Gareth Edwards has described ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’ as "one big love letter" to Carrie Fisher.
The 60-year-old filmmaker admitted he has been unable to sit down and watch the stand-alone movie – which ends with digitally-recreated footage of the actress as Princess Leia from the original ‘Star Wars’ – since Carrie’s shock passing last December.
He said: "I’ve not really sat and watched the film since the opening weekend, when Carrie was still with us. I just feel the whole thing was, to be honest, one big love letter to Carrie.
"What we’re doing with the entire movie is all building to that one moment [of the Death Star plans being handed to Princess Leia] where we hand the baton to her, to go off and make that film that inspired us all as kids.
"So it couldn’t have ended better from that point of view."
But Gareth admitted he feels very "sad" that he never got to properly talk to Carrie about the film series.
He added to the Daily Telegraph newspaper: "It’s just sad – I was always thinking that I would get to meet her and talk to her at some point about it, and I never really met her properly. I walked past her once on the set of ‘Episode VII’, I was meeting some of the crew, and she walked past me, and I had a little fanboy freakout."
However, the filmmaker was "reassured" to know Carrie was impressed with the CGI footage as she wasn’t a fan of the technology but didn’t realise at first that she’d been digitally recreated.
He recalled: "When it came to our film, it went so late with that shot, trying to get it right, that Kathy (Kennedy, producer) took it down personally, on a laptop, and showed her.
"And initially Carrie apparently didn’t realise it was CGI, and wondered if it was footage which we had taken from somewhere else. Which was really reassuring for us.
"I thought, one day, either at the premiere, or one of these conventions, I’d get a chance to talk to her. And it’s really sad that it’s not going to get to happen."
Rogue One was love letter to Carrie Fisher
