Star Wars: What Is Leia's Role In Episode 9?

2. Leia's Rumoured Role For Episode VII

This entry contains details of a leaked script for Episode VII, and while the Leia scenes discussed weren't in the movie, there could be potential spoilers here for her role in Episode IX.

Going further back, then, we have Leia's role in Episode VII. In the movie as is, General Organa doesn't get a great deal to do, despite her position of leadership within the Resistance: her scenes are mostly contained to a base, and involve a heartfelt reunion with Han and an emotional first meeting with Rey.

There isn't much to go on in the released deleted scenes either, but there is another leak that could point towards what footage may exist. The summary of the script came from Making Star Wars back in May 2015, and did get a lot of things right, such as Kylo being Han's son and the one to kill him, and the ending shot with Luke Skywalker.

In this version of events, Leia is heavily involved in a subplot featuring a Resistance superweapon, known as the Sledgehammer. This finds a militant version of the character who is proud of their weapon, and wants to use it to destroy the First Order's - referred to as the Catapult - which she learns of through Finn. There's also mention of Maz Kanata handing her the Skywalker lightsaber, which even made it into the trailer before being cut - with the MacGuffin of the movie becoming the map to Luke - so it does add up.

Leia does get to deploy the Sledgehammer in the third act, which sees it cutting through Star Destroyers, before it itself is destroyed by the First Order, leading Leia to believe all is lost, with the rest playing out quite similar to how it does in the finished movie.

Could this mean, then, that Episode IX will feature yet another superweapon, and this time one for the Resistance too? Given it was cut from The Force Awakens - assuming it's legit - then it's hard to imagine J.J. Abrams reusing a concept he threw away years ago in a trilogy closer, and most fans would probably agree that another Death Star-esque weapon would be stretching things too far. It's also worth noting that most of these Leia scenes, should they exist, would be on D'Qar, a planet destroyed in The Last Jedi, but that doesn't mean they can't be used elsewhere with some computer trickery.