The first image has been released from the Star Wars: Episode 9 set – and it really doesn’t give us much to go on. Well, until you look at it a little closer.
Bittersweet starting this next chapter without Carrie, but thanks to an extraordinary cast and crew, we are ready to go. Grateful for @rianjohnson and special thanks to George Lucas for creating this incredible world and beginning a story of which we are lucky to be a part. #IX pic.twitter.com/FOfnGwVut5
— JJ Abrams (@jjabrams) 1 August 2018
As you can see, director JJ Abrams started the Tweet with a sweet nod to Carrie Fisher who played Princess Leia.
He wrote: “Bittersweet starting this next chapter without Carrie, but thanks to an extraordinary cast and crew, we are ready to go. Grateful for @rianjohnson and special thanks to George Lucas for creating this incredible world and beginning a story of which we are lucky to be a part. #IX”
As we all know, one of her final films, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, was released on December 15, 2017 and is dedicated to her. Carrie will actually appear in Star Wars: Episode IX through the use of unreleased footage from The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.
A full report from June 19, 2017, stated that Fisher had cocaine in her system, as well as traces of heroin other opiates, as well as MDMA. The report also stated that the investigation was unable to determine when she had taken the drugs, and whether they contributed to her death.
Her daughter Billie Lourd stated that her mum “battled drug addiction and mental illness her entire life [and] ultimately died of it. She was purposefully open in all of her work about the social stigmas surrounding these diseases… I know my Mom, she’d want her death to encourage people to be open about their struggles.”
In the image, you can see John Boyega featured. He also Tweeted the same image as Abrams, captioning it: “First day of filming done !”.
First day of filming done ! pic.twitter.com/KD3qs8oKUP
— John Boyega (@JohnBoyega) 1 August 2018
Abrams joined the movie franchise as director for The Force Awakens and joined Episode IX in September last year, following the departure of original director Colin Trevorrow.
He has suggested that he won’t play it safe with his second Star Wars film. He said: “I feel like we need to approach this with the same excitement that we had when we were kids loving what these movies were,
“But at the same time, we have to take them places that they haven’t gone, and that’s sort of our responsibility.”
This sounds interesting…