“The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some would consider unnatural,” Emperor Palpatine said to Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, and again to Anakin’s grandson Kylo in The Rise of Skywalker. Up until now, that was pretty much all the explanation we had for how Palpatine, seen plunging down a skyscraper-tall shaft to his death at the end of Return of the Jedi, could survive and come back for The Rise of Skywalker, where we learn that he’s been hiding out on the planet of Exegol for decades, quietly building a fighting force.
Now, for better or worse, we have more info. Lucasfilm Publishing sold the novelization of The Rise of Skywalker by Rae Carson at this past weekend’s C2E2 convention in Chicago. Fans who picked up a copy learned something about just how exactly the Emperor survived that fall: he didn’t. According to the book, the Emperor’s “actual spirit” was placed in the body of a clone, and when Kylo finds him at the beginning of Rise, the clone body is deteriorating, unable to contain Palpatine’s power.
Check out the passage in question below:
"The Emperor lives; using a clone body – from TROS novelization from StarWarsLeaks"
“All the vials were empty of liquid save one, which was nearly depleted. Kylo peered closer. He’d seen this apparatus before, too, when he’d studied the Clone Wars as a boy,” the passage reads. “The liquid flowing into the living nightmare before him was fighting a losing battle to sustain the Emperor’s putrid flesh.”
"“What could you give me?” Kylo asked. Emperor Palpatine lived, after a fashion, and Kylo could feel in his very bones that this clone body sheltered the Emperor’s actual spirit. It was an imperfect vessel, though, unable to contain his immense power. It couldn’t last much longer."
There’s actually a precedent for this. In the early ’90s, Dark Horse Comics published a story called Star Wars: Dark Empire set in the now-defunct Star Wars Extended Universe. There, Emperor Palpatine had a clone body created so he could transfer his spirit into it when his original body was destroyed…and it worked. Only in The Rise of Skywalker movie, the power of the Dark Side is too great for a clone, which is why we see Palpatine so decrepit and weak when Kylo finds him.
So it’s not like the explanation comes out of absolutely nowhere, but watching the movie, you just get the impression that this is the same Palpatine we saw in Return of the Jedi, just older and more decrepit. This just seems like Disney hiding information relevant to the plot somewhere most viewers wouldn’t find it.
So this explanation didn’t particularly satisfy me, but that’s just me. What do you make of it?
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker novelization officially hits bookshelves everywhere on March 17.
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h/t ScreenRant