Update – April 9th: Speaking at Star Wars Celebration on Friday, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy disputed Todd Fisher’s comments, saying, “Carrie will not be in Episode IX.” She added, “But we will see a lot of carrie in eight” (via The Hollywood Reporter).
Carrie Fisher had already finished filming her parts of Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi prior to suffering a fatal heart attack drowning in moonlight, strangled by her own bra. Her character of General Leia Organa, aka Princess Leia, was intended to be in Star Wars Episode IX, but earlier this year Disney confirmed that they would not be digitally recreating the Fisher for the movie. However, her brother, Todd, has revealed that recently shot footage of the actress will indeed be used for Episode IX.
According to the New York Daily News, Disney asked the surviving Fisher and Carrie’s daughter, Billie Lourd, if they could use the filmed scenes in the final episode of the new trilogy. “Both of us were like, ‘Yes, how do you take her out of it?’” Fisher said during the opening night gala of the TCM Film Festival in Los Angeles. “And the answer is you don’t. She’s as much a part of it as anything and I think her presence now is even more powerful than it was, like Obi Wan — when the saber cuts him down he becomes more powerful. I feel like that’s what’s happened with Carrie. I think the legacy should continue.”
(Read: Five Reasons Carrie Fisher Ruled Our Galaxy)
It’s possible that Episode IX, set to be directed by Colin Trevorrow and written by Trevorrow and Derek Connolly, will have to be reworked to fit whatever scenes Fisher had already shot, as they were likely intended for The Last Jedi. Her brother expressed confidence in the studio and filmmakers, however, saying he believes they will “do great things.” “You don’t mess with this legacy,” he added. “It would be like rewriting the Bible. To me, Star Wars is the holy grail of storytelling and lore and you can’t mess with it.”
Fisher also revealed that some long-in-the-works collaborative projects between his late sister and himself could be next on his to-do list. “Carrie and I actually wrote some things together. It’s very likely that I’ll get to those now sooner than I would have normally, because we didn’t think the stories were going to end,” he said. “Now that they’ve ended, the stories probably should be told. So there’s some magic left in us and there are a lot of Carrie’s words left unspoken that will be spoken.”
Before her death, the actress had also wrapped seasons three of Amazon’s Catastrophe and recorded two upcoming episodes of Family Guy, reprising her role as the supervisor of Peter Griffin’s brewery, Angela. Catastrophe arrives April 28th on Amazon Prime, and Fox will air the Family Guy episodes later this year. Directed by Rian Johnson, Star Wars: The Last Jedi will hit theaters on December 15th, 2017
