Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Leia and Luke Flashback Scene Used Return of the Jedi Footage

Prior to the movie's release, director J.J. Abrams revealed that they utilized Carrie Fisher's unused footage from Star Wars: The Force Awakens to bring back Leia's character one last time in The Rise of Skywalker. They had eight minutes of footage to work with from that movie, but as it turns out, the studio used clips from another iconic Star Wars movie as well.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, The Rise of Skywalker writer revealed that they also used footage from Episode VI for Luke and Leia's epic flashback scene in the latest film. "We also had access to the dailies from the original trilogy," he said. "And in the flashback of Luke and Leia, that image of Carrie comes from Return of the Jedi."

Terrio said they had access to "everything in the archive" that was "super helpful" for them. "So yeah, the original trilogy was on our table for the flashback and for the audio," he added. However, he did point out that Leia was a "very different person" in the sequel trilogy compared to the original trilogy. "Her voice had changed, and obviously, she was older, wiser, and had a different quality to her performance," Terrio said. He thought they didn't end up using any audio from the movie but they "tried to stay true to Carrie's acting intentions" as much as they could.

That being said, Terrio clarifies that every word Fisher said in the movie "she's said as Leia in Star Wars." He claims they had all of Leia's audio at their disposal and that every word she said on camera was actually still by Fisher.

Although there were some difficulties in the process of using the character's scenes in general, the movie managed to pull off a very emotional send off, not only for General Leia but for the late Carrie Fisher as well.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is now showing.

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