For the General: How Carrie Fisher gave us the Force we'll need in 2017

In the end, she left us with a word: hope.

That word -- which Carrie Fisher said first in the original Star Wars (1977) in her "help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi" speech -- is such a powerful statement of what the film is all about that in 1981, George Lucas renamed the whole damn movie in its honor.

Her line reading, easily the most repeated (and probably the most memed) line in all of Star Wars, is what had won Fisher the role in the first place. It literally gave the world A New Hope.

And it was to that one word that Gareth Edwards just returned in the latest Star Wars blockbuster, Rogue One. In the movie -- spoiler alert for the 4 or 5 fans who haven't seen it yet -- a lookalike CGI version of Leia is seen uttering the word, clipped from Fisher's line reading. She also gets the very final line of thanks in the credits.

Now that Carrie Fisher has left us far too soon, her likeness still speaks her line and her name is honored dozens of times a day in theaters around the world.

Carrie would have loved the irony, but for us it's almost too much to bear.

At Mashable we were so moved by the movie moment, that when the film was released, executive producer Dustin McLean commissioned the above image from illustrator Bob Al-Greene.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Little did any of us know what was about to happen to its subject.

It seems especially appropriate given how motivating a force Carrie Fisher was in popular culture and politics. Since her death, we've seen again and again how wonderfully irreverent she was, how innately rebellious. The older she got, the more free she was with her middle finger.

Carrie may have not have always loved the character of Leia, but this is how they overlapped: From Princess (and, let's not forget, Senator) Leia in 1977 to General Leia in 2015, both were defined by their defiance.

You can see that clearly in a scene that was sadly deleted from The Force Awakens.

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And it is just that spirit, many noted while grieving on Tuesday, that we're going to need as global politics enters a period that has all the makings of some really Dark Times.

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And in case you were wondering: Yes, getting political is exactly what she would want us to do.

Carrie Fisher was an outspoken celebrity who never shied away from a political fight. She inserted herself into Election 2016 when she alleged that Donald Trump's sniffles during the three presidential debates were consistent with those of a cocaine user.

But less remembered is the tweet that preceded that -- in which she slammed the President-elect's plan to cut taxes more for the rich than anyone else.

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Fisher was no less outspoken immediately before, during and after the election:

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Often she'd use her patented method of spelling out words using emoji characters as letters:

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At the same time, of course, Carrie Fisher never took life's worries too seriously. Even when baring her soul and discussing her darkest moments, she was never more than ten seconds away from a good, uproarious, seriousness-puncturing, audience-shocking joke.

Because that was part of her soul too. Most of her habitual defiance can be simply summed up in the last line of that deleted scene: Even if the Senate thinks her crazy, "I don't care."

Odds are, many millions of people are going to be faced with a fear of speaking their mind this freely in 2017. We're going to need a lot of jokes to push back the darkness and stay sane.

And we're going to need to care way less what people think of us.

That's what Carrie Fisher and General Organa both taught us. Be bold. Don't give an inch on the Death Star. Manage your own escape route. Look after the Ewoks and fear not the opinions of scruffy-looking, nerf-herders. If the Senate won't listen, defy it.

And don't ever get too darked out, because there's always hope.