She did. Yeah, it might be more of a distraction to recast. I don’t know.
One way around is it to partially mask or disfigure the character (an offscreen skirmish or injury that requires some sort of mask or partial helmet to conceal much of her face. But that’s a bit on the nose, isn’t it? That would only draw more attention to the situation, I suppose.
If they go with “a friend of Cara’s” route, then they certainly need to differentiate in appearance, personality, etc. enough so it doesn’t come across like a transparent “we’re doing a Cara Dune stand-in”, which is a bit soap opera-y.
I wonder if Cara had any petite blonde friends? Because that’s what it would take, IMO, if they’re not going to recast or try to fill that role. Don’t do the Cara Lite thing, just go in another direction entirely (a black woman with a shaved head, I don’t care).
Either recast Cara and come up with an in-story way to explain/mask her different appearance, or jettison the character completely and, if needed, fill the slot with someone as un-Cara like as possible so it doesn’t seem cheesy or hard to buy into as a viewer.
“Oh, I see what they’re trying to do here...Cara 2.0...”, etc.