By Travis Johnson
If there’s one thing that the past eight or so hours have taught us about the late and clearly much missed Carrie Fisher, it’s that she refused to let anyone or anything define her. Not her iconic Star Wars persona, not her famous family, not her mental health issues or substance abuse problems – nothing. She was mercurial, unpredictable, and endlessly witty (If you do nothing else today to mark her passing, at least pick up a copy of Postcards from the Edge if you haven’t read it – it’s great).
With Fisher, surprise should be no surprise. So, back in 2009 when she was invited to speak at an American Film Institute ceremony honouring Star Wars director George Lucas, it’s no shock she took the opportunity to rip into the notoriously soft-spoken auteur, taking him to task for a laundry-list of grievances collected since 1977.
It’s all in good fun and the audience, including Lucas’s BFF Steven Spielberg, clearly love every minute of it. This is the Fisher we remember – fearlessly funny, acid-tongued, and effortlessly commanding the room.
