30 Greatest Star Wars Characters

5. Leia Organa

Star Wars The Last Jedi Leia
Lucasfilm

Back when she was first introduced in 1977, Princess Leia was something of a revolutionary character. She wasn't a damsel to be rescued, like those other princesses of the fantasy genre, and she was instrumental in saving the galaxy from the tyrannical Empire. The late, spectacular Carrie Fisher made all of this possible.

In Episode IV, she handles her own, wields a blaster, and proves instrumental in the destruction of the Death Star. She does this all, by the way, while leading the way in front of Han, Luke and Ben. Then in Empire Strikes Back, she's the commander of the Rebel Alliance and presides over the evacuation of Hoth, before rescuing Han Solo in Return of the Jedi and leading the Resistance against the resurgent tyranny of the First Order in The Force Awakens, when the Republic refuses to take it seriously.

Leia is a stunning, innovative and wonderful creation, and one who owes much of her success to Fisher's performance. Yes, the character has been through the occasional rough patch (kissing her brother in Empire and that unfortunate bikini in Return), but you'd struggle to find a Star Wars character who has managed to make as big an impact onscreen as they have off it as she.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.