Leia Organa. Princess. Diplomat. General. Husband to a scruffy-looking nerf herder. Carrie Fisher’s performance over the course of three (now four) movies has been essential to the enduring legacy of “Star Wars.” Let’s relieve Leia’s finest moments in her evolution from brave captive of Darth Vader to leader of the Rebellion.
Leia’s first face-to-face confrontation with Vader established both characters perfectly. Vader is immediately an intense, merciless villain, and Leia gets to show her courage in the face of such evil. This scene is also fun to revisit after seeing “Rogue One.”
This process is repeated again during the infamous demonstration of the Death Star’s power on Alderaan. Again, Fisher balances Leia between fear and resolve while dealing with Grand Moff Tarkin, whose brand of evil is far more oily than that of Vader’s.
The famous “short stormtrooper” line. For the record, Mark Hamill is five-foot-nine. As of “The Force Awakens,” the average height for a stormtrooper is six feet.
If you go to Disneyland, you can get his & hers shirts featuring this famous pair of lines from Han and Leia.
Here’s the infamous Luke & Leia kiss from “Empire Strikes Back,” which has been endlessly parodied after “Return of the Jedi.”
But as many “Star Wars” fans know, “Empire” had a clue to Luke and Leia’s relationship, as seen when Leia senses through the Force that Luke is in danger as she and Lando escape from Bespin and orders them to turn around.
And here’s the tender moment between Luke and Leia before the final charge on the Empire in “Return of the Jedi,” in which Luke reveals to Leia that they are brother and sister.
But that’s not the Leia scene you remember in “ROTJ,” is it? No, it’s this one, in which Carrie Fisher dons the infamous Slave Leia outfit.
The Ewoks are…shall we say…polarizing among “Star Wars” fans, but we can all agree that Leia’s bonding with little Wicket during the Battle of Endor was cute, right?
But Leia’s finest moment in the “Star Wars” series has to be the speeder bike chase against the scout troopers. Let’s face it: speeder bikes are the coolest vehicles in “Star Wars.” X-Wings are second, pod racers are third.
And now, here’s Leia and Han reuniting after many, many years apart in “The Force Awakens,” with Han as a jaded old man and Leia as the wise, experienced founder and commanding general of the Resistance against The First Order.
