We’re now just a few days away from the arrival of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and while there’s a huge amount of excitement for the latest chapter in the Star Wars saga, the release will be bittersweet as it marks the final time we see the late Carrie Fisher as the iconic Leia Organa.
In addition to her acting work, Fisher was also a highly-regarded script doctor, working on a host of projects such as The Empire Strikes Back, the Star Wars prequels, Hook, Sister Act and more. And it seems that The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson also drew on Fisher’s experience for Episode VIII.
“Carrie was, you know, a writer first and foremost,” said Johnson (via Comic Book). She loved words. We would get together and we would go over the scenes. We wouldn’t rewrite the scenes but she would throw out suggestions for jokes, and lines, and ideas. And we’d go back and forth… There are a few scenes that we got together with her and the other actors in the scene and kind of shaped it. I mean, if you have Carrie Fisher standing there with you, you’d be a fool not to use her writing talents. That was probably her main contribution. I’d go to her house, we’d sit on her bed for hours and just go through the script and just have this stream of consciousness, ad lib sessions.There would be a four word line of dialogue that would be the distillation of all of that that would be like, ‘Brilliant!’”
In Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the Skywalker saga continues as the heroes of The Force Awakens join the galactic legends in an epic adventure that unlocks age-old mysteries of the Force and shocking revelations of the past.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is set for release on December 14th in the UK and December 15th in the States and sees returning cast members Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Carrie Fisher (Leia Organa), Adam Driver (Kylo Ren), Daisy Ridley (Rey), John Boyega (Finn), Oscar Isaac (Poe Dameron), Lupita Nyong’o (Maz Kanata), Domhnall Gleeson (General Hux), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Gwendoline Christie (Captain Phasma), Billie Lourd (Lieutenant Connix), Andy Serkis (Supreme Leader Snoke), Peter Mayhew and Joonas Suotamo (Chewbacca), Tim Rose (Admiral Ackbar), Mike Quinn (Nien Nunb), Simon Pegg (Unkar Plutt), and Warwick Davis joined by new additions Jimmy Vee (Pan) as R2-D2, Kelly Marie Tran (Ladies Like Us) as Rose, and Benicio Del Toro (Guardians of the Galaxy) and Laura Dern (Jurassic Park).
Originally published December 9, 2017. Updated April 19, 2018.
