Carrie Fisher officially won’t appear in Star Wars 9

It’s been officially announced that Carrie Fisher will not appear in Star Wars Episode 9.

After Fisher tragically passed away last December, many wondered how or if she would appear in the next episode. Well Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy has now made the announcement that Leia will not feature in The Last Jedi‘s follow-up film:

“By the time we were well underway with Episode IX in our thoughts, we had not written the scripts yet, but we’ve regrouped, we started over again in January. So sadly, Carrie will not be in IX. But we’ll see a lot of her in VIII, which is great.” she told Good Morning America.

It was recently reported that Fisher would appear and not through CGI, according to her brother Todd:

“[Billie and I] were like, ‘yes, how do you take her out of it?’ and the answer is you don’t… She’s as much a part of it as anything and I think her presence now is even more powerful than it was, like Obi Wan — when the saber cuts him down he becomes more powerful.”

A glimpse of Leia in Episode 8’s trailer.

However, that’s now been confirmed as false by Kennedy. Fisher appeared briefly in The Last Jedi trailer which landed at the Star Wars Celebration on Friday, and Mark Hamill had his own tribute panel to Fisher at the Celebration, which you can see below:

Star Wars: The Last Jedi arrives in cinemas on 15 December.