In all the months of marketing for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, no moment left a bigger impression or inspired more conversation than the final seconds of the film’s first trailer, when some familiar laughter confirmed the return of Emperor Palpatine.
Indeed, while director J.J. Abrams has suggested that Sheev’s comeback was part of his plan for the Sequel Trilogy all along, neither 2015’s The Force Awakens nor 2017’s The Last Jedi so much as hinted at the villain’s reemergence, and as it turns out, even actor Ian McDiarmid was surprised to see his character return to the fold.
Speaking to Digital Spy, the franchise veteran reflected on his supposed death scene in 1983’s Return of the Jedi, before suggesting that he never expected the Emperor to make a recovery:
“I thought I was dead! I thought he was dead. Because when we did Return of the Jedi, and I was thrown down that shoot to Galactic Hell, [he was dead]. And I said, ‘Oh, does he come back?’ And [George] said, ‘No, he’s dead.’ [Laughs] So I just accepted that. But then, of course, I didn’t know I was going to be doing the prequels, so in a sense he wasn’t dead, because we went back to revisit him when he was a young man. But I was totally surprised by this.”
What’s less surprising is the mixed response that Palpatine’s return has received. After sitting out the first two films in the Sequel Trilogy, the Emperor’s comeback is a twist that’s dropped suddenly in the exposition-heavy opening minutes of The Rise of Skywalker, and while some fans were just glad to see the big bad of the Skywalker Saga back on the big screen, others saw it as a last-minute push for easy nostalgia points.
On top of that, Sheev’s return brought a controversial new development to the table that essentially undoes one of the boldest twists from 2017’s The Last Jedi. And though Abrams himself has claimed that his film isn’t meant as some sort of apology or “correction” to Rian Johnson’s polarizing flick, there are a lot of people out there on both sides of the debate who evidently think otherwise.
In short, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker remains yet another divisive entry in a series that can’t help riling up the fans with each new release, but at least the internet will have a few years to cool off before the next movie comes our way.
