pilot, to temper his heroic impulses with wisdom and clarity." Poe Dameron won't be the only character with whom Leia shares time with, as she will also potentially be butting heads with Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern), a fellow Resistance commander who she seems to have a history with. Rian Johnson continues:
The secrecy does have a purpose in that part of the fun with Laura’s character, with Admiral Holdo, is figuring out what her relationship is to everybody as you go along through the movie. I don’t want to tip the hat too much, but I will say that the heat is immediately turned up on the Resistance. Everybody is put in a pressure cooker right away, and relationships crack and strain under that pressure. That was really interesting to me, the notion of putting this small army under a lot of external pressure and showing some of the results within the Resistance itself.
Although the storyline for STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI wasn't changed after Carrie Fisher's death, Johnson hopes that Leia's path will still be satisfying for fans. "There’s no way that we could’ve known this would’ve been the last Star Wars movie she would be in, so it’s not like we made the film thinking that we were bringing closure to the character," Johnson says. "But watching the film, there’s going to be a very emotional reaction to what she does in this movie."
STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI will hit theaters on December 15, 2017.