Everyone knows that somehow Palpatine returned, but theorists are still trying to figure out why

Star Wars has had some excruciatingly terrible lines of dialogue over the years, but nothing George Lucas ever cooked up can compare to The Rise of Skywalker‘s “somehow Palpatine returned”. Bringing back Palpatine was a huge misstep, ruining the end of Return of the Jedi, retroactively pouring cold water on the whole sequel trilogy, and the “somehow” the laziest kind of ‘we’ll figure it out later’ style writing.

Four years on and the franchise is still bruised, with the most recent season of The Mandalorian attempting to lay at least some groundwork to fill in the details. But this doesn’t answer why Lucasfilm ever thought it was a good idea, but one fan has an interesting theory.

They identify Palpatine’s return as originating with “Uber”, an idea from George Lucas’ unused sequel trilogy pitch about a secret evil mastermind controlling events. J.J. Abrams considered this, with many of the ideas ending up forming the basis of Supreme Leader Snoke. Then the old story of miscommunication, production problems, and creative differences reared their head, all compounded by the tragic death of Carrie Fisher.

Needing a bad guy for The Rise of Skywalker and having little time to develop a new character, Abrams just decided to throw Palpatine into the mix and hope for the best. This all feels depressingly plausible and explains why his return feels so out of the blue.

We’ve always felt that as The Last Jedi ended with Kylo Ren seizing control of the First Order, the next film should have seen him as the big bad rather than another hooded Sith. We could still have gotten the same redemption arc, perhaps with Ren turning against General Hux and siding with Rey. But, for now, that’s just fan fiction and we’re stuck with the crappy ending of The Rise of Skywalker.

Here’s hoping The Rise of Skywalker sequel due in 2025 redeems these characters, as right now, the sequel trilogy represents a black mark on Star Wars.