The Most Epic Fantasy and Sci-Fi Website

The Rise of Skywalker: J.J. Abrams Says it would be Weird NOT to Bring Palpatine Back


Palpatine had come out to be the main antagonist in Star Wars for the past two trilogies, and strangely enough, he's being resurrected for next month's The Rise of Skywalker. It was apparently director J.J. Abrams' idea to bring Papa Palpatine back, and he says the trilogy just wouldn't have felt right without old Darth Sidious.

Talking to Uproxx, Abrams explains, "Well, when you look at this as nine chapters of a story, perhaps the weirder thing would be if Palpatine didn't return. You just look at what he talks about, who he is, how important he is, what the story is." He continued on saying, "Strangely, his absence entirely from the third trilogy would be conspicuous. It would be very weird."

Apparently some fans are seeing Palpatine returning as some kind of ret-con for Rian Johnson taking out Snoke in The Last Jedi. As it turns out, TLJ didn't derail any of Abrams' plans at all. He goes on to say, "When Rian was brought on to do The Last Jedi, we met and we talked about things and he wrote his story. And when I read it the script, I realized this didn't get in the way of anything Larry [Kasdan] and I talked about that I thought I'd get to."

"There were some very specific things we did get to do in this movie that we were laughing and going, ‘Oh my god, we're finally doing that thing we talked about five years ago,'" he continued.

While I honestly questioned bringing the Emperor back to life for this film, I trust that Abrams has the right instinct when it comes to his storytelling. Palpatine has been the main adversary to all the trilogies, and I'm curious how he'll manage to be relevant to the ST long after his death. Fingers crossed that Abrams and co-writer Chris Terrio know what they're doing.

For now, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is set for a release on Dec. 20.

Read Also: The Rise of Skywalker Won't be the Longest Star Wars Film After All

For more articles like this, take a look at our Star Wars: Episode IX page.