The unsaid "problem" with ROS...

There are allot of flaws with TROS. My favorite film pundit pointed out so many, but I still enjoyed the film for what it is. It has allot of enjoyable parts. I'm not one to dwell on the bad parts. If you want drastic change simple solution don't spend money on multiple viewings of the film, or don't go at all. When the box office doesn't reflect what the studio expected that's when there is real change. That's the bottom line. Solo failed at the box office so no more standalone films, no more films once a year, next Star Wars film is in three years hopefully they'll live up to fan expectations.

 

Carrie's death directly contributed to Colin Trevorrow's departure because he couldn't find a way to rework his plans for the story without her, even though Lucasfilm hired Jack Thorne to help him out.

Conversely, though, JJ Abrams and Chris Terrio not only found a way to include Leia in spite of Carrie's death, they made a film that is a grand tribute to her and that ends the Episodic films about as well as could've been expected, so, no, Carrie's death was not a problem for this movie in any way.

Also, most of people's "problems" with this film stem, I firmly believe, from not looking beneath the surface of what we're shown, which has actually been a big problem, for whatever reason, with this Trilogy as a whole.

 

The participation of Leia in TROS was a big, and good, surprise to me. I wasn't expecting so many scenes, and some of theses scenes are very important to the story. They did a great job. So, I don't think that Carrie's death influenced so much on the screenplay.
Every movie turns around Rey, she is the main focus. Han, Luke and Leia are there to serve as a motiviation for our protagonist.

 

Prior to Abrams coming onto Episode IX as director and co-writer, Lucasfilm and Kathleen Kennedy had made the decision that they felt it was inappropriate - despite having the permission of both Carrie's brother Todd Fisher and her daughter Billie Lourd - to re-use footage or recreate Carrie's likeness using CGI and were therefore not going to do so, intending to write the character of Leia out of the story completely.

Once he was brought back into the director's chair, however, JJ was able to convince Kathleen to backtrack on that earlier decision, which is why he was able to include Leia in TRoS in the fashion that he did.

 

I don't think you can fault Kathleen Kennedy and the rest of the Lucasfilm braintrust for originally feeling, given the nature of Carrie's death, that it would have been inappropriate to artificially and posthumously include her in Episode IX, but it is to their credit that they were willing to reverse that decision once JJ came to them with ideas about including her.

 

There was never going to be a good way to handle Leia in IX, it would have been impossible to do anything without drawing criticism, so while I think it is a weaker aspect of IX, I don't really hold it against the film, LFL or the crew. It's a no win situation that absolutely no-one wanted to have to face.

I cried, and still do, at the scene in TLJ that reunites Luke and Leia/Mark and Carrie on screen. Part of the reason that hits me so hard is because that's the point at which I accept Carrie has passed... going into TRoS, it's like... you know what, I've accepted shes gone, and I don't get any 'feels' from the character in this film... as I'm sure with many people...

Spoiler

... it's Chewies reaction that gets me this time, I lost it at that point... not when Leia died, and I'm sad it didn't affect me more.

I wouldn't have wanted full CGI Leia, or a recast, or for her to be written out in the crawl, so I think they did the best with what they had, but I don't think it was great.

 

I think the greatest tribute to Carrie in this was that Leia sacrificed herself to not only save Rey, but that it directly led to the rebirth of Ben and Palpatine couldn't have been defeated had this not happened.

 

To quote her mother- "You're breaking my heart!"

It was not long after Carrie died that KK said this- I'm still not sure why she did, without taking the time to ponder it a bit longer. I always had the feeling that there were other motivations for it, though I couldn't say what. At any rate, Leia's scenes were well-done, but seriously lacking in terms of her interaction with Kylo/Ben.

Thinking about the screen time Luke had with Rey in TLJ... heck, he still had more time with her in TROS than Leia did. And I was a little irritated that Han showed up to talk to Kylo instead of Leia- that was an obvious swap out. The screen time given to Han and Luke overwhelm what little time Leia got, and could have been reduced considerably. Time was when a force ghost would give our hero a few bits of cryptic advice or a wisdom one-liner. Rey got a veritable lecture from Luke. And Han shouldn't have appeared to Kylo at all.

Fortunately, we can't compare this movie to what didn't happen. But, as well-done as Leia's scenes were, Carrie's untimely death was a serious loss to this movie and future generations are going to wonder why Leia was shortchanged.

 

I think Snoke being killed by RJ was a far bigger problem than Leia not being fully available for Episode IX. I think Leia played the role she was supposed to play in the movie, namely to train Rey and to sacrifice herself to bring Ben back and save Rey.

 

Questions about Leia/Carrie Fisher scenes in TROS:

1. Were those scenes filmed specifically for TROS, or were they leftovers from TLJ or even TFA?

2. If filmed for TROS, were they filmed for JJ's TROS, or did he use them to tie into his scenes/dialog?

3. Many of Leia's scenes in TROS are "over the shoulder of the person she is talking to", or, over Leia's shoulder (or stand-in's shoulder) looking at the person she is talking to.

BREAK BREAK ------ This is from the other thread on Rose and some of her scenes not making the final cut of the film ---- "As the process evolved, a few scenes we’d written with Rose and Leia turned out to not meet the standard of photorealism that we’d hoped for. Those scenes unfortunately fell out of the film. "

...not to meet the standard of photorealism....does that mean that they pasted Rose into a previously filmed Leia scene and it didn't look right?

 

After Carrie's passing, I was in favor of the notion of an alternative actress, in order to preserve the story that they had in mind. I thought Stevie Nicks would be great. Having seen TROS, I am somewhat in awe of how they managed to make Leia a fairly significant character using unused old footage.

 

Carrie passed away in December, and we didn't learn exactly how her death was going to be dealt with in Episode 9 until April.

That's a period of 3-and-a-half months, which doesn't qualify as "not long after Carrie's death".

 

Leftovers. Carrie did not do any TROS filming.

Yeah, that is the biggest way it's noticeable that she wasn't available. I assume those are all or mostly all stand-ins. I wonder if they used someone to impersonate her voice at all (probably?).

 

I found the movie got better with each viewing because as a fan I was able to see details I didn't see the first time. Critics won't notice the stuff that matters to fans. Never go see a movie based off what a critic says. I enjoyed it the first time but loved it after knowing certain things and seeing it again. The small details matter to fans, you don't necessarily see all the important stuff the first time. The way I see it, fans loved it, critics got paid to give an opinion. Everyone's got an opinion now to. Even outlets that have nothing to do with Star Wars.

 

I agree with your assessment. The Leia scenes were a little bit hokey, but I also think it was the best they could do.

I’m curious, if someone saw the movie without knowing Carrie passed, would they still have a hunch that something was off? My guess is “yes” but I don’t know if there is anyone out there who can test that.

One question I have struggled with is, why is CGI/recasting tacky and tasteless, but repurposing old footage is OK? I sort of understand it on an intuitive level, but no matter how they did it, they still faked a deceased person into a movie she had no real involvement with. If they had used CGI, they could have done better from a narrative standpoint, but people would have been outraged.

 

Recasting isn't tacky or tasteless (well the CGI thing is weird, especially with the rumors of that studio using a CGI James Dean...). Happens all the time. People are just way to defensive over Star Wars characters.

 

I think this is the biggest issue with the trilogy. The last chapter essentially was set up to have Ben Solo redeemed through his mother. There was going to be some kind of final confrontation there and Ben's turn would have been a lot more powerful. JJ did the best he could with the footage he had, but I'm not sure why she just wasn't recast. Also, I'm not sure why they were so oppose to a CGI option. If they were going through with this route they should have pushed the film back one more year to give JJ more time with the story.

 

In 100% agreement on everything