‘Star Wars’ supporters ponder a big ‘Revenge of the Sith plot hole

Emperor Palpatine may look like a helpless old man but anyone who’s seen Return of the Jedi will know he’s no slouch in combat — something the Jedi realized far too late in Star Wars; Revenge of the Sith when they turned up to arrest him.

It’s worth remembering that the film begins with Anakin and Obi-Wan on a mission to rescue Palpatine from General Grievous. They make their way through a stunning interstellar battle, infiltrate his ship, and fight their way through a droid army to dispatch the hapless Count Dooku and save Palpatine.

But there’s a wrinkle one fan has spotted that just doesn’t add up. If the two Jedi are on a rescue mission, where do they plan to put Palpatine after retrieving him?

Replies point out that Jedi are supposed to be quick improvisers, so perhaps they could have stolen or hijacked another ship:

Others say the amount of ships around them means they may have been angling for a pickup:

Or, perhaps, they could just pop him in an escape pod and hope for the best:

But seasoned The Clone Wars fans know that charging in and figuring things out on the spot is par for the course for these two:

In the end, Palpatine rode the crashing ship down into Coruscant and survived without a scratch on him, though in retrospect the Jedi should have found his being unscathed a bit suspicious.

As we know from many other Star Wars stories, Palpatine is a surprisingly hard person to permanently kill, so even if they’d ejected him into outer space he’d have probably found a way to make it through. Even so, this is a plot hole, though one that can be papered over easily.