STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER Novelization Reveals The Emperor's Final Moments In RETURN OF THE JEDI

STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER Novelization Reveals The Emperor's Final Moments In RETURN OF THE JEDI

Darth Vader killed Emperor Palpatine in Return of the Jedi, but a new excerpt from The Rise of Skywalker novelization reveals how exactly the villain managed to escape death at the hands of his apprentice!

By JoshWilding - Mar 04, 2020 12:03 PM EST
Filed Under: Star Wars
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker frustrated fans for a lot of reasons, but perhaps the biggest was the fact that it didn't explain how Emperor Palpatine managed to escape his death in Return of the Jedi. Well, we finally have some details courtesy of the movie's novelization, and while it doesn't necessarily clear everything up, it does provide an explanation. 

When Darth Vader threw his Master into the heart of the Death Star II, it turns out that Palpatine quickly managed to transfer his consciousness into a waiting clone body. 
 
"Falling...Falling...Falling...down a massive shaft, the betrayal sharp and stinging, a figure high above, black clad and helmeted and shrinking fast. His very own apprentice had turned against him, the way he himself had turned against Plagueis...whose secret to immortality he had stolen.
 
"Plageuis had not acted fast enough in his own moment of death. But Sidious, sensing the flickering light in his apprentice, had been ready for years. So the falling, dying Emperor called on all the dark power of the Force to thrust his consciousness far, far away, to a secret place he had been preparing. His body was dead, an empty vessel, long before it found the bottom of the shaft, and his mind jolted to a new awareness in a new body -- a painful one, a temporary one.
 
"Although the Emperor had planned on Vader's inevitable betrayal, the moment arrived sooner than expected: "The secret place had not completed its preparations. The transfer was imperfect, and the cloned body wasn't enough. Perhaps Plagueis was having the last laugh after all. Maybe his secret remained secret. Because Palpatine was trapped in a broken, dying form."

This is kind of cool, but even if he was in a "broken, dying" form, why did he wait until so many years later to reveal himself? It's possible he didn't want the Galaxy to see what he had become, and rounding up those followers after the destruction of the Death Star II wouldn't have been easy for someone in Palpatine's condition. 

It's also hard to understand why he would use Snoke (who was equally as disfigured) to do his bidding. There are too many plot holes here to count, but at least we now know what became of Palpatine's mind/spirit after Vader threw him to his death. Content like this really should have been in The Rise of Skywalker, though, and we're now relying on future novels to fill in these gaps. 

What are your thoughts on these new details about The Emperor's fate in Return of the Jedi?

CLICK HERE to take a look at what we think did and didn't work in The Rise of Skywalker!
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Nebula
Nebula - 3/4/2020, 12:05 PM
L0RDbuckethead
L0RDbuckethead - 3/4/2020, 12:08 PM
All this contradiction...

knocturnalzen10
knocturnalzen10 - 3/4/2020, 12:10 PM
so confusing how he didn't learn from his fight with Mason , deflecting his own ability equals a W smh .........
itzayaboy
itzayaboy - 3/4/2020, 12:10 PM
Good lord. Stop.
Nebula
Nebula - 3/4/2020, 12:36 PM
@zachman2013 -
Nightwing1015
Nightwing1015 - 3/4/2020, 12:10 PM
And now it's finally starting to take the shape of an actual explanation. A stupid, illogical explanation.

But at the very least.....there is an explanation.
GhostDog
GhostDog - 3/4/2020, 12:11 PM
“... down a massive shaft...”
knocturnalzen10
knocturnalzen10 - 3/4/2020, 12:13 PM
@BlackBeltJones @ghostofcipher- you both just won the tag titles
Feralwookiee
Feralwookiee - 3/4/2020, 12:12 PM
Pfffft!
What a shitty lame retcon.

I just pretend these movies never happened.
GhostDog
GhostDog - 3/4/2020, 12:18 PM
The Sith Loyalists to Palpatine discussing the transference plan


Palpatine
tmp3
tmp3 - 3/4/2020, 12:19 PM
Josh is gonna milk this [frick]ing novel for everything it's worth, and then he's gonna sodomize the corpse by making top 10 lists on it
inkniron
inkniron - 3/4/2020, 12:33 PM
@tmp3 - Eh, let him this time. I'm not gonna buy the book and my morbid curiosity wants to see the autopsy on the murder victim, the thought process behind the BS and how they try to justify it.
HAILHYDRA
HAILHYDRA - 3/4/2020, 12:20 PM
Yikes. This is so irresponsible. Who signed off on this? They took their most beloved character (Anakin) and completely took a crap on his redemption arc and all of the groundwork they laid that he was the chosen one. Bringing the Emperor back at all downplays Anakin's importance, but retconning the Emperor's death so that Anakin looks like an idiot for not outright killing him, is just ridiculous.
Nebula
Nebula - 3/4/2020, 12:23 PM
@HAILHYDRA - Same people who signed off on the universe-breaking Holdo manoeuvre and Leia suddenly attaining the ability to survive in the vacuum of space.
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