Rian Johnson Talks The Story Decisions Around Carrie Fisher’s Death In 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi'

**SPOILERS** Alert, alert, alert. Director Rian Johnson’s“Star Wars: The Last Jedi” has been birthed into the world, fans are fighting over it, and Twitter is a mess, but some spoilers still haven’t surfaced. You know Carrie Fisher is in the film, but regardless, if you haven’t seen “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” this would be a good time to turn around and go elsewhere and come back when you’ve actually seen the movie? Got it? Yes, ok, great. **SPOILERS AHEAD**

“Star Wars: The Last Jedi” was deep into post-production when the franchise and the world were dealt a gut-wrenching blow in December of 2016: Carrie Fisher, our General, our original Princess passed away at the age of 60, just days after Christmas, following a heart attack she had a week earlier. Fans mourned her death and obviously, her absence was a huge blow to movies and pop culture at large. A huge icon was gone.

But perhaps on a practical level, no one had been dealt a harsher blow than the “Star Wars” franchise and Lucasfilm. Han Solo was the vintage character from ‘The Force Awakens,’ Luke Skywalker has a prominent role in ‘The Last Jedi,’ and the plan was for General Leia Organa (originally Princess Leia) was going to have a major role in “Star Wars: Episode IX” where she would confront her turned-to-the-dark-side son Kylo Ren, the perfect ending to the new trilogy. However, that narrative design was immediately destroyed due to Fisher’s death. Though there were early reports that Disney and Lucasfilm were toying around with the idea of digitally recreating her for ‘Episode IX,’ that rumor was quickly squashed (though they had just digitally rendered her for “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” so it was at least feasible).

What could Lucasfilm do? Maybe kill off Leia in ‘The Last Jedi’? If you’ve seen the movie you’ll know there’s at least three occasions where they could’ve done so: during the space walk, when the character is in a coma, and perhaps fudging the storyline a little bit and placing the General on one of the transports that the First Order mercilessly blows up on the escape to the planet Crait.

Ultimately, as you now know, the decision was made to do absolutely nothing about it and let the story play out as it was intended to. As difficult as it would be for writer/director Colin Trevorrow, then scheduled to helm ‘Episode IX,’ Leia would not be killed off early, and no band aid would be provided for the next chapter.

I spoke to Rian Johnson this weekend about “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” and when I asked him if there was a question about what to do with Carrie Fisher’s performance and the character of Leia following the actress’ passing, his first answer was no. But as Johnson continued on, he suggested there were conversations held between he and Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy about some of the possible avenues they could have explored regarding the fate of Leia.

“We came back together after New Year’s, after Carrie had passed away and we had the movie pretty well cut together at that point,” Johnson said. “And I had a conversation with Kathy [Kennedy] about it and we both just decided… I don’t know, the idea of trying to manufacture some kind of ending for Leia in this movie — first of all, it would be manufactured therefore it wouldn’t be great, and second it would mean, we would inevitably have to lose some of the great performance Carrie gave in this movie.”

Given these thoughts, it sure sounds like they at least talked about reconfiguring Leia’s journey.

“I can’t imagine losing any of her big scenes with the actors in this film,” he added. “Those scenes mean so much to me. I wanted us all to have that, to have those scenes from Carrie on the screen. So, no, we just decided, we’ll let it lie.”

Just on a story level, to have to scrap those grand plans, I can’t even imagine. And I bet part of Colin Trevorrow’s exit was butting heads about the decisions surrounding Leia (‘Episode IX’ has already been rewritten three times, including by Trevorrow; now J.J. Abrams and Chris Terrio are penning the script from scratch and Abrams is directing).

I asked Johnson if somehow, in some way, he was relieved that the daunting task of a finding a path forward without Leia wasn’t on his shoulders. “It’s going to be a big task, man,” he said with a kind of sad sigh, and quickly adding, “But as a J.J. fan I know he’s going to find a way to kill it. And I get to kind of be an audience member and see him bring it home. It’s pretty exciting.”

Abrams has reportedly just pitched the new ‘Episode IX’ idea to Lucasfilm and they probably need to get going soon, because with a December 20, 2019 release date scheduled, the big machine around the production will start rolling soon. It’s speculation for now about how Lucasfilm will proceed, but it won’t be Johnson’s burden. Instead, he’ll be writing his own new trilogy and producing it with his long-term producing partner Ram Bergman (“Looper,” “Brick,” “Brothers Bloom” and ‘Jedi’). More on that soon.

“Star Wars: The Last Jedi” is in theaters now.