Deleted Scenes
During the opening sequence on Yavin, as part of his payment for delivering the shipment of fusion portables (and protecting the local Wookees from marauding Imperial trappers), Chuiee Thorpe would receive from the Wookees a precious gift: distilled essence of the fruit of the Blackleaf tree.
This tree’s golden-colored fruit has marvelous curative properties: in particular, it can cause extremely rapid healing when applied to flesh wounds. Thus far the fruit is known to grow only on Yavin, making the Wookees’ gift to Thorpe extremely valuable, and a show of their great esteem for him.
During the climactic escape from the dungeons of Alderaan, Leia/Zena would be shot in the throat by a blaster bolt from a stormtrooper’s gun. However, her life would be saved when Chuiee (who had planned to use it for his own serious injuries, but only after escaping) poured the blackleaf fruit essence first in her mouth, then onto the wound in Leia’s throat.
Although Leia’s wound would heal, saving her life, the drug would have one unusual unanticipated side effect of the drug: Leia’s skin would turn entirely bone-white from head to toe, and her teeth would be stained black, like those of a traditional Japanese geisha.
In the finale, Leia would be seen wearing a wig made of blue precious stones, crafted by the Sith of Lundee (C3PO’s species). She would also have new prosthetic eyes, a metallic bronze in color with pin-point pupils and no whites (made by the Bomas of Bestine, Artoo-Detwo’s homeworld).
Additionally, while Leia’s wound would heal, the injury would have taken away her voice. General Owen Lars, captured in the Battle of Aquilae, would ransom his freedom by paying for the Boma to make her a special (ie, unbugged) voice-box implant – outwardly visible as a small red Lundeean jewel protruding from Leia’s throat, which lit up with inner fire whenever she “spoke”. Remote speaker units at strategic locations would receive pulses from the jewel, and translate Leia’s thought-waves into spoken sentences, giving her a tinny, mechanical-sounding voice akin to a female version of Robby the Robot.
CJ Thorpe would carry one such speaker in portable form: a small silver baton hanging on his belt, which doubled as a badge of office for his role as Prince Consort/Lord Protector. This would look like the comlinks in SW 1977 – but it’s also a precessor to the lightsaber of modern SW, since in 1973 GL apparently still thought of “laserswords” as permanent full-length solid blades charged with energy, worn in sheaths like regular swords.
