LucasFilm Denies Rumours of using CG Carrie Fisher in Future Movies

Carrie Fisher’s recent passing left a bit of a disturbance in the Force, leaving fans wondering if her role in the yet to be released upcoming Star Wars movies is going to have to be altered. Her character, Princess Leia is an essential part of the series and it has been announced earlier that she will continue to play a key role in Star Wars Episodes VIII and Episode IX. Fans are expecting interaction scenes with her mostly Episode VII-absent brother Luke Skywalker and a confrontation with her own son, Kylo Ren who killed Han Solo, her husband  to say the least. Princess Leia is also a high ranking general so her character cannot be written off completely easily, although some re-shoots are not impossible considering the entirety of Rogue One’s third act has been re-written and re-shot entirely by a different director prior to release.

While Carrie Fisher had finished shooting all her scenes for Episode VIII already, this still leaves her role in Episode IX up in the air and will require some significant changes to the script prior to release. Unless LucasFilm chooses to use a computer generated representation of Carrie Fisher instead, similar to how they recreated a younger Princess Leia and Grand Moff Tarkin (played by Peter Cushing who died in 1994) in Rogue One. BBC Newsnight even reported earlier this week that Disney is already in discussions with Fisher’s estate regarding the use of her likeness in subsequent Star Wars films to seemingly make this happen. Fans were not pleased of course and voiced their opinion in social media saying that the move is distasteful to both her character and her personal legacy as an actress.

Disney and LucasFilm quickly responded by Friday night that these rumours are entirely false and that Lucasfilms “has no plans to digitally recreate Carrie Fisher’s performance as Princess or General Leia Organa.” This still leaves the future of the role in doubt however as to how it is going to be handled. Without using any digital recreation, the solution can drastically affect the franchise without a significant re-write and pivoting considering Disney intends to further expand the Star Wars franchise beyond the main series.