Star Wars’ Series Are Fixing Rise Of Skywalker’s Most Infamous Line
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker often gets criticized for one infamous line. However, every Disney+ series seems devoted to fixing this problem.
Star Wars has experienced a resurgence in recent years thanks to its Disney+ television shows, including series like The Mandalorian, The Bad Batch and Ahsoka. In the past, the franchise has been known to use its television series, including The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels, to fill in so-called plot holes left open by the main films in the saga. Now, it is becoming abundantly clear that Star Wars’ recent round of Disney+ series are finally answering one of the franchise’s most infamous dangling story threads from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, namely the return of Emperor Palpatine.
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Many Star Wars fans weren’t happy with the explanation of Palpatine’s return in The Rise of Skywalker, which was largely glossed over in favor of a line spoken by Poe Dameron: “Somehow, Palpatine returned.” This line was immediately singled out as a massive example of lazy writing on the part of Lucasfilm, providing little real explanation for how Emperor Palpatine was able to survive his death in Return of the Jedi. Naturally, Dameron’s quote became a meme in record time. However, as Star Wars has always been prone to do, recent series like The Mandalorian, The Bad Batch, and more have been slowly working toward a proper explanation for the major villain’s return in the conclusion to the sequel trilogy.
Updated December 19, 2023, by Joshua M. Patton: In fiction, a plot hole is an inconsistency in a narrative that defies the story’s own logic or contradicts it, and not just an unanswered question in the narrative. Whether the return of Emperor Palpatine counts as one or the other is, mostly, left up to the individual viewer. Yet, Star Wars is well-known for intentionally making references to things the audience is unaware of, beginning from the moment Luke Skywalker first mentions “the clone wars” in Star Wars: A New Hope. Arguably, that Palpatine was tossed into the exploding reactor of the second Death Star made his return in The Rise of Skywalker contradictory. Yet, the Star Wars series on Disney+ allow storytellers to fill in the backstory left to audiences’ imaginations in the final Skywalker Saga film.
While the very act of bringing Emperor Palpatine back for Rise of Skywalker was controversial, the main criticism of the villain’s return was how it was handled. The ninth Star Wars film received plenty of mixed reviews, in part due to its dense and, arguably, confusing storyline. Many fans felt like the film couldn’t even find the time to explain the reappearance of its main villain, who hadn’t been present in the previous two installments. The infamous line from the film uttered by Poe Dameron, “Somehow, Palpatine returned” was all the audience got.
However, Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau both seem determined to finally answer this question, crafting a subplot between series like The Mandalorian and The Bad Batch to explain how Palpatine could survive his apparent death. This plotline ties several recent Star Wars shows together as the Imperial Remnant works to bring back their infamous leader. When he meets Kylo Ren in the film, Palpatine echoes a line from Revenge of The Sith. “The dark side is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.” It doesn’t get more unnatural than returning from the dead, but Palpatine’s desire for eternal life has a long history in the old, non-canon expanded universe.
Shows like The Mandalorian strive to explain Palpatine’s return by exploring what happened to the Empire after his death. In the wake of the Empire’s fall at the end of the Galactic Civil War, several Imperial warlords continued to do Palpatine’s work in the galaxy. They worked from behind the scenes, right under the nose of the New Republic to sow discourse in the galaxy. This included the continuation of projects that appear to have been part of a contingency plan put in place in case the Empire should ever fall. Other series, mainly The Bad Batch, reveal that these plans have been in place for many years, with extra research into cloning taking place in the years just after the Republic was consolidated into the Empire. When all the details revealed in each show are combined, the “somehow” behind Palpatine’s return becomes less of a mystery.
From the information provided by the recent series, it appears that it was a clone of Palpatine in The Rise of Skywalker, not the original Sith Lord. The Mandalorian’s third season in particular backs up this idea, with Moff Gideon revealed to have been behind the formation of several secret cloning facilities which could easily have been used to bring Palpatine back to life. Additionally, the Imperial Remnant’s fixation on locating Force-sensitive children like Grogu suggest that their plan includes studying these individuals in an effort to produce a Force-sensitive clone–the very same being that would later appear in Rise of Skywalker.
The Bad Batch and Andor both suggest that, in addition to the post-Return of the Jedi events in the Disney+ series, Emperor Palpatine’s master manipulations extend all the way back to before the Galactic Civil War. The Empire is particularly interested in the defective Clone Force 99, especially Omega. This would suggest that Palpatine was already in the practice of experimenting with new types of clones, perhaps in anticipation of creating a Force-sensitive duplicate of himself in case of his death. Andor even provides the perfect test subject in Andy Serkis’s Kino Loy, who remained in Imperial capture by the end of the first season. Serkis also portrays Supreme Leader Snoke in the sequel trilogy, leading to theories that the Empire used Loy as a guinea pig, turning him into the villainous leader of the First Order as a test of new cloning techniques in anticipation of the Emperor’s return.
As unsatisfying as Rise of Skywalker’s explanation of Palpatine’s return may be, it has led to a Renaissance of Star Wars Disney+ series. Star Wars has frequently used TV series to fill in plotholes that are left behind, much like Anakin’s development in the Prequels. Now the current plotlines of the shows all point toward the ultimate reveal of Palpatine’s resurrection–and a much more satisfying story overall.
