Starwars.com announced the cast of 2019’s highly anticipated end to the Skywalker saga this evening and there weren’t many surprises… well, except for one. CARRIE FISHER WILL BE IN IT.
Yes. You read that correctly. And since it’s such big news, I think it warrants even more emphasis…
CARRIE FISHER WILL BE IN EPISODE IX.
There. That worked.
Yes, the usual suspects are in the film. Daisy Ridley (Rey), Adam Driver (Kylo Ren), John Boyega (Finn), Oscar Isaac (Poe), Lupia Nyong’o (Maz), Domhnall Gleeson (Hux), Kelly Marie Tran (Rose), Joonas Suotamo (Chewie) and Billie Lourde (Connix). These newbies will be joined with new newbies like Richard E. Grant, Keri Russell, and Naomi Ackie. Rounding out the cast will be Mark Hamill (force ghost, not a surprise), Anthony Daniels (it wouldn’t be a Star Wars movie without C3-PO), and Billy Dee Williams (Lando).
As you saw above though, the biggest shock was that Leia will be portrayed, posthumously, by Carrie Fisher by using previously unreleased footage shot from episode 7. “Finding a truly satisfying conclusion to the Skywalker saga without her [Carrie] eluded us. We were never going to recast, or use a CG character. With the support and blessing from her daughter, Billie, we have found a way to honor Carrie’s legacy and role as Leia in Episode IX by using unseen footage we shot together in Episode VII.” said director J.J. Abrams in a statement.
I have mixed feelings about this news. While I think they did a great job with doing CG versions of Tarken and Leia in Rogue One, this is a whole different ball game. There’s going to be a fine line in executing this properly and the audience is going to have to really suspend their disbelief throughout the film. I’m not saying that ILM can’t pull this off technically – they’re a bunch of geniuses over there – but wow, they must have a LOT of footage to be able to successfully pull this off. We’re about a year and a half out at this point… so here’s hoping this final installment goes out with a bang and not a big ol’ deflating… wompa wompa waahhh.
