ST Princess/General Leia Organa/Carrie Fisher Discussion Thread

Also the last movie presents the idea that she can't be a Jedi because she had a vision her son would die. A powerful strong woman can't become a warrior because of reasons. It's sad that the movie can't show Leia as independent from the choices of men.

 

No Rey didn't need any training. If they were going to make Leia a Jedi anyway, she should have had that background since TFA, and it should have been part of Bloodline. This kind of last second retcon irritates me so much, and it undermines the story they chose to tell to this point so much, that I cannot take it seriously. JJ wanted me to believe that it made sense Leia simply chose not to develop her force powers. Her priorities were family and the Republic. Fine. I hated it, but fine, tell your story. Obviously there was nowhere to go with that, plus RJ killed Luke without anyone training Rey, so here we are. Still doesn't change the fact that Rey didn't need training from a force user. She could practice running her own obstacle course.

And yeah, the bolded really sticks in my craw. He killed all three of them as far as I'm concerned. He destroyed all of their lives and then killed them. It's so sad, if I actually saw it as their story.

 

Two thoughts: (1) Limit Leia (and Luke and Han) to one, last, fun nostalgia trip movie right off the bat that lays the seeds for the next trilogy, and (2) don't make her the mother of the presumptive villain. Both thoughts come from the unfortunate observation, both contemporaneous and now after-the-fact, that it was a bit of a risk to plan for Carrie Fisher to be part of a years-long trilogy, much less arrange for the third of those to be "her" movie.

As it was, TROS did the best it could with Leia -- the indirectness of her dialogue does sort of fall in line with the stereotypical master wanting the student to figure it out for herself -- but the importance she occupies is out of step with her fairly sidelined role in the first two movies. Having Maz interpret what she was doing was weird, but I guess that's the only way to convey mystical death.

 

Watch the Mesmerizing VFX Reel for The Rise of Skywalker — EXCLUSIVE

Leia Returns



The Training Sequence

 

Well, I appreciate how TLJ made the effort to put some focus on Leia's trauma/motivations while also deconstructing her role as a leader and symbol of hope through the whole resistance storyline. I really think it's a great movie for Leia. The one improvement that was needed was some kind of follow up to the Leia-Kylo moment in TLJ. It didn't have to be huge, but there needed to be some kind of indication how how both characters felt about what had went down.

 

Your take on this makes no sense to me. Her choice not to follow the Jedi path fit with previous films, where she is shown not being a Jedi. Now we finally have a good reason for this puzzling state of affairs. She had the training but sensed a different destiny. Did she make the wrong decision? We aren't necessarily told what to think about this. I want to add that this may well have been intended from the beginning, because her line from TFA, with its unusual emphasis now makes sense:

LEIA: That's why I wanted him [Ben] to train with Luke.

The emphais was odd, since at that point we know of no alternative. But now we know that she could have trained him herself, and chose not to do so.

 

That's a great point. For the small amount of material available to use with Carrie Fisher, they do a lot with it. Even the flashback added a lot without doing or saying much.

 

I agree, I was worried going in how they were going to use Carrie's footage, I came out very happy. Even though some parts seem a bit awkward I think what they did was pure magic. It was able to close Leia's arc in a satisfying way and it worked well with the story.

 

We saw the broad strokes of her character arc in TROS. Having already seen the master and apprentice relationship in earlier films it could get by with those larger gestures. The awkwardness also gives a Yoda like quality of nonsensical wisdom to Leia's instruction to Rey. Lines that seemed shoehorned into the script on first viewing sound more and more like profound mantras of insight the more times I've seen the movie.

 

Agreed!

 

Like when Leia said "Never underestimate a droid" this seemed like a random lift from some TFA moment on the cutting room floor, just to give her a little more screen time and something lighter to do. But then I realized she was talking about Artoo Detoo, without whom she couldn't have saved the galaxy in the original film. She sent him on his way and the classic trilogy of events ensued.

 

Agreed. I also like how Rey mirrors this line later on in the movie. JJ Abrams should be commended for making Leia's presence feel real in this movie and giving her character a proper send off.

 

Matt, thanks for the amazing post!

I hope we see more of the original footage and the process. And hey, look there’s the TFA pony tail!

I still hope some day we get the photo shot from TFA with Fisher, Ford and Chewbacca that was talked about when we were first spoiled about her costume back in 2015. And hope we see the original Maz light saber scene.

 

I love this. I hadn't thought of that, but what a cool call back. That line and "never be afraid of who you are" are my two favorite Leia lines.

 

Nice observations guys.

I just thought of a good "opposite Vader" parallel for Kylo/Ben involving Leia. JJ mentioned to Adam Driver that his character would be a "reverse Vader" in some ways.

When Anakin's mother dies in horrible circumstances it begins Anakin down the dark path as Vader is formed out of Anakin's desire to stop change like this happening again.

Contrast that to Kylo's mothers death.
Leia is at peace, surrounded by friends, and voluntarily uses her last strength to call Ben back to the light.
Ben lets go of his hatred and his desire for control, and through Leia, Rey, and memory of Han, finally turns back. Anakin losing Shmi leads to his death grip on the galaxy... yet Leia dying makes Ben let go and be reborn.

Also - Shmi dies by a fireplace and Anakin is immolated in fire in ROTS; Ben returns surrounded by water.

This all seems fairly intentional, no?

 

Good summary Hevy Devy. I think when people get over their objections or set them aside to focus on the parallels and structural links between the sequel trilogy and the prequels, a better sense of the unity of the saga will be achieved. Not everyone will accept the third trilogy, but I hope people will give it a chance and let go of the various preoccupations with errors and issues around the personalities behind it to look positively at the good we did get, rather than just the imperfections.

 

I think I'm going to be ill.

It's disgusting that Leia "voluntarily" gives up her life for Kylo. She doesn't die saving the Republic or peace or freedom but so her son can conjure up a vision of his father so he can forgive himself and finally do something decent. Wow, what a wonderful ending for Leia, who fought for democracy and freedom, which was destroyed by her own son. She loses her life so she can save him, after he murdered her husband and brother. What a wonderfully feminist ending.

 

One thing people seem to leave out of this is that Leia's reaching out to Ben saved Rey's life. Another thing to point out is a comparison to Luke's decision to try and win back Anakin. In both cases the alternative could be catastrophic. Luke knows that he is endangering the mission and at the very least he can distract Vader and the Emperor while the rebels attack. Similarly, Leia's doing the one thing she can that might influence affairs in a truly dire situation. They are facing a threat that is enormous from the First and Final Order fleets. If she chose to keep herself alive to fight another day, that day might not come.

 

I agree with everything you and @AhsokaSolo have mentioned. I spent my youth really hoping that we'd see Leia as a kick ass Jedi someday and was disheartened with George's answer that she stayed in politics and left the Force to Luke.

What Disney and the ST did with her just takes everything away.

Originally when I read Bloodline for the first time, I loved it. Read for the second time immediately after the first. I was hoping for an emotional story with interaction between Leia and Anakin. Especially when the book addressed how she began to wonder what made her father turn to the dark. She has a great inner monologue right after Casterfo is arrested. However the more I think about it, this book is where tearing her down began. They have her true parentage revealed and all of her work, her sacrifices for the galaxy are suddenly washed away by the last name Skywalker. Luke's accomplishments didn't mean anything to the Senate either at this point. There was literally no good will left for the twins leading to no one trusting her warning, no one answering her call from Crait.

I was disheartened for her in TFA upon finding out that she and Han had split. Felt so bad that her only child was a Vader wannabe with no real explanation other than he went bad because mommy and daddy disappointed him. The OT demonstrated that she had the Force ability to converse with her brother so there should have been some sort of mother son dialog established between the two of them somewhere in the story. She wasn't that bull in a china shop personality we came to know and love. When Han was killed by Kylo instead of interacting herself with her son, she sends Rey to find Luke to come save them, as if Leia had always been dependent on someone else to save the day. That's not the Leia I know and love.

TLJ just made things worse. Still no attempt to engage a Mother/Son story and RJ decided that in order to make her "strong female" she needed to slap Poe. Absolutely did not care for that at all. Strong leaders don't need to physically assault their subordinates. Luke dies, so now Leia has lost both her brother and husband, with very little grief shown for either, at the hands of her only son.

The OT also establishes that Luke learned that force visions are not always what they appear to be. He tried to warn Rey in TLJ, so it's hard for me to believe that he would not have had the same discussion with Leia when she told him a vision was WHY she was quitting her Jedi training. No matter how they try to spin it, they won't convince me that she was suddenly at master status and able to train Rey. The whole aspect of her Force usage and abilities was mishandled and badly.

It's also disgusting to me that their icing on the cake was to make her give up her life for her ungrateful son after she had lost just about everything because of him anyway. This is not the only way the story could have gone to give Leia, the character and Carrie the actress, a respectful send off. Leia could have absolutely been the last living Skywalker in another story that was not trying to copy the ROTJ familial sacrifice in the last 5 minutes of the ST.

 

@wobbits - I just want to agree with your Bloodline take. The first time I read it, I thought it was fantastic. One of the best SW novels for me. In hindsight, I can say that’s just because I adore Leia and the author is a really good writer. I enjoy everything she’s written. But the story of Bloodline has aged terribly for me. I’ll likely never reread it. The value of it was to experience an adventure with Leia, but in hindsight, that book deprives Leia of the adventures I want to experience with her - with her husband, with her brother, with her children, and as a Jedi. Even the stuff with the surviving Alderaanians was garbage to me. There’s a comic of Leia running around the galaxy finding survivors of her people and bringing them together. I like that version of Leia, not the version that’s bored of and rolling her eyes at the customs of her people.

 

I will never read it again either. I like Claudia Gray's style of writing and I devoured the young Princess Leia novel too when I first got it.

Leia was so proud to honor Bail in the novel but then later she's doing the whole boredom, eyerolling you mentioned at Alderaanian customs. Just too much trashing of her character.

 

The Resistance won though.

We didn't see where the galaxy heads from there... I don't know if we ever will, but it was an objective victory. And Leia had led the winning side until close to the end.

The contrast I pointed out was pretty stark - Shmi died tragically and the only closure she got was seeing her son again once before dying.
But where Vader/Anakin headed after this makes her death even more devastating to think about.

Leia on the other hand actually ended Kylo's dark side journey, rather than initiating it (as Shmi's passing had with Anakin).
It is a relatively happy ending, I think you guys are being a little harsh.

I thought Ben Solo and Leia fading at the same time was touching.

 

Shmi is a horrible comparison for Leia. Shmi's only relevant role in the saga was Anakin's mother. She had no character outside of that. Leia was more than mother to the garbage spawn of satan that destroyed everything she fought for in her life.