Leia Organa plays a much different role in the Star Wars sequel trilogy than she ever did in the original films. The surprise daughter of Darth Vader ends up becoming a general in the Resistance and, ironically, gave birth to the next big dark side villain—Kylo Ren.

I wasn’t too surprised that she and Han Solo ended up divorced. Two strong personalities like that just didn’t seem built to last. If I had written them as still being together, I would’ve had to ignore a lot of signs to make it believable.

In these newer movies, Leia’s role is more that of a commander than a Jedi. She doesn’t seem all that different from the short-haired Rebel leader with the Death Star plans back in A New Hope. And while her son Kylo Ren chooses not to fire on her ship, other First Order fighters do it for him.

That moment felt like it was going to be the end of Princess Leia. Carrie Fisher had already passed away, and I thought this was how they were going to write her out. It made sense… until she suddenly pulled a Jedi Mary Poppins and survived the vacuum of space, somehow floating back to safety and breathing real air again.

To my total shock, she was still in The Rise of Skywalker, despite the movie coming out nearly two years after her death. I know they used archived footage, but it was still pretty amazing—she wasn’t just in a brief cameo; she had way more screen time than I expected.

And then, of course, she dies for real. LOL.

I’m not sure if that was the original plan, but they had just enough footage to make her a Force ghost. She and Luke look down on Palpatine’s granddaughter with pride… for reasons I still don’t quite understand.