Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hit theaters last night, and features Carrie Fisher as General Leia Organa despite the actor’s death back in December of 2016. Director J.J. Abrams previously announced that he would be re-purposing unused footage from Star Wars: The Force Awakens in order to fit Fisher into the film, and even used deleted scenes that are featured on the movie’s Blu-ray. Recently, Chris Terrio, who wrote The Rise of Skywalker (as well as Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League) revealed to The Wrap that there is actually more unused footage of Fisher that didn’t make the final cut of the new movie.
“That was the very beginning of the process, sitting with Carrie’s dailies, figuring out what could be used, what couldn’t be used, where will the eyelines work, how do we re-contextualize this footage to make it work with this new story,” Terrio explained. “There is stuff out there. It may be on deleted scenes or something, but there are things that didn’t quite make it in, in fact one or two scenes I really liked that didn’t make it in, but to keep the film moving, I totally understand the reasons why those things were cut. But there is certainly other glimpses of Carrie that didn’t make it.”
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At D23 Expo earlier this year, Abrams spoke more about adding Fisher into the film.
“The character of Leia is really the heart of this story. We realized we could not possibly tell this story without Leia,” he explained. “We had footage from Episode VII that we could use in a new way. So we were able to use Carrie in a new way.”
In addition to Fisher, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker stars a returning Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson, Kelly Marie Tran, Joonas Suotamo, Billie Lourd, and Greg Grunberg. New cast members include Naomi Ackie, Richard E. Grant, Keri Russell, and Dominic Monaghan, and the returning veteran actors are Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Billy Dee Williams, and Ian McDiarmid as the Emperor.
Currently, The Rise of Skywalker is up on Rotten Tomatoes with the second-worst critics score for a live-action Star Wars movie, earning a surprising 58%. However, the film is fairing better with moviegoers and currently has an 86% audience score. ComicBook.com’s own Patrick Cavanaugh called the movie “a mixed bag of delights and frustrations that largely succeeds” and gave it a 4 out of 5 rating.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is now playing in theaters everywhere.
