While most of the details surrounding Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker are shrouded in mystery, Disney and Lucasfilm couldn’t resist revealing one of the film’s big secrets. During the closing moments of the first trailer, Emperor Palpatine’s return was the big surprise. Ian McDiarmid reprised his role from Return of the Jedi and the prequel trilogy one more time. Now, director J.J. Abrams is shedding some light on Palpatine’s comeback.
Via Heroic Hollywood and Reddit, Abrams told Empire Magazine that the Emperor’s return was the key to bringing the entire Skywalker Saga together as a whole.
“Some people feel like we shouldn’t revisit the idea of Palpatine, and I completely understand that,” said Abrams. “But if you’re looking at the nine films as one story, I don’t know many books where the last few chapters have nothing to do with those that have come before. If you look at the first eight films, all the set-ups of what we’re doing in IX are there in plain view.”
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Palpatine had a fairly definitive death scene in Return of the Jedi, when Darth Vader tossed him into the reactor core of the second Death Star. A few minutes later, the Death Star was destroyed. However, Palpatine managed to cheat death in the Expanded Universe/Legends stories via cloning. Those stories were rendered non-canon when Disney purchased Lucasfilm. But that may be the most likely explanation for Palpatine’s return, unless he’s simply another Force ghost.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will hit theaters on December 20.
Are you looking forward to seeing the Emperor again? Let us know in the comment section below!
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