My understanding is VIII is done shooting but they will have to do something about IX for sure.
There is always the terrible wonky cgi from a certain recent Star Wars film they can replicate.
I'm sort of afraid they might try that for IX. I hope not. Filming for XIII was finished, and filming for IX won't even start for more than a year from now, so maybe the CGI would be improved enough that it could work, but...honestly, I hope not. Better to do some re-writes to XIII to bring her story to a close in that one (if it was already planned - it may well have been). That feels like that would be the best way to be respectful to the character and recognize the loss of the person so critical to making them come alive.
At least the f0ckin 2016 didnt make till end of shooting of VIII.
With the new movie it can be rewritten to include some tragedy between the movies, fortunately.
But then there is this pretty reliable rumour:
Leia is dead at the beginnig of VIII/dies right at the start due to retaliatory strike from the Order. They launched massive attack on the Resistance to thank them for destroying Starkiller Base.
I think the latter is more possible cause killing major character off screen...hell that would be definition of lame.
