It seems that clones are Lucasfilm’s go-to solution for explaining why Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker didn’t make much sense. When the credits rolled on the final installment of the Skywalker saga, many fans were annoyed that the film skipped over explaining how Emperor Palpatine survived being exploded. But now the novelization is out and it appears that in reaction to fan anger, they’ve tried to fill in some of the plot holes. Speaking of which, it turns out that the Emperor we see in the movie was actually a cloned body created to house his essence. But wait, there’s more.
One of the biggest revelations of the film was that Rey was actually Palpatine’s granddaughter. This raised eyebrows, as we’d neither seen nor heard any suggestion that the Emperor had any biological children. Well, now Lucasfilm has cleared that issue up with, you guessed it, clones. The Rise of Skywalker novelization reveals that when the Sith Eternal engineered a new Palpatine (apparently in the wake of Return of the Jedi), they ended up with “a not-quite-identical clone” who was “a useless, powerless failure.” It’s then revealed that this clone was Rey’s father.
Okay, first up, if Rey is the daughter of a Palpatine clone that makes her the Emperor’s daughter rather than his granddaughter. Secondly, it seems a bit out of character for the Sith Eternal to just let a failed clone wander off into the galaxy. And thirdly, if I’m understanding this right, the timeline just doesn’t make sense. Rey was born 9 years after the events of Return of the Jedi (according to Wookieepedia, who I trust on these things), so if they only started cloning Palpatine after his death, Rey’s father was at most 8 years old. I guess Star Wars clones have accelerated ageing, but it’s still pretty damn weird.
In any case, if it seems that clones are the answer, they may as well use them to explain some of the other plot holes. That Chewbacca you saw explode was actually a clone. Poe Dameron’s weird drug-dealing past that doesn’t make sense? A clone did it. How did Kylo Ren get off Kef Bir? The version at the end of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was a clone and the real Kylo is still on the planet. Basically, it’s clones all the way down from here.
