10 Massively Missed Opportunities In Recent Movies

3. NOT Killing Leia Off When It Made Sense - Star Wars: The Last Jedi

What Should've Happened

Carrie Fisher sadly passed away roughly a year before the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, but the actress had already completed principal photography on the film, and Rian Johnson confirmed that her role would be unaffected by her death.

And so, fans were left gobsmacked when, early in the film, General Leia (Fisher) gets blasted into the vacuum of space by her son Kylo Ren (Adam Driver).

The immediate assumption from many fans was that Leia was always written to die in the movie - or her role had been curtailed in editing - both of which would've resulted in a fairly neat conclusion to her arc, while further cementing Kylo Ren's villainy.

But what happened next, nobody saw coming.

What Actually Happened

Though Leia does indeed appear to be dead for a moment, she ultimately ends up using her previously undeclared Force powers to fly back to safety, albeit at great cost to her health.

Between the implausibility of Leia being able to perform such a feat and the rather silly nature of how Johnson shoots the scene - akin to Superman flying through space - many fans felt that it was a misguided move not to simply kill Leia off when it made the most dramatic sense.

It's not like Leia had much of a role in the remainder of the movie - beyond an admittedly poignant reunion with Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) - and given how challenging it will be to write Leia out in The Rise of Skywalker, Johnson ignored a ripe opportunity to solve a tough problem.