The biggest question fans will have after seeing Star Wars: The Last Jedi, is easy: what’s next for all of our favorite characters? But, because of the bittersweet final performance from Carrie Fisher as General Leia Organa, we’re also very curious if there are any deleted scenes left over which could be used in Episode IX. Director Rian Johnson spoke to Inverse on Friday and addressed that burning question.
Mild spoilers for The Last Jedi follow. Stop reading if you don’t want to know anything.
Without revealing the ending of the film, the fate of Leia might put writing the sequel to The Last Jedi — Episode IX —in a tricky spot. How will the next Star Wars saga film address the story of Leia? Johnson doesn’t have an answer, but he did say that pretty much everything we see of Carrie Fisher in The Last Jedi is what he shot for the film.
“There weren’t any big scenes,” Johnson says. “There were smaller scenes that, structurally just ended up falling away. Same as there were with any of the other characters. But there wasn’t any big and significant.” This suggests we might get some small deleted scenes for the Blu-ray release, but that right now, it seems unlikely unused scenes filmed for The Last Jedi will be reappropriated for Episode IX.
“I had a conversation with J.J. [Abrams], [and said] you can take a look at anything we didn’t use. But I don’t think there’s anything there. The truth is, there isn’t a ton of her that we shot that we didn’t use in this movie.”
So for now, the future of Leia on screen in Star Wars, remains a mystery. Still, it’s somewhat satisfying to think that nearly everything Carrie Fisher was supposed to do in The Last Jedi, she did. Which makes the latest film a fitting tribute to the greatest hero in all of Star Wars. Leia.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is out in wide release now.
