Thank goodness that Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has other media adaptations to cover for its many plot holes, or else the fandom would’ve got even more divided with the passage of time.
While the Mouse House initially hoped that the last movie in the Skywalker Saga as helmed by J.J. Abrams would amend the mistakes of The Last Jedi and bring a sense of unanimity to the fandom, taking the safe road ultimately ended up backfiring in Disney’s face and Episode IX became as divisive as its predecessor, if not more. But among things that undermine the last installment’s success, plot holes prominently plague the movie from start to finish. This is where the official novelizations come in. After explaining how Palpatine survived his fall at the end of Return of the Jedi and uncovering the truth behind Rey’s heritage, Rae Carson’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker novel fixes another one of the movie’s plot holes, or rather, unaddressed enigmas.
When Rey and Kylo clashed one last time on the ruins of the Death Star, the former stabbed the son of Han Solo with his own lightsaber but ended up saving his life by transferring her life Force. After receiving a pep talk from his deceased dad, Ben Solo finally finds redemption and tosses the Kylo Ren persona into the abyss. But how did Ben manage to make his way to Exegol and help Rey confront the sinister Darth Sidious?
Assuming that the First Order disowned Kylo Ren as their Supreme Leader when Allegiant General Pryde received direct orders from Palpatine, Ben didn’t have access to any resources. Well, the novel neatly tries to explain this plot hole by featuring a scene that depicts the redeemed villain scavenging his way through the Death Star in the hopes of finding a working ship with a functioning hyperdrive. And luckily, he did: an Imperial TIE Fighter. As for how he made his way to Exegol without the last Sith Wayfinder, the novelization for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker tackles this question by revealing that Ben simply traced Rey’s tracking markers.
This is as good an explanation as any other that we could possibly hope to get, though it’s a shame that we have to learn this through other mediums. Still, given Abrams’ limited runtime and the fact that he had to cram in two movies’ worth of narrative into a single entry, it makes sense why so many of these details got bypassed in the development process.
