Let me begin this video by saying that I do not like The Rise of Skywalker. I think it almost works as a generic space adventure movie, but in my opinion, it does not properly serve the overall story of the Skywalker Saga. I won’t go as far as to say that it’s a dumpster fire of a film, as I reserve that title for works like Battlefield Earth, but it’s really close. It theoretically had potential, but failed miserably in trying to realize that potential, not unlike Secret Invasion.
Now, that being said, there is one aspect of the story in Rise of Skywalker that I feel like I need to defend to a small extent. There is a common complaint about that movie in particular. “Rise of Skywalker undoes the prophecy of the Chosen One. Anakin was supposed to bring balance to the force by destroying the Sith. Disney obviously doesn’t understand the lore of Star Wars because they brought Palpatine back, and that completely negates his fulfillment of the prophecy”. My sweet summer child, do not quote the old law to me, for I was there when it was written.
Let’s go back to 1991, the year that the Legends Expanded universe was effectively brought into existence. On May 1st of that year, when I was just 12 years old, we saw the release of heir to the Empire, the beginning of the original Timothy Zahn Star Wars trilogy. And yes, I am aware of the old Marvel Star Wars comic book series that predated that. But personally, I keep those in a separate box, along with the Holiday Special and the droids and the Ewoks animated series. They’re over there, but we’re gonna ignore them for now.
Shortly after heir to the Empire, starting in December 1991, Dark Horse Comics began to release a bimonthly limited series entitled Star Wars Dark Empire. Now, in this story, set six years after return of the Jedi, we learn that Emperor Palpatine has returned from the dead, and Luke Skywalker chooses to join him in order to secretly fight the Dark Side from within. He ends up falling to the Dark Side and serving the Emperor willingly, though as a small side point At least one commenter has mentioned that Disney butchered Luke’s character by having him turn on Ben. Wouldn’t. Serving the emperor and falling to the dark side also be, in effect, butchering Luke’s character? Anyway, Lucasfilm signed off on these ideas as presented by Tom Veitch, and the story went forward, and in the end, Leia manages to bring Luke back to the light, and they work together to destroy the Emperor’s starship and apparently eliminating him at the same time as well. But wait, there’s more. In 1994, Dark Horse released a sequel series, Dark Empire two, where, in the spirit of the Emperor inhabits his last remaining clone body and begins a quest to possess one of the grandchildren of Anakin Skywalker. Now the story comes to a conclusion in 1995. Star Wars Empire’s end. Palpatine, whose final clone body is aging, rapidly, discovers that the only viable option for his survival is to transfer his essence into the body of Anakin Solo, the third child of Han Solo and Princess Leia. Palpatine is, of course, defeated and his spirit finally sent to where it can never hurt anyone again Along the way, we get some really cool superweapons like world Devastators, the Galaxy Gun, and Eclipse class Star Destroyers.
Now, according to Lucy Autrey Wilson, who was the director of publishing at Lucasfilm when Dark Empire was released, she was told by George Lucas after its release that he would have never brought the Emperor back, which is fair and probably would have been better for episode nine as well. But as George sold Star Wars to Disney, they can do whatever they want with it, regardless of your or my or his opinions. Now, back in the day, George just decided to do what all good game Masters do to their players and drop a giant yes and into the story with the prequel trilogy. He didn’t have to stick to the novels or comics because he said so. In the aftermath of this, writers and editors had to scramble to tell new stories that fix some newly formed plot holes caused by the prequels. Now, this is not a bad thing, as it just meant that there was more Star Wars content for everyone to enjoy. As always, the solution to any problem with Star Wars is more Star Wars. However, as Dark Empire ties in with the original tales of the Jedi comics, and that ties in with the Jedi Academy trilogy, which connects directly to I, Jedi and therefore the X-Wing novel series Dark Empire was pretty firmly attached to the original Expanded Universe canon. It was part of the foundation, really, and until Disney came along, it was never retconned out.
So the multiple returns of Palpatine were part of the canon. Currently, in Disney’s canon, we have the story’s end point. We know that Palpatine is going to return in a clone body at the end of the sequel trilogy, just like he did in legends. There is a gap of about 12 years from the end of the current episodes of Mandalorian until the beginning of shadow of the Sith, both of which tie into the eventual return of Palpatine in The Rise of Skywalker. A lot can happen in 12 years in the real world. I can personally say that 12 years ago, I hadn’t even met my wife yet. But now we’ve been married for almost a decade, and we have a five year old who’s looking forward to the new episodes of Young Jedi Adventures. But anyway, the big bads of the original legends stories were Palpatine and Thrawn. The current big bads of Disney Star Wars are curiously enough, Palpatine and Thrawn. Coincidence? Probably not. There are some potential butterfly effect type story elements that we haven’t seen yet, or that haven’t been connected for us yet that will theoretically resolve all of this. We just need to be patient and wait for the story to unfold.
Ultimately, though, the Sith did not truly return as Rey Skywalker and Ben Solo destroyed Palpatine on Exegol, effectively maintaining the balance of the force before Palpatine could plunge the galaxy into darkness again, which is just like what happened in the Dark Empire comics. Anyway, that’s just my opinion for the week. I look forward to reading your comments and hopefully responding to them. I think we have a great community here and appreciate you taking the time to listen to me ramble and offer your own opinions. So until next time, may the force be with you as you live long and prosper.
If you would prefer to watch this instead of reading it – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnyWASqXaJY
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