Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker brings back Emperor Palpatine and, well, never bothers to explain how he survived the events of
Return of the Jedi! That's just one of many unanswered questions it leaves us with (you can find more
by clicking here) but director J.J. Abrams has offered an explanation about why he chose not to address some lingering queries fans might have.
"We knew going in that we had to make this feel conclusive. It had to come to an end," the filmmaker explained. "And yet, there are certain things that I feel… here’s the way I feel about Star Wars. It’s the reason that I loved the original trilogy so much — and the reason I loved the original trilogy more than the prequel trilogy, for me — which was that the original trilogy posed great questions, and allowed you to infer the answer. It allowed you to do the math on your own."
It's true that in the original Star Wars trilogy, we had no idea how Darth Vader became the way he was or the origins of his master. "The Clone Wars" were also only mentioned in passing and we never found out who, or what, those clones were. These days, though, fans expect answers!
Abrams went on to say that he loves the prequel trilogy but noted that he didn't feel the need for it to fill in quite so many gaps as it did (something he clearly wanted to avoid here). "Now, I’m not someone who needs to know about midi-chlorians. That doesn’t feel like it’s a thing for me."
"That’s not to say, however, in this movie we didn’t adhere to the eight films that preceded us and tell an ending that embraces all of it. I didn’t go against that stuff because I didn’t like it as much. But my point is that there’s something about answers, you need answers, but I don’t think demystifying everything is necessarily the key to a successful story."
Do you guys think this was the right approach to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker?