What hell hath CGI Paul Walker and Rogue One’s Grand Moff Tarkin wrought?
Citing anonymous “insiders” within Disney/Lucasfilm, The Hollywood Reporter describes the internal debate over what to do about General Leia in Star Wars: Episode VIII and IX after Carrie Fisher’s untimely death at the age of 60. One of the possibilities considered was, of course, a CGI replacement.
But since Lucasfilm has until Dec. 15 to massage Episode VIII to account for Leia’s reduced role in Episode IX, there are a number of other possibilities to consider before jumping to the ghoulish horrors of computer-simulated humans interacting with the real, flesh-and-blood ones.
Unfortunately, some fairly drastic changes will have to happen to either Star Wars: Episode VIII, which is already shot, or the script for Star Wars: Episode IX in order to compensate. According to THR’s sources, “Leia was to have been a bigger part of Episode IX than VIII.”
There are reportedly two major scenes with Carrie Fisher in Episode VIII , one reuniting Leia and Luke Skywalker, the other a confrontation between Leia and her estranged son, Kylo Ren, who was introduced in 2015’s The Force Awakens.
For now, it looks like the burden of the major changes are more likely to fall on Episode IX than VIII, since Carrie Fisher had completed filming on Episode VIII . Colin Trevorrow, director and writer of Star Wars: Episode IX (along with his Jurassic World writing partner Derek Connolly), will be meeting with Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy to consider their options.
Hopefully, they won’t settle on reducing Carrie Fisher’s role in Episode VIII or replacing her with a computerized Madame Tussauds’ monstrosity.
