Before Luke Skywalker had met Obi-Wan Kenobi, and before Han Solo and Chewie had been lured towards the Rebel Alliance by cash incentives, Princess Leia was already fighting the good fight and standing up to the evil Empire. When the story leaves her in Revenge Of The Sith, shes an infant. By the time of A New Hope shes a bad-ass heroine willing to go toe-to-toe with Vader and Tarkin. They've skipped the origin story there. Many fans would surely love to see a young Leia rising to prominence in the galaxy. The tales of an aspiring revolutionary with an eye for strategy and proficiency with a blaster is an engaging idea, especially once you throw in a few villains for her to despatch. The only difficult bit, really, would be introducing stakes to a movie where audiences know that the main character survives the film and has a bigger adventure afterwards. The exact same constraints have never harmed Marvels success, though.
