Bingowings said:

The point is the story suggests to me an arc to the character of Leia who is played by Carrie Fisher who has a proven record of playing characters well when they are written well and directed well.

Natalie Portman has a similar track record and she was a plank in three badly written badly directed Star Wars films.

"Playing characters well" is your opinion. In my opinion, her performance was average, considering the potential the well written character offered. As I said, that is most likely the reason why OT were her first and the last big films in her career (luckily for her it was a trilogy so she automatically starred in two subsequent, otherwise I would be talking in singular instead of plural). I mean if you can't shine in such character then it is bound you won't get another important role.

So her track record is a complete opposite to that of Portman. Fisher record include (effectively) one big film with average performance. Portman was great in every character that was at least decently written. And her record include many big films, of variety genre and of different producers/directors.