The last 48 hours has been dominated by the sudden deaths of Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds. This mother and daughter duo blazed a trail through Hollywood while each was leaving their mark that will last indefinitely. Reynolds showed that she could keep up with the likes of Gene Kelly on-screen while tackling each role with an abundance of enthusiasm. Fisher not only impacted the world of screenwriting (she helped punch-up such scripts as Hook and Lethal Weapon 3) but showed little girls across the world that they can be whatever they want to be (a princess or a general).However, with her untimely death comes a gigantic hole that needs to be filled in the Star Wars Universe. Let’s examine some of the options they have.
1. Recast Princess/General Leia
There is no way they are going to be able to pull this off. Carrie Fisher was Princess Leia and recasting her would lead to catastrophic results (The Star Wars universe might just riot)
2. CGI Princess/General Leia
Technology has finally reached a point where an actor can be dead and still make an appearance in a motion picture. In Furious 7, they used CGI technology to insert Paul Walker towards the end of the film as he had passed away close to the conclusion of the shoot. In Rogue One, Peter Cushing (who died 22 years ago) reprised his role as Grand Moff Tarkin through the magic of CGI. However, could Lucasfilm and Disney get away with having a CGI Princess/General Leia in Episode IX? The answer is no as she’s too iconic of character to resort to digital trickery for a whole film.
3.Do what the Hunger Games did.
When Phillip Seymour Hoffman passed away during the last weeks of filming Mocking Jay, director Francis Lawrence felt the only way to handle the loss was to tweak the script.
In Mockingjay Part 2, they ended up giving the remainder of his lines to Haymitch (Woody Harrelson) and it ended up being a nice tribute to his character. I could see them working her into Episode IX in this manner. Perhaps she’s in hiding from the First Order and sends a message to our new band of heroes.
4. Princess/General Leia is going to have to be killed
In my opinion, this is the only logical way to handle Carrie Fisher’s untimely passing. Something tells me that this might be all a moot point in the end as we aren’t even sure she survived Star Wars Episode VIII. Remember, Leia has to be pretty upset that Kylo Ren (Ben Solo -her son) killed the love of her life. Something tells me she’s not going just to sit by and not seek out some retribution. What if Kylo and Leia have a similar encounter the way Han and Kylo did? Leia has to go out in a blaze of glory (just like Han did).
Now, let’s say she does survive Episode VIII, then in the narrative of Episode IX, she should face the same fate her adoptive parents did on Alderaan. Remember ….. 
To do anything other than that would signal to rest of the world that Carrie Fisher was replaceable and as you well know, she was the furthest from that.
What do you think will happen? Leave a comment and let us know.
