As we reported to you a month or so ago, Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia had a "significantly important" role in Episode IX (HERE). The tragic death of the actress has brought upon a lot of questions, most of which involve how to replace her in the ongoing saga.
Lucasfilm were in the middle of heated meetings to settle the delicate problem at hand. All signs were leading to Fisher getting digitized, but now it seems like the SW creative team pretty much had to start from scratch in regards to "Episode IX," due for release in 2019.
Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy tells Entertainment Weekly that the impact of Fisher's passing will be significant “Obviously with Carrie having passed away, it shook everybody,” Kennedy told EW “We pretty much started over.”
Let us not forget that Fisher also appears briefly as Leia at the end of "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story," as a CGI recreation. In that same movie they also digitized the late British actor Peter Cushing, who died in 1994, and who played Death Star commander Grand Moff Tarkin in the original series. The film used CGI for the astounding effect which left some fans cold and distanced, including myself. The technology will, however, only get better in the next few years, with even Martin Scorsese having a crack at it by digitizing Robert De Niro into his younger self in the upcoming "The Irishman," but it seems like Disney won't be going that route after all.
