'Star Wars: Rise Of Skywalker': How VFX team recreated Carrie Fisher's character Leia

Star Wars is an American epic space opera media franchise that has been created by George Lucas. The first film of the series was released in the year 1977 and very quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The latest installment of the series, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, released in December 2019.

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Hollywood movies have always been seen raising the level higher for animation and VFX used in films. This latest trilogy of the space opera is one such example. After the movie released, the VFX supervisor for the film revealed how he revived Princess Leia Organa’s character in the movie. The character of Princess Leia was played by veteran actor Carrie Fisher, who passed away in 2016 due to cardiac arrest.

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Carrie Fisher was last seen in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which had released on December 15, 2017, and was dedicated to her. Since the character of Leia Organa was an important one for the whole series, the filmmakers found a way to include the character without giving it a new face. With visual effects and a lot of creativity put in by co-writers of the movie, the character was portrayed in the film so well that no one could tell that she is not even real.

How VFX was used to create the character of Princess Leia 

In an interview with a leading magazine, Roger Guyett explained that out of the 1,900 visual effects shot in the movie, it was the work on the scenes with the Late Carrie Fisher’s character that was the most challenging. Roger further added that they assembled all the scenes where Carrie has spoken any dialogue in the series. The co-writer, Chris Terrio went through the footage and then wrote her scenes based around the line whose footage was available. Ultimately, only the face of the actor was used for the latest movie, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Princess Leia was given a digitally made hairstyle and a new wardrobe. The interview of Roger Guyett with a leading magazine reveals how complicated it must have been to make scenes appear real by using old footage and VFX. 

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