RIP, Carrie Fisher.
As bad as the situation sounded, I always expected that Carrie Fisher would pull through, I guess because it seemed unfathomable that she wouldn’t. This was Carrie Fisher, after all — it seemed just a safe a bet that she’d post a video from her recovery bed, acting like it was no big deal.
We lost a tremendous person today.
I was glad to see that most of today’s tributes paid more attention to her as a person than a movie character, because that’s how it should be, and Fisher was way too interesting, complex and awesome to just say “Leia Leia Leia” and be done with it.
At the same time, I grew up on Star Wars and it’s super hard for me to separate her from that universe.
One of the biggest blessings of The Force Awakens and its associated hubbub was getting to see Carrie Fisher embraced by a whole new generation, and remembered by several previous generations. Even in her “driest” spells Fisher never had a lack of fans, but it was just wonderful to see her having fun on Twitter, warmly interacting with well-wishers, but never pretending to be anyone she wasn’t.
I hate that she won’t get to ride that wave for the next few years, and just feel the love.
I guess it’s good to look at the brighter sides when things like this happen, and in Fisher’s case, there are several. In many ways she will live forever, not only through her work — be it onscreen or as a writer — but through her unique bluntness in talking about issues that are still tough to be honest about in 2016. It’s like she was eternally without a filter, yet so smart and sharp that she always said the perfect thing.
We’re all gonna miss her.
Tonight’s marginally-related video is From Star Wars to Jedi, the old “Making Of” TV special. Even after all these years, it’s still great.