Star Wars

From Mark Hamill to Harrison Ford, to the stars of 'The Force Awakens' and 'Rogue One,' Carrie Fisher's extended 'Star Wars' family react to her passing.

It’s undeniable that Carrie Fisher was a rare talent — and she’d have to be, to charm the notoriously picky George Lucas with her Star Wars audition. In a recently resurfaced video, originally posted on YouTube in 2006, Fisher sits down to read a scene opposite Harrison Ford (whom Lucas initially didn’t want to cast, but he was so good in the screen tests that Ford became his Han Solo).

Today we mourn the loss of Carrie Fisher: Iconic actor, talented author, brilliant script doctor and, most of all, an incomparable force to be reckoned with. There are so many great adjectives you could use to describe Fisher: Uncompromising, unapologetic, fierce, witty, relatable, real, honest. She took all of those qualities and put them to work in her books — from memoirs to novels, Fisher had a knack for telling poignant and painful stories with wit and wisdom. Writing a worthy obituary for one of the best and boldest women on this planet or any other is surely an impossible task…so it’s a good thing that the perfect obit basically already exists, and unsurprisingly, Fisher came up with it herself.

Terrible news to confirm today, as a beloved icon and Star Wars star’s condition has taken a turn for the worse. Carrie Fisher, actress behind both Princess and General Leia, has passed away at age 60. The revered actress and comedic presence had earlier suffered a heart attack en-route from London to Los Angeles.

Even if you’re not the biggest fan of CGI actors returned from the dead, you probably had to appreciate the ways that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story director Gareth Edwards tried to bring the events of Star Wars: A New Hope more directly into his film. In several key sequences, Edwards was even able to feature unseen footage from the original 1977 film, causing fans to wonder where that new footage came from (and why they hadn’t seen it before). Are there entire archives of unseen footage that Lucasfilm has been hiding from fans for all these decades?

The late actor Peter Cushing, mainstay of Hammer’s horror films and erstwhile Star Wars cast member, cut a distinctive figure: cheekbones that could slice diamond, perfectly coiffed shock of grey hair, mouth permanently pursed into a single flat line. As the ruthless Empire commander Grand Moff Tarkin, Cushing left a lasting impression on generations of viewers, austerity coded directly into the lines on his face. He makes for an instantly recognizable silhouette — so is that really him, out of focus and in the foreground for a split second in the latest Rogue One: A Star Wars Story TV spot?

Lucasfilm is building a great roster of talent for its untitled Han Solo project, with Phil Lord and Chris Miller directing, Alden Ehrenreich and Donald Glover starring (as Han and Lando, respectively) and cinematographer Bradford Young — whose resumé includes stunning work on another recent sci-fi film: Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival. Those are some very bold names involved with the upcoming Star Wars spinoff, but just how subversive can we expect this movie to be when it’s tied to such a prominent franchise? According to Young, he’s been “pleasantly surprised” by the amount of creative freedom they have at Lucasfilm.

One of this year's most viral personalities is reaching out to one of this year's most viral personalities.

Fresh from its premiere this morning on Good Morning America, here it is: The new Rogue One: A Star Wars Story trailer. Gareth Edwards directs this direct prequel to the original Star Wars about a plucky band of rebels charged with finding the weakness in the Galactic Empire’s new weapon, the Death Star.

Okay, relax, it’s not what you think. The Force Awakens is still one of the most successful movies in box office history. The criticism, when there was any, shared a similar theme: it was way too similar to the very first Star Wars movie A New Hope. There’s even a shot-by-shot comparison video that details every location and scene the sequel borrowed from the original. A lot of people figured this was the fault of the studio, Disney wanting to play it safe rather than give J.J. Abrams his head so he could take the franchise in a new direction. And it’s true, there are so many callbacks to the original in The Force Awakens that at some point you just want to throw your hands up and yell “OKAY! We get it! This is a Star Wars movie!” Today, Adam Driver raised some eyebrows while talking about Episode 8 by drawing a comparison to The Empire Strikes Back, but not in the way you think.