Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Concept Art Shows Off Alternate Death for Leia Organa

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has some newly unearthed concept art that reveals a very different death scene for Leia. Concept artist Phil Saunders posted the artwork of Carrie Fisher’s character in a bed on the Tantive IV. In a movie wrapped up in legacy, it makes a lot of sense for J.J. Abrams and co-writer Chris Terrio to try and bring her journey full circle. For those who don’t know, Leia Organa made her Star Wars debut on Tantive IV, which was the first starship to appear in the entire franchise. Back in A New Hope, that message would have led to this ending, tying a nice bow on everything she had accomplished. But, in the end, the decision was made to have more of the characters she influenced around instead. The scene on Ajan Kloss did move the audience in its own way. However, it’s still fun to see Saunders’ work and wonder what could have been. Check it out for yourself right here.

He wrote, “Another concept from #starwarstheriseofskywalker. An earlier version of the script placed #leia’s death in her stateroom on the #tantiveiv in transit. At the moment of her passing a comet was supposed to streak past her window. I shaped the stateroom to telegraph it’s location in the Blockade Runner, just under the cockpit in the hammerhead. #starwars #conceptart #lucasfilm #conceptdesign #digitalart #keyframe #keyart”

Writer Chris Terrio also spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about honoring the actress’ legacy. All of that footage that had gone unused in The Force Awakens and even Return of the Jedi got absorbed into the effort to give her story the resolution that the creators wanted for her. Check out what he had to say down below:

“We also had access to the dailies from the original trilogy, and in the flashback of Luke and Leia, that image of Carrie comes from Return of the Jedi,” Terrio explained back in 2020. “So, we had access to everything in the archive, which turned out to be super helpful. So, yeah, the original trilogy was on our table for the flashback and for audio. That said, Leia was a very different person in the new trilogy, and I’m not sure that we would’ve used any audio from the original trilogy. Her voice had changed, and obviously, she was older, wiser, and had a different quality to her performance. So, I’m not sure we ended up using any audio from the original trilogy, and we tried to stay true to Carrie’s acting intentions as much as we could.”

Would you have liked this moment better than what actually happened? Let us know down in the comments!