Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker Was Going To Bring Back Palpatine All Along Reveals J.J. Abrams

People were both excited and a little puzzled when it was revealed that J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was going to see the return of Emperor Palpatine.

It was largely believed that he had been killed by Darth Vader in Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi, however, it turns out that he managed to survive somehow.

Anyway, we all know now that Palpatine is going to play some sort of part in Abram’s The Rise of Skywalker, but we’re still not quite sure what that part will be.

It seems as though he’s going to feature towards the end of the movie and will be in the final battle, probably facing off again both Rey and Kylo Ren.

The Rise of Skywalker’s director, Abrams, has now revealed during an interview with Uproxx that it was always their plan to bring back Palpatine in the final film of this new Star Wars trilogy.

Sounds like Palpatine was always going to be part of The Rise of Skywalker

Will Palpatine be at the heart of everything in Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker? (Credit: LucasFilm)

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Here’s what he had to say on the matter below:

You just look at what he talks about, who he is, how important he is, what the story is — strangely, his absence entirely from the third trilogy would be conspicuous. It would be very weird. That’s not to say there was a bible and we knew what happens at every step. But when Larry Kasdan and I worked on The Force Awakens, we didn’t do it in a vacuum. We very purposely looked at what came before. We chose to tell a story that touches upon specific things and themes and ideas that we’ve seen before, to begin a new story. But we examined all that came before to ask where does this feel like it’s going?

What does Palpatine’s return mean for the future of Star Wars?

Darth Sidious will be returning in Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker (Credit: Disney)

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Abrams then went on to elaborate on how he and writer Lawrence Kasdan managed to do the things they had talked about before starting working on Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

So there were discussions about that at the time. Yet, like any beginning, you want to put the threads in, but you don’t want to necessarily be literal about everything. And then 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 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.’

So, it really does sound as if Abrams and co. did have a good idea of what they wanted to do with this final instalment in the new Star Wars trilogy, and that’s a good thing.

What do you make of what Abrams is saying here? Does this make you more excited to see Palpatine in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker? Let us know in the comments below.

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