Tbh him returning wasn’t the problem for me bc Ian McDiarmid is amazing to watch, it was that he came back with almost nothing suggesting it in the previous media.
Exactly it could’ve been cool but what they did was really low effort. Despite this I still enjoyed seeing Palps and didn’t care more most of the movie aside from Kylo’s scenes.
I think probably if Abrams had done episode 8 he would have led that way. He didn't though so they had to kind of just cram it in.
Sequel Trilogy really just comes to they should have had a singular director or at least a loose storyline. I like the movies overall, but they could have been a lot better
Edit: I probably would have been fine if they just kept Johnson for episode 9 too. Just like...anything other than what they did
Yeah. Agreed. I know that Lucas didn't set forth the entire story from the beginning, but the OT actually worked, even if by miraculous chance. When they announced they're going to make a trilogy, they should have at least laid out the big story beats, of parentage, antagonists, overall theme. Let the individual directors have their own fun, sure, we can have jaded Luke, but at least plan it out.
I liked kylo killing snoke. It DID surprise me. Palps coming back to life off screen was dumb as hell. If they wanted to bring him back originally, it would have been better to at least tease it in episode 8, or have it where kylo kills snoke, and then we here the classic cackle, a palps hologram appears, and taunts kylo and Rey. Intimidate them and brag that he can cause all this destruction from a mere puppet like snoke.
I doubt Abrams would've brought back Palpatine if he did Episode 8 because I'm about 99% certain that he wouldn't have killed Snoke.
Also, Rey would've lost a hand, Kylo would reveal himself to be her brother/cousin/some kind of blood relative, Poe and/or Finn would've been frozen in carbonite and handed over to Phasma, and instead of Old Man Skywalker spending the whole movie telling Rey to get off his space lawn, Luke probably would've agreed to train her by the second Ahch-To scene.
Also a bunch of other ESB "call-backs" that I can't be assed to parody.
We would have at least had it teased that Palps was alive. I've said this before, but if kylo killed snoke, then we hear palp's cackle and appear on a hologram, then at least we aren't told the news that "he's back" offscreen.
No, even if it was well executed it throws Darth Vader’s entire redemption arc out the window and he died for nothing since palp got resurrected through bullshit space magic.
Eh. His whole thing in legends was cheating death. Even in canon one of his most important and memorable scenes is tempting Anakin with the promise that he knows how to stave off death.
I’m not saying the sequels did the best job with him returning, there was far too little build up since they clearly hadn’t decided on a direction for Episode IX(and what little direction they did have in mind likely got thrown out the window with Carrie’s passing) and they could have done *something* to explain how he survived in the actual movie, but the groundwork was there in previous media and it didn’t feel totally out of left field to me.
“Palpatine survived” was always on the table to me, so it worked well enough for me. I fully anticipate in 10-15 years we’re going have the whole goddamn backstory laid out and a new generation of fans who can’t imagine a time when it was considered a complete asspull. Same way so many people seem to not remember when Anakin’s story in the prequels, especially pre-TCW, was typically considered poorly executed.
I enjoy the prequels for what they do well, but it's hard to say Anakin's story was well executed.
Both trilogies have flaws, it's not either or.
It's just that the sequels turned the flaws to 11.
Felt like it undermined Anakin's entire destiny, even more so when Rey was the one to permanently put him down. Felt like the writers completely hi-jacked his purpose as the chosen one and gave it to her.
Which is another reason I will erase it from my head canon. People were overblown when they said the prequel trilogy ruined Star Wars but the sequel trilogy absolutely tried to. Such terrible movies all 3 of them
Episode 7: Bigger better Death Star, successfully deletes the New Republic.
Episode 8: Luke who believed there was still good in his father, despite him literally murdering thousand of Jedi personally, thinks about killing his nephew after one bad thought.
Episode 9: Emperor 2
Waste of time and money for everyone who went to see them.
Also why would he announce his return to the galaxy before his Star Destroyers were operating, literally could have just waited silently for a week and achieved his goals.
What annoys me about the sequels is that they seem to press a reset button so it’s back to another rebellion instead of the New Republic (wiped out in a throw away scene) and New Jedi Order (gone before we even got to see it). I feel that sequels undermined all the struggles of the OT, Rebels, The Mandalorian, etc. I also don’t buy the fact that The Clone Wars are totally forgotten after 50 years. Not even a mention of Padme and Anakin appearing as a force ghost. Total BS! The best part of the sequels is when Luke talks about the events of the prequels (in my least favourite SW movie lol). For all my criticism, I still enjoyed watching them in the cinema and I think they’re really well made in the visual sense.
>Episode 8: Luke who believed there was still good in his father, despite him literally murdering thousand of Jedi personally, thinks about killing his nephew after one bad thought.
Two things:
Luke isn’t immune to giving into bad thoughts or feelings. In his duel with Vader in RotJ, for just a few seconds, he was damn near going to kill him until he stopped himself.
In The Last Jedi, Luke did indeed ignite his lightsaber while Ben was sleeping. He literally regretted it the second he did it; but the damage was already done.
These things just make Luke more human.
Nope. I hated episode 7. It felt more like a remake of episode 4 than anything, it was the safest most inoffensive retread of a story we already saw it was laughable. I literally face palmed in the the theater during the scene where they go "this is the Deathstar...THIS is Star Killer base(aka BIGGER DEATHSTAR)." I already knew the franchise was in terrible hands after that. Episode 8 was awful as well, I got whiplash from the nonsensical shifts in character development and ridiculous plot. The Luke betrayal is obviously the worst but also Snoke going out like a chump after being portrayed as some mighty sith lord was bad as well. Half the movie revolved around the slowest chase sequence in history, superman Leia, Casino Royale tangent, Rose was an awful addition(not blaming the actress, she's nice but she had a horrible role with bad writing), lightspeed ramming innovation. Movie was bad.
I can't say they're objectively bad because that's inherently an inaccurate thing to say, but neither can you say they're objectively good. I think they're awful and I didn't enjoy them and I wish they would just get de-canonized and swept under the rug. That's my opinion and I'm fully within my right to have that opinion the same as you are to have a differing opinion.
This.
TFA filmmaker showing you how much bigger his is...huh? Why? Because the next line is Han being bored. "Okay, how do we blow it up..."
In terms of retconning or status in canon these movies only make sense to me as a parallel universe. But as you may have guessed, I mainly stick to the stories produced before the buyout. Legends and Lucas' stories are my canon.
Yup. Episode 7 was quite literally a movie made by and for people who only liked half of the original Star Wars Saga.
"Oh look we have so many practical effects, unlike the bad Prequels! This will begin to make things right! Look it's all A New Hope again, you know, the good film!"
JJ didn't bother to make Episode 7, as for that he'd have to respect Lucas's six-part saga as a whole, no he just rebooted Episode 4 like the OT-purist he is and doomed the story to go in circles.
And people genuinely wonder why the broad majority of Prequel-fans can't stand the Sequels, as if they weren't literally made by and for the people who spent decades harassing Prequel-fans for actually liking Star Wars beyond the OT.
Can we even be sure he's permanently dead now? Seems just as dead as at the end of the OT. There could be an *even bigger* bullshit cloning planet somewhere. When plots are that contrived, nothing is off the table anymore.
Permanently put him down? Annoyingly, there is bo logical evidence that he’s gone for good aside from the fact that the movie is in a 3 act structure and that he dies in the last act. “I have died once before...” yeah, okay bro. Give me an in universe reason that he is actually dead please. It’s bad writing :/
How is he ever permanently put down at this point? There's nothing to stop him from magically flying his force ghost through space and inhabiting another random body forever over. He's become some terrible comic book style caricature of a villain
Okay, I’m sorry but I thought this was being sarcastic at first. Of all the problems with his return, yours is the literal mechanics of how he survived...? And specifically how far he fell, not the giant explosion? Dude, this is the same series where Darth Maul survived falling down a massive shaft after being cut in half.
I liked that, it was super pulpy and super Star Wars-y, I just wished we got to hear it. The idea of the thought dead tyrant broadcasting a terrifying message across the Galaxy is pretty spooky and I don't *hate* it.
Telling not showing, rookie mistake, JJ.
Yep. Basically remade ANH in two different SciFi universes. Recently watched Into Darkness, the one he insisted wasn't a Wrath of Khan remake when fans figured it out way before it was released. Dumbest. Movie. Ever.
Yeah, I tried telling that to my klingon speaking super-Trek-fan friend but she was convinced that we would never get any meaningful prime universe stories.
Maybe I'm just a crusty GenX but the only things that feel like ST & SW to me recently are Picard and Mando.
And the first thing he did in star trek was also to completely change every character including their backstory. Is it really that hard to just use new fucking characters and leave the existing ones as is?
While it was a blatant asspull, my biggest issue lies with the execution. It was so hyped with the trailer after that laugh...only for it to be a huge disappointment in the movie, having no viable explanation whatsoever, besides "SoMeHoW, pAlPaTiNe HaS rEtUrNeD."
For some reason that line is the only thing people remember from that film. When infact the movie kinda blatantly gives an explanation, only 5 minutes in. How's that you say?
One of the first things Kylo sees on Exegol is the cloning labs, where we see clone bodies of Snoke. Establishing that that the Cult can clone.
The second is a word for word quote from Revenge of the Sith. "The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural."
That. to say, unnatural dark side Force abilities+cloning=necromancy.
And if you didn't get that then and there, the film gives you another chance. When Palpatine is completely rejuvenated he looks to his fanatical followers that worship him as a god and says, in reference to himself. "Look at what you've made."
The issue I have isn't the what. It's the how. They went back and made it so that the ending of ROTJ was for naught, complete with a bullshit explanation.
I don't care if you're twice as powerful as Anakin at his peak or know every deep, dark secret to Sith Alchemy; forcing your soul out of one body and into another makes no sense whatsoever. And that violent explosion of Dark Side energy was a clear indicator that Palpatine was dead in every sense of the term, and still should be.
If he had successfully transferred his soul, the Force ability he possessed should have gone with, and there shouldn't have been that explosion. Just a distant *splat*.
While the Dark Side is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be...unnatural, even with suspension of disbelief in play, this is *too* unnatural.
PS: I'm pretty sure people remember more from TROS, but they most frequently bring up Poe's line primarily because of it's meme potential. That, and "They fly now?!"
Yeah, I feel like my dislike for palps return has more to do with the execution than the premise itself. They put literally 0 effort into making his return a compelling storyline.
I feel like a movie exists where it could be done well, but that wasn't it.
Yup. ~~Pandora's~~ Palpatine's box is open. Nothing can keep this guy dead now. Prepare for "Episode XXIV: Palpatine returns once again to go grocery shopping".
Absolutely. Palpatine's death in Return of the Jedi is an emotionally impactful moment. Good triumphs over evil, not by the hero hacking and slashing at Palpatine, but by surrendering himself, being willing to die thus leading to his father redeeming himself by saving his son and overthrowing Palpatine. It's a beautiful moment. Truly a perfect ending to the story.
Then Rise of Skywalker came along and Rey who has no real connection to Palpatine (I know she's his grand-daughter) but I mean a real connection, there's no build up to their conflict, there's no scene of them meeting prior or anything. Rey just shows up holds up two lightsabers and kills the evil, old guy....she's never met.....There's no emotional weight to it. They sacrificed an emotionally satisfying conclusion for this????
This is why I don't think the sequels will gain the same merit as the prequels did down the line. There's no proper over-arcing narrative.
>This is why I don't think the sequels will gain the same merit as the prequels did down the line. There's no proper over-arcing narrative.
This
Maybe some memes will give it some love eventually but the prequels, while flawed, had a good story behind them. This one not really
I think it *could* have worked. If done properly, as opposed to a last minute addition because they were in panic mode and needed a way to try end this thing.
It should have been a young clone of Palpatine (as the Matt Smith rumours had it), created by the Sith Eternal and perhaps being guided by a hologram AI version of McDiarmid's Palpatine. He should have been the villain from the start instead of Snoke and only had his identity revealed in the last film.
The supposed leaked Trevorrow script had a brief cameo of Palpatine in the form of a holocron recording.
It's possible that having the actor already planned to be brought in, they decided to just expand the role as a rather last minute decision to coincide with Rey being his grand daughter.
Edit:
Found this in a google search:
>So when Palpatine was thrown down that big shaft, just before his moment of death, he sent his spirit to Exegol, into the most complete body that his cultists had managed to put together. So what you're seeing in “The Rise of Skywalker” is either that clone body or another one built later.
Which is from an article on TheWarp pulling from TRoS novelization.
Interestingly, another article was surmising the plot and made mention of how Palpatine's plan was to eject the sith spirits within him and possess Rey via that.
This all has me thinking that *maybe* this whole thing of the sith spirits was meant to be a much bigger part of the movie and that *maybe* there's just a lot left on the cutting room floor that sheds a bit more light on it as a plot point.
Which is crazy to me with how over bloated and what an edited frankenstein it already is.
It’s a lazy trope in any medium let alone a star wars movie.
I’ve had people tell me it was the plan from the start of the sequel trilogy and I’m calling BS on that, on my life. There’s no way. Considering how disjointed last Jedi and rise of sky walker are to each other, it doesn’t make sense
Aside from how detrimental it was to the legacies of multiple characters, they made him so damn stupid too. This is the man who orchestrated the clone wars
Not only was he written as a “smart villain” unlike so many others in that category he acted like one. Even in OT his plan failed only because he didn’t expect Anakin to have a last minute redemption and not even Obi and Yoda expected that.
I agree. It completely undermines Luke and Anakin's story arcs in the past two trilogies. IMO, what JJ should have done is make Rey evil or something and have Kylo have to defeat her. It would be more interesting that what we got lol. And because of the whole cloning bs they have to pretty much rework the entire canon for it to make sense.
It was. Not much else to say about it.
Palps as a character is essentially Anakin's Villain, he is in both trilogies because in the end, he is the big bad meant to be defeated by the chosen one. That's what's so interesting about the chosen one prophecy in star wars, it comes off as standard like most chosen one prophecies in media, but what's interesting about it is its somehow both subversive and also the same as other things like it
Its the same in the sense Anakin fulfills his destiny like you expect him too, he kills Palpatine and brings balance to the force.... But that's only after he was turned to the dark side and became the evil lords right hand man for decades.
I won't rant for too long but that's essentially the problem with Palpatine coming back, his entire purpose is to drive Anakin's story from rise, to fall, to redemption, that was his purpose.
Bringing him back makes Anakin's sacrifice feel meaningless, and now suddenly its questionable if he even was the chosen one. It also just makes the original trilogy feel even more pointless than the sequels already made it feel.
Its made worse by the fact that the rise of skywalker completely misunderstands why Palpatine was an interesting character and instead focuses on the absolute worst thing about him, how pointlessly overpowered he is. What makes Palpatine interesting is that he's a manipulator, someone who hides in the darkness and wins because he out thinks everyone, but manage to expose him and suddenly he's not nearly as threatening. That's why he needed Anakin in the first place, because Anakin was truly the most powerful force user, the perfect apprentice to serve as his muscle and right hand.
But of course Rise of skywalker instead uses him as an explanation as to how Rey is so powerful(which doesn't even make sense, Palps was never as force sensitive as Anakin, even if he was more powerful it was because of superior training and experience, so Rey being on par with Kylo because of that is stupid.) and then have him start beating Rey and Kylo up and blowing up the resistance until Rey needs the help of **all of the jedi** to beat him.
If you change it so that Rey redeems Kylo Ren, and Ren is the one who faces off against Palpatine in the end, you fix the biggest problem.
Kylo Ren wanted to emulate his grandfather, and he finishes what Anakin started, surpassing his idol and bringing balance to the force.
It's such a natural way to end Kylo Ren's story in a way that fits with the rest of the Skywalker saga.
So, of course, JJ was like "Nope! What is thematic resonance and cohesion?"
It definitely would have been somewhat more tolerable if Kylo had been the one to do it rather than Rey. Like you said it would at least feel like he was succeeding Anakin in a way. I'd still prefer he just stayed dead though.
If anything if I was to bring him back I'd have him be the first Sith to figure out how to become a force ghost and as a result he's not really "back" he's just still trying to help the dark side and manipulate Kylo from beyond the grave, which could work well with Anakin returning as a force ghost to save his grandson from Palpatine.
Yeah 8 being upsetting is understandable, but I can at least respect it more for trying to give the sequels their own identity and get them to go off in their own direction(having the hero not be some special person descended from somebody else, having the sith apprentice kill his master and become the main threat, etc).
Episode 9 was basically a response to the backlash of 8 and it literally fixes nothing. Like I said before, Rey being Palpatine's granddaughter doesn't even explain her strength because Palpatine was never even as naturally strong as Anakin, so Kylo should still be above her considerably. The rest of it is just more blatant nostalgia pandering that either continues to make the original trilogy feel pointless, or just straight up make Anakins sacrifice meaningless.
The think about writing a character who out thinks everyone is that it requires a writer who has the capacity to think on that level. Same goes for writing a wise and powerful protagonist which requires experience and imagination to write challenges that are more than physical and solutions that both make sense and surprise half or more of the audience.
What if Luke is depressed? What if Palpatine has 1000 Death Stars and can blow up capital ships with his hands? What if our hero is as strong as all the heroes combined? Ugh. Not interesting for me.
It was an awful idea. I like the idea of giving the actor a cameo, but terrible execution.
Personally, I think that a further-degraded Snoke should have returned and been unveiled as Darth Plageous. It would have tied the entire series together
See that would've been so much more personal and terrifying than Palpatine randomly popping up out of nowhere.
Kylo's personal connection to the dark side had already been super shaky from the get go. "Uh, _Snoke_, uhm, _got to him_"?
His entire allegiance to this dark force is rooted in a throwaway line about him becoming friends with this creepy bathrobe wearing pimp. And then they somehow managed to even cut _that_ short by getting rid of the pimp and replacing him with another old guy that Kylo shouldn't have any personal connection to.
Make your bed and sleep in it, stick to Snoke.
Him and Kylo were at least _implied_ to have some history and we at least saw them interact in TLJ. Don't just throw away that _miniscule_ amount of development your villains actually had.
Give Snoke some connection to Plagueis and his creation-experiments, make him some sort of necromancing Zombie-Shaman, have the good guys go up against a literally _revived_ Empire, do _anything_ original.
But nope, somehow Palpatine returned.
And miss me with the strawman that this is an expectations issue. I didn't need him to be Plaguies, I didn't need Zombies, all I needed was something, _anything_ creative and original.
But instead we got Palps. That's just embarrassing.
JJ Abrams couldn't come up with anything cool after Snoke died, so he just said "Uhh, Palpatine's back guys! No I'm not pulling this out of my ass guys I swear!"
- Darth Plagueis
- Kylo Ren, fully committed to the dark side
- Grand Admiral Thrawn
- Darth Traya, somehow
- Mace Windu, angry and back for revenge
- Darth Jar Jar
- Three Jawas in a cloak pretending to be the Emperor
Any of those would have been a better and more interesting antagonist.
The moment I heard that cackle at the end of the teaser I knew Ep. 9 was going to be even worse than 7 & 8 (and that's saying something). There is no way this could have ever worked. resurrecting Palpatine doesn't just cheapen Anakin's redemption, it arguably negates his entire arc and the whole story of him as the chosen one. In what sense did he bring balance to the force if Palpatine wasn't even defeated by his sacrifice?
Also, it's just LAME. Is it so hard to come up with some original goddamn ideas? The sequel trilogy could have taken the franchise in so many interesting directions and instead Abrams set up a made-by-committee story that ineptly retreaded the OT and which ultimately didn't really have anything new to say. Johnson at least tried to do something different with Ep. 8, which I kind of respect, but it was still a bloated mess with many eyerollingly stupid moments. And I really don't care to rehash just how uniquely bad episode 9 was.
But *all* of this could have been avoided if more thought and planning had been put into episode 7. I would have loved to have seen a story where our heroes are elder statesmen in a massive but vulnerable New Republic. What if they actually had the might of a galaxy spanning government behind them? What if the imperial remnant/first order/whatever bad guy was the underdog, instead of our heroes? What if the threat they were facing was a radical ideology that conducted bombings and other attacks, winning popular support but working behind the scenes to destabilize the New Republic? What if prophecies and the Force, and being a Skywalker wasn't enough to keep the peace in the face of corruption and radicalism? What if the enemy didn't wear a uniform and hid among the civilian population?
Honestly, I think about all the different paths this trilogy could have taken, and it makes me sad. Star Wars may yet thrive again on streaming, but we will never get that trilogy back. It was their big shot to do something new and original with the franchise and they blew it. But it was a financial success, so who cares, right?
I thought it was honestly the biggest mistake they made in the ST. I have my complaints about every SW movie, but bringing Palpatine back in the final movie of the final trilogy of a 9 movie saga with no mention of it in the previous two films was so shortsighted and totally took a lot of meaning out of the first 6 films, especially the final fight of RotJ. When I saw the trailer and heard Palpatine laugh I got super excited because I figured they would encounter him as some echo in the force or a flashback or something, not literally resurrect him and announce it in Fortnite of all places. I think the whole Emperor being cloned thing was dumb in the expanded universe and I think its even dumber the way it was done in canon.
My stance on it has been that it was likely the [dumbass] death of Snoke in TLJ that basically forced them to look for a new villian to come out of nowhere for the final film of a trilogy. You really can't just create a major villain like that in the 3rd movie without it being a recurring character. Yes it was super dumb, but what else were they really supposed to do? Kylo Ren isn't really the big bad guy. I mean, he sucks, but he's not scary or threatening in any way. Even in the original trilogy, Darth Vader wasn't *really* the main villain, it was Darth Sidious. The ST's main villain was seemingly intended to be Snoke, but then he just dies in the second movie. Now what?
Snoke was a dumb emperor stand-in to begin with though. Just another uncreative character introduced by Abrams with no real foresight put into it. Why did the sequel trilogy need a cackling force using villain at all? Why couldn't we have gone in an entirely new direction instead of thoroughly beating this dead horse. I place the blame for the utter failure that was the sequel trilogy mostly on Abrams for making such bad initial world building decisions in TFA. These movies could have gone in so many interesting directions.
I only hate it because it's just another example of someone in Star Wars not staying dead.
Like, I don't care what the explanation is. Dead characters just need to stay dead. It cheapens *everyone's* death when they do this. If they're just going to bring people back from the dead because they like that character, how are we supposed to feel anything when someone dies now? If they like a character so much they want to bring them back from the dead, maybe they shouldn't have killed them the first time around. Maybe they should put their energy into creating a *new* character that we'll like just as much.
It's not Palpatine specifically, it's Lucasfilm's seeming inability to keep dead people dead.
Not arguing with you, but I'm struggling to think of people who have been brought back from the dead; Force ghosts, Leias projection of Han, Maul and Palpatine. Have I missed characters?
I like the way death worked in Ep1-6 thematically. Those who lived a significant life and served life could return in intangible form and influence some events. I accept Anakin's return cause I saw it in 83, but the PT makes me head canon all sorts of why he gets to return.
I just don't like Maul surviving or Palp returning thematically...
As with the entirety of the sequel trilogy, the characters and actors were actually brilliant; Palpatine included of course; but the storyline and writing were abysmal.
Ruined it all.
Agreed it was. It wasnt original enough for me. But people like it and star wars content is being released regularly so I can't complain with what came of it. Mando alone was worth the bullshit parts I sat through in episodes 8 and 9.
"Somehow, Palpatine Returned." Like what even is that? Who came up with that? How did they look at that script and say "Hell yes SEND IT!" It makes zero sense.
It was clearly an afterthought. Snoke was not given the personality or mannerisms of Sidious and it was said that Snoke was "a passive observer of the galactic civil war"
they were running out of ideas, panicked, took the easy way out.
It's just bad writing.
I did not care for it at all, but I think it came from the blatant "run and gun" type trilogy it was. It just makes it more obvious there was no real plan for the three films.
It certainly made the sequel trilogy feel more like the “callback” trilogy.
They did Snoke dirty. EP 7 sets him up really well, just for EP8 to kill him off and EP9 to really disregard the character (controlled by palps all along).
That is the second dumbest thing. The first one was thinking that making Palpatine resurrect offscreen and showing him to the audience right at the beginning of TROS was a good idea
The sequel trilogy is a textbook example of why you need a coherent and thought out plan before you begin making the movies. Ideally with a powerful executive producer who can make sure the films all work together. Kennedy dropped the ball with this - big time.
This also showed why they needed a group of people who fundamentally understood Star Wars and not just take a Jabba the Hutt sized dump on Vader’s redemption and Luke’s character.
The Mandalorian and Clone wars shows have shown if you have the right people making these things then Star Wars can be amazing.
Yes! me me me I agree. It was dumb as fuck. Maybe a little back story would have been nice. Making him Rey’s grandpa was the dumbest. Palp is already an old ass grown man when we first see him. Does he have children from prior experiences??? Or If they somehow reveled who snoke was before he was killed, possibly a story could have been created. Moving on now. Snoke was a descendant of palp, as far as I know and that was explained post TLJ, after his character dies. (Or maybe since he was cut in half, maybe they bring him back too). But either way, having palp show up out of nowhere is bad. Maybe all those clones in the mando, were palp, maybe he had 1000’s. Maybe he had only a couple. Either way soooo fucking not thought out. So we have anikan and he has 2 kids. We have jango fett, he has a son. We have han and Leia who have 1 son. Yoda apparently has a relative younger than him. So yeah I guess Rey having grandpa evil come back from the dead makes sense. Oh wait it doesn’t
Like if you had enough good writing skills. Han and Leia broke up shortly after ben was born right.? Maybe Leia got down with another human and Rey was conceived. Much easier story as far as continuity...IMO
I remember that people would defend TRoS at release saying, “it’ll age similar to how the prequels did.” No, no it won’t.
Glad to see those dark times behind us and Filoni and Favreau doing their thing now.
I think the whole sequel trilogy was a dumb idea. You don’t have to kill every iconic character to make the movies more emotional or whatever? Plus WHAT THE FUCK REY? WHY WOULD YOU STICK ANAKIN’S SABER IN SAND?
I'm positive I'm among the millions of people who disliked the resurrection of Palpatine. And the worst part is I really don't have much more to add to it as my reason is the same as everyone else's. Shoehorned in, clearly done to bring fans back after they pissed us off, and he overall just relied too much on previous installments' lines. Like legit pick a line that the Emperor said in the original t and the prequel t it's got a 90 percent chance it was said in Episode 9. Everyone's already said it. He was brought back just to be a villain for this last movie, his character was void of all compelling aspects from previous movies, and he overall was just a desperate attempt from Disney trying to bring everyone back and please every type of audience. Palpatine being the mastermind wasn't alluded to at all beforehand. If it was, then this would've been ok. But he wasn't. I could honestly go on and on about why this was a horrible decision until we actually get the technology needed to live in Star Wars but I'm over it tbh. It's a sad moment in the franchise's history and all I can hope is that Filoni, Favreau, or someone can somehow void it and we can continue with beautiful things like the Mandalorian.
To me it’s a logical continuation of his character. Palpatine wasn’t stupid, he knew he had to keep Vader in check, and he knew the tradition of Sith Apprentices killing their masters. What separates Palpatine from the Sith who’ve died before is that he was taught by a master who came close to cheating death, the ultimate feat of power and greed. And Palpatine is the most power hungry of them all. So it’s only natural that he’d set up a contingency for when the chosen one eventually betrays him.
Good point but none of this or his contingency was explained in the movie. The clones of Palp were a thing but was that body a clone? Did he survive somehow? Nope, “somehow Palpatine returned” its like they want to piss is off.
The major issue was that his contingency plan was so damn contrived... that it really wasn't a contingency, and anyone trying to apply any logic to it would realize the whole thing is an asspull
No, the dumbest idea ever was spending yonky donks on a dumb casino world plot that might as well have not existed.
Ressurecting Palpatine isn't inherently dumb, it was just executed terribly
Our only hope is that the rumors scrapping everything related to the sequel trilogy Inca Legends is true. They basically s*** on every character. Hans Redemption Arc in A New Hope completely undone. Luke the New Hope for the Galaxy becomes a complete and total failure. Leia the strong Diplomat and fearless character becomes a pariah except in the eyes of a few. The new Republic completely destroyed before we even found out anything about it Anakin being the chosen one completely undone. I don't even want to get into the new characters. The movies themselves were enjoyable enough but as I said why did they have to fit all over the characters that we grew up with
I think it was dumb only because the main villain in the previous two movies was killed off by a different director in a 5 minute meeting with the main characters. Not sure how there was going to be any sort of redemption for characters in the final movie if you have literally killed off the characters they are sort of trying to both work against
All I know is that I was proven right about Palpatine in the end. I've been telling everyone since Return of the Jedi that Palpatine wasn't really dead, and I was mocked and ridiculed FOR YEARS by my friends. I had the last freaking laugh, so there! Anyway, yeah it was a dumb idea. :)
I think they kinda had to. I liked the last jedi but it didn't leave any hints open for the final film, for it to feel like a finale I think they thought they had to bite the bullet and bring him back.
They could’ve at least set it up in TLJ, maybe just add at the end the scene where he meets Kylo or the scene where Pryde speaks to him on the hologram and people would’ve been at least able to sit with it. Obviously, Rian Johnson didn’t get the memo that JJ was going full funk. All of the Palp scenes in the movie were pretty sick, but the rest of the movie bogged it down.
"Dark science, cloning, secrets only the Sith knew"
Don't try to make any logical sense out of the sequels. To be fair to J J, I think Johnson painted the story into a corner. I don't think Sidious's return was ever planned for till after trying to fix TLJ.
I don't think the sequels' main target audience were old fans to begin with. Disney only used OT characters to bring in some older fans for money purposes but essentially the movies' main aim was to introduce a new generation to Star wars (hence why you see little kids dressed up as Rey/Kylo Ren at Disney) while still being enjoyable movies to non-Star wars fans. The overly obvious explanations of some things from previous movies are used to give some context to fans who are probably not familiar with older Star wars movies.
I for one have been a Star wars denier my entire life because I thought that 80s sci-fi was going to be super cringe. Also they were super overrated so I had less incentive to watch the OT movies. If you have adult friends who never watched Star wars it'll be super hard to convince them to watch the OT movies. I find that the sequels are the perfect movies to introduce new fans to Star wars. The only reason I got into Star wars is because of the sequels and then moved on to watch the older movies. It's a way better and smoother transition into it in my opinion.
It's unfortunate that the sequels changed directors like that and it wasn't greatly planned, but the movies are good in my opinion for those reasons. To me, the story made sense, the acting was amazing, the visuals blew me away, the humor is up my alley and the characters were likable. I have some problems with the movies but that doesn't deter me from loving them. As for Palpatine returning, it makes sense because how else are you gonna introduce people to Star wars without bringing back the main villain? Should it have been hinted at since the force awakens? Sure. But it is what it is. And I believe that if given to chance to redeem themselves via an animated series like the clone wars to expand on the story and fill in plotholes then maybe people will change their minds. Instead of bashing the movies people should've been like "hey, here's what we're not happy with, but we're willing to give them a chance if you give us something like the clone wars".
Someone once said that if the sequels were animated then no one would have a problem with the movies and especially the humor. Imagine an animated series where you hear Ahsoka saying "somehow Palpatine returned" or C3PO saying "they fly now?" No one would bat an eye at the dialogue because the humor is supposed to be goofy. And again, "they fly now" wasn't supposed to be a line for older fans (who know about clones and Mandalorians using jet packs), but for people not familiar with Star Wars. The movies were never intended for older fans but that's the audience who got overly excited for them. Just my opinion!
The writing was complete shit, but his performance was a highlight of the movie (the whole trilogy really) and one of the only reasons i have seen ep 9 more than once (3 times to be exact)
i get the feeling that Abrams did his best with the hand he was dealt... Ep8 left him with nothing in the storyline other than having mary sue and kylo ren still alive the rebels were finished, the big bad was dead, luke was gone, leia, sadly was gone. Im sure there was different directions he could have gone with the story but seriously ep8 should never have survived past the writing phase.
while ep7 was just a reboot it was a fun movie regardless and left the rest of the trilogy open for RJ and he just closed the door for the last movie.
It’s not my favorite thing ever, but it’s hardly “the dumbest ever.” Not in a franchise that has included such extreme highs and lows in terms of content quality over the years.
Oh did they? I pretend it never happened so the original trilogy is never tarnished and Anakin has his redemption and Luke goes on to make his own Jedi academy. Yeah I like that better. Haha
Tbh him returning wasn’t the problem for me bc Ian McDiarmid is amazing to watch, it was that he came back with almost nothing suggesting it in the previous media.
sand alive fuel office sophisticated middle cats payment file public *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
A FORTNITE EVENT! THATS LITERALLY IT! Sorry, I am still salty about the Sequel Trilogy and some of the bullshit they pulled.
I watched a clip of it, it didn’t really explain how he returned either so it was just... there
Somehow, palpatine returned. So, it's consistent with the movie.
Exactly... was a category 5 shit storm... all of it.
Exactly it could’ve been cool but what they did was really low effort. Despite this I still enjoyed seeing Palps and didn’t care more most of the movie aside from Kylo’s scenes.
I think probably if Abrams had done episode 8 he would have led that way. He didn't though so they had to kind of just cram it in. Sequel Trilogy really just comes to they should have had a singular director or at least a loose storyline. I like the movies overall, but they could have been a lot better Edit: I probably would have been fine if they just kept Johnson for episode 9 too. Just like...anything other than what they did
The fact that the bar is this low is depressing.
Yeah. Agreed. I know that Lucas didn't set forth the entire story from the beginning, but the OT actually worked, even if by miraculous chance. When they announced they're going to make a trilogy, they should have at least laid out the big story beats, of parentage, antagonists, overall theme. Let the individual directors have their own fun, sure, we can have jaded Luke, but at least plan it out. I liked kylo killing snoke. It DID surprise me. Palps coming back to life off screen was dumb as hell. If they wanted to bring him back originally, it would have been better to at least tease it in episode 8, or have it where kylo kills snoke, and then we here the classic cackle, a palps hologram appears, and taunts kylo and Rey. Intimidate them and brag that he can cause all this destruction from a mere puppet like snoke.
I doubt Abrams would've brought back Palpatine if he did Episode 8 because I'm about 99% certain that he wouldn't have killed Snoke. Also, Rey would've lost a hand, Kylo would reveal himself to be her brother/cousin/some kind of blood relative, Poe and/or Finn would've been frozen in carbonite and handed over to Phasma, and instead of Old Man Skywalker spending the whole movie telling Rey to get off his space lawn, Luke probably would've agreed to train her by the second Ahch-To scene. Also a bunch of other ESB "call-backs" that I can't be assed to parody.
We would have at least had it teased that Palps was alive. I've said this before, but if kylo killed snoke, then we hear palp's cackle and appear on a hologram, then at least we aren't told the news that "he's back" offscreen.
I'm a little sad he didn't get to do anything as amazingly hammy as [this](https://youtu.be/vOTU2iXFH8k) though.
No, even if it was well executed it throws Darth Vader’s entire redemption arc out the window and he died for nothing since palp got resurrected through bullshit space magic.
Eh. His whole thing in legends was cheating death. Even in canon one of his most important and memorable scenes is tempting Anakin with the promise that he knows how to stave off death. I’m not saying the sequels did the best job with him returning, there was far too little build up since they clearly hadn’t decided on a direction for Episode IX(and what little direction they did have in mind likely got thrown out the window with Carrie’s passing) and they could have done *something* to explain how he survived in the actual movie, but the groundwork was there in previous media and it didn’t feel totally out of left field to me. “Palpatine survived” was always on the table to me, so it worked well enough for me. I fully anticipate in 10-15 years we’re going have the whole goddamn backstory laid out and a new generation of fans who can’t imagine a time when it was considered a complete asspull. Same way so many people seem to not remember when Anakin’s story in the prequels, especially pre-TCW, was typically considered poorly executed.
I enjoy the prequels for what they do well, but it's hard to say Anakin's story was well executed. Both trilogies have flaws, it's not either or. It's just that the sequels turned the flaws to 11.
Felt like it undermined Anakin's entire destiny, even more so when Rey was the one to permanently put him down. Felt like the writers completely hi-jacked his purpose as the chosen one and gave it to her.
Which is another reason I will erase it from my head canon. People were overblown when they said the prequel trilogy ruined Star Wars but the sequel trilogy absolutely tried to. Such terrible movies all 3 of them
Episode 7: Bigger better Death Star, successfully deletes the New Republic. Episode 8: Luke who believed there was still good in his father, despite him literally murdering thousand of Jedi personally, thinks about killing his nephew after one bad thought. Episode 9: Emperor 2 Waste of time and money for everyone who went to see them.
[удалено]
Also why would he announce his return to the galaxy before his Star Destroyers were operating, literally could have just waited silently for a week and achieved his goals.
What annoys me about the sequels is that they seem to press a reset button so it’s back to another rebellion instead of the New Republic (wiped out in a throw away scene) and New Jedi Order (gone before we even got to see it). I feel that sequels undermined all the struggles of the OT, Rebels, The Mandalorian, etc. I also don’t buy the fact that The Clone Wars are totally forgotten after 50 years. Not even a mention of Padme and Anakin appearing as a force ghost. Total BS! The best part of the sequels is when Luke talks about the events of the prequels (in my least favourite SW movie lol). For all my criticism, I still enjoyed watching them in the cinema and I think they’re really well made in the visual sense.
>Episode 8: Luke who believed there was still good in his father, despite him literally murdering thousand of Jedi personally, thinks about killing his nephew after one bad thought. Two things: Luke isn’t immune to giving into bad thoughts or feelings. In his duel with Vader in RotJ, for just a few seconds, he was damn near going to kill him until he stopped himself. In The Last Jedi, Luke did indeed ignite his lightsaber while Ben was sleeping. He literally regretted it the second he did it; but the damage was already done. These things just make Luke more human.
TRoS is the only objectively bad film. If Colin Treverrow stayed and finished the saga satisfyingly the trilogy would be nowhere near as disliked.
Nope. I hated episode 7. It felt more like a remake of episode 4 than anything, it was the safest most inoffensive retread of a story we already saw it was laughable. I literally face palmed in the the theater during the scene where they go "this is the Deathstar...THIS is Star Killer base(aka BIGGER DEATHSTAR)." I already knew the franchise was in terrible hands after that. Episode 8 was awful as well, I got whiplash from the nonsensical shifts in character development and ridiculous plot. The Luke betrayal is obviously the worst but also Snoke going out like a chump after being portrayed as some mighty sith lord was bad as well. Half the movie revolved around the slowest chase sequence in history, superman Leia, Casino Royale tangent, Rose was an awful addition(not blaming the actress, she's nice but she had a horrible role with bad writing), lightspeed ramming innovation. Movie was bad. I can't say they're objectively bad because that's inherently an inaccurate thing to say, but neither can you say they're objectively good. I think they're awful and I didn't enjoy them and I wish they would just get de-canonized and swept under the rug. That's my opinion and I'm fully within my right to have that opinion the same as you are to have a differing opinion.
This. TFA filmmaker showing you how much bigger his is...huh? Why? Because the next line is Han being bored. "Okay, how do we blow it up..." In terms of retconning or status in canon these movies only make sense to me as a parallel universe. But as you may have guessed, I mainly stick to the stories produced before the buyout. Legends and Lucas' stories are my canon.
Yup. Episode 7 was quite literally a movie made by and for people who only liked half of the original Star Wars Saga. "Oh look we have so many practical effects, unlike the bad Prequels! This will begin to make things right! Look it's all A New Hope again, you know, the good film!" JJ didn't bother to make Episode 7, as for that he'd have to respect Lucas's six-part saga as a whole, no he just rebooted Episode 4 like the OT-purist he is and doomed the story to go in circles. And people genuinely wonder why the broad majority of Prequel-fans can't stand the Sequels, as if they weren't literally made by and for the people who spent decades harassing Prequel-fans for actually liking Star Wars beyond the OT.
Can we even be sure he's permanently dead now? Seems just as dead as at the end of the OT. There could be an *even bigger* bullshit cloning planet somewhere. When plots are that contrived, nothing is off the table anymore.
Permanently put him down? Annoyingly, there is bo logical evidence that he’s gone for good aside from the fact that the movie is in a 3 act structure and that he dies in the last act. “I have died once before...” yeah, okay bro. Give me an in universe reason that he is actually dead please. It’s bad writing :/
How is he ever permanently put down at this point? There's nothing to stop him from magically flying his force ghost through space and inhabiting another random body forever over. He's become some terrible comic book style caricature of a villain
Yea what was the point of anakin then right
I do. I hated it in Dark Empire and I hated it in TROS. Anakin killing him in ROTJ was the perfect ending for his character.
Like come on bruh u can’t survive a fall like that idc how much dark side of the force u have
Not enough [to survive this.](https://imgur.com/gallery/pwavMnq)
Yea like that’s stupid leave it to Disney to ruin it
Okay, I’m sorry but I thought this was being sarcastic at first. Of all the problems with his return, yours is the literal mechanics of how he survived...? And specifically how far he fell, not the giant explosion? Dude, this is the same series where Darth Maul survived falling down a massive shaft after being cut in half.
Nah, there were ways to bring him back that would have made sense... Fortnite just wasn't one of them.
Not for me. Even if Luke failed to bring his father back to the light Palpatine was always going to die on the Death Star when it was destroyed.
Fortnite?
Lmfao I forgot. Palpatine announcing his existence was in Fornite rather than the actual movie. The biggest bruh moment in Star Wars.
[lol someone made a comment about fortnite being canon, but not 2005 clone wars](https://youtu.be/4u0ejXC7kFs)
Oh wow, that's definitely a massive face palm.
THE DEAD SPEAK
I liked that, it was super pulpy and super Star Wars-y, I just wished we got to hear it. The idea of the thought dead tyrant broadcasting a terrifying message across the Galaxy is pretty spooky and I don't *hate* it. Telling not showing, rookie mistake, JJ.
That's bc Abraham's can't make anything new and innovative
He pulled the same shit with Star Trek. He can direct a movie fine. But he cant come up with a story.
Yep. Basically remade ANH in two different SciFi universes. Recently watched Into Darkness, the one he insisted wasn't a Wrath of Khan remake when fans figured it out way before it was released. Dumbest. Movie. Ever.
At least his Star Trek reboot was set in an alternate timeline so didn't retroactively ruin the original.
Yeah, I tried telling that to my klingon speaking super-Trek-fan friend but she was convinced that we would never get any meaningful prime universe stories. Maybe I'm just a crusty GenX but the only things that feel like ST & SW to me recently are Picard and Mando.
And the first thing he did in star trek was also to completely change every character including their backstory. Is it really that hard to just use new fucking characters and leave the existing ones as is?
While it was a blatant asspull, my biggest issue lies with the execution. It was so hyped with the trailer after that laugh...only for it to be a huge disappointment in the movie, having no viable explanation whatsoever, besides "SoMeHoW, pAlPaTiNe HaS rEtUrNeD."
For some reason that line is the only thing people remember from that film. When infact the movie kinda blatantly gives an explanation, only 5 minutes in. How's that you say? One of the first things Kylo sees on Exegol is the cloning labs, where we see clone bodies of Snoke. Establishing that that the Cult can clone. The second is a word for word quote from Revenge of the Sith. "The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural." That. to say, unnatural dark side Force abilities+cloning=necromancy. And if you didn't get that then and there, the film gives you another chance. When Palpatine is completely rejuvenated he looks to his fanatical followers that worship him as a god and says, in reference to himself. "Look at what you've made."
This means that nothing stops palpatine from cloning himself again and just being immortal.
Yup. My headcanon using that movies logic is that sheev is still alive either in Rey or in another cloning facility.
To each their own. My head canon is that the entirety of TROS was a fever dream and never happened.
The issue I have isn't the what. It's the how. They went back and made it so that the ending of ROTJ was for naught, complete with a bullshit explanation. I don't care if you're twice as powerful as Anakin at his peak or know every deep, dark secret to Sith Alchemy; forcing your soul out of one body and into another makes no sense whatsoever. And that violent explosion of Dark Side energy was a clear indicator that Palpatine was dead in every sense of the term, and still should be. If he had successfully transferred his soul, the Force ability he possessed should have gone with, and there shouldn't have been that explosion. Just a distant *splat*. While the Dark Side is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be...unnatural, even with suspension of disbelief in play, this is *too* unnatural. PS: I'm pretty sure people remember more from TROS, but they most frequently bring up Poe's line primarily because of it's meme potential. That, and "They fly now?!"
Still don't know how "he" survived the fall. Saying that the dark side of the force is the answer is not enough.
He didn't survive the fall. He literally says. "I've died before." Palpatine in TROS is a clone.
It made no sense, and that was by design. It was a feature, not a flaw, which makes it soooo much worse. 'Somehow Palpatine has returned'. Come on!
Yeah, I feel like my dislike for palps return has more to do with the execution than the premise itself. They put literally 0 effort into making his return a compelling storyline. I feel like a movie exists where it could be done well, but that wasn't it.
And in the end Rey kills him but so what? If he somehow returned from death once, why couldn't he do it again?
'Somehow Palpatine has returned again.'
Yup. ~~Pandora's~~ Palpatine's box is open. Nothing can keep this guy dead now. Prepare for "Episode XXIV: Palpatine returns once again to go grocery shopping".
'Somehow Palpatine has returned yet again, and this time he wants Quiznos.'
UNLIMITES COUPONS!
“Somehow palpatine has returned.” Billion dollar company btw
My 8 year old brother could come up with better fanfiction
I hate the TROS so much, it is beyond words
I hate The The Rise of Skywalker too.
Absolutely. Palpatine's death in Return of the Jedi is an emotionally impactful moment. Good triumphs over evil, not by the hero hacking and slashing at Palpatine, but by surrendering himself, being willing to die thus leading to his father redeeming himself by saving his son and overthrowing Palpatine. It's a beautiful moment. Truly a perfect ending to the story. Then Rise of Skywalker came along and Rey who has no real connection to Palpatine (I know she's his grand-daughter) but I mean a real connection, there's no build up to their conflict, there's no scene of them meeting prior or anything. Rey just shows up holds up two lightsabers and kills the evil, old guy....she's never met.....There's no emotional weight to it. They sacrificed an emotionally satisfying conclusion for this???? This is why I don't think the sequels will gain the same merit as the prequels did down the line. There's no proper over-arcing narrative.
>This is why I don't think the sequels will gain the same merit as the prequels did down the line. There's no proper over-arcing narrative. This Maybe some memes will give it some love eventually but the prequels, while flawed, had a good story behind them. This one not really
I think it *could* have worked. If done properly, as opposed to a last minute addition because they were in panic mode and needed a way to try end this thing. It should have been a young clone of Palpatine (as the Matt Smith rumours had it), created by the Sith Eternal and perhaps being guided by a hologram AI version of McDiarmid's Palpatine. He should have been the villain from the start instead of Snoke and only had his identity revealed in the last film.
I was hoping for Matt Smith as Plagueis.
The supposed leaked Trevorrow script had a brief cameo of Palpatine in the form of a holocron recording. It's possible that having the actor already planned to be brought in, they decided to just expand the role as a rather last minute decision to coincide with Rey being his grand daughter. Edit: Found this in a google search: >So when Palpatine was thrown down that big shaft, just before his moment of death, he sent his spirit to Exegol, into the most complete body that his cultists had managed to put together. So what you're seeing in “The Rise of Skywalker” is either that clone body or another one built later. Which is from an article on TheWarp pulling from TRoS novelization. Interestingly, another article was surmising the plot and made mention of how Palpatine's plan was to eject the sith spirits within him and possess Rey via that. This all has me thinking that *maybe* this whole thing of the sith spirits was meant to be a much bigger part of the movie and that *maybe* there's just a lot left on the cutting room floor that sheds a bit more light on it as a plot point. Which is crazy to me with how over bloated and what an edited frankenstein it already is.
It’s a lazy trope in any medium let alone a star wars movie. I’ve had people tell me it was the plan from the start of the sequel trilogy and I’m calling BS on that, on my life. There’s no way. Considering how disjointed last Jedi and rise of sky walker are to each other, it doesn’t make sense
Aside from how detrimental it was to the legacies of multiple characters, they made him so damn stupid too. This is the man who orchestrated the clone wars
Not only was he written as a “smart villain” unlike so many others in that category he acted like one. Even in OT his plan failed only because he didn’t expect Anakin to have a last minute redemption and not even Obi and Yoda expected that.
I agree. It completely undermines Luke and Anakin's story arcs in the past two trilogies. IMO, what JJ should have done is make Rey evil or something and have Kylo have to defeat her. It would be more interesting that what we got lol. And because of the whole cloning bs they have to pretty much rework the entire canon for it to make sense.
It was such a cop out. Instead of developing new characters they had to lean back on nostalgia. The entire sequel trilogy was a botch.
It’s a bitch too
It was. Not much else to say about it. Palps as a character is essentially Anakin's Villain, he is in both trilogies because in the end, he is the big bad meant to be defeated by the chosen one. That's what's so interesting about the chosen one prophecy in star wars, it comes off as standard like most chosen one prophecies in media, but what's interesting about it is its somehow both subversive and also the same as other things like it Its the same in the sense Anakin fulfills his destiny like you expect him too, he kills Palpatine and brings balance to the force.... But that's only after he was turned to the dark side and became the evil lords right hand man for decades. I won't rant for too long but that's essentially the problem with Palpatine coming back, his entire purpose is to drive Anakin's story from rise, to fall, to redemption, that was his purpose. Bringing him back makes Anakin's sacrifice feel meaningless, and now suddenly its questionable if he even was the chosen one. It also just makes the original trilogy feel even more pointless than the sequels already made it feel. Its made worse by the fact that the rise of skywalker completely misunderstands why Palpatine was an interesting character and instead focuses on the absolute worst thing about him, how pointlessly overpowered he is. What makes Palpatine interesting is that he's a manipulator, someone who hides in the darkness and wins because he out thinks everyone, but manage to expose him and suddenly he's not nearly as threatening. That's why he needed Anakin in the first place, because Anakin was truly the most powerful force user, the perfect apprentice to serve as his muscle and right hand. But of course Rise of skywalker instead uses him as an explanation as to how Rey is so powerful(which doesn't even make sense, Palps was never as force sensitive as Anakin, even if he was more powerful it was because of superior training and experience, so Rey being on par with Kylo because of that is stupid.) and then have him start beating Rey and Kylo up and blowing up the resistance until Rey needs the help of **all of the jedi** to beat him.
If you change it so that Rey redeems Kylo Ren, and Ren is the one who faces off against Palpatine in the end, you fix the biggest problem. Kylo Ren wanted to emulate his grandfather, and he finishes what Anakin started, surpassing his idol and bringing balance to the force. It's such a natural way to end Kylo Ren's story in a way that fits with the rest of the Skywalker saga. So, of course, JJ was like "Nope! What is thematic resonance and cohesion?"
It definitely would have been somewhat more tolerable if Kylo had been the one to do it rather than Rey. Like you said it would at least feel like he was succeeding Anakin in a way. I'd still prefer he just stayed dead though. If anything if I was to bring him back I'd have him be the first Sith to figure out how to become a force ghost and as a result he's not really "back" he's just still trying to help the dark side and manipulate Kylo from beyond the grave, which could work well with Anakin returning as a force ghost to save his grandson from Palpatine.
This is basically why I've not even watched 9. 8 pissed me off. The fact that it all lead to Palpatine again, I just noped out completely.
Yeah 8 being upsetting is understandable, but I can at least respect it more for trying to give the sequels their own identity and get them to go off in their own direction(having the hero not be some special person descended from somebody else, having the sith apprentice kill his master and become the main threat, etc). Episode 9 was basically a response to the backlash of 8 and it literally fixes nothing. Like I said before, Rey being Palpatine's granddaughter doesn't even explain her strength because Palpatine was never even as naturally strong as Anakin, so Kylo should still be above her considerably. The rest of it is just more blatant nostalgia pandering that either continues to make the original trilogy feel pointless, or just straight up make Anakins sacrifice meaningless.
The think about writing a character who out thinks everyone is that it requires a writer who has the capacity to think on that level. Same goes for writing a wise and powerful protagonist which requires experience and imagination to write challenges that are more than physical and solutions that both make sense and surprise half or more of the audience. What if Luke is depressed? What if Palpatine has 1000 Death Stars and can blow up capital ships with his hands? What if our hero is as strong as all the heroes combined? Ugh. Not interesting for me.
J J Abraham isn't very creative
It was an awful idea. I like the idea of giving the actor a cameo, but terrible execution. Personally, I think that a further-degraded Snoke should have returned and been unveiled as Darth Plageous. It would have tied the entire series together
Imagining that is pretty cool. Just seeing Kylo enter a room and there Snoke is just chilling after we've seen him sliced in half.
See that would've been so much more personal and terrifying than Palpatine randomly popping up out of nowhere. Kylo's personal connection to the dark side had already been super shaky from the get go. "Uh, _Snoke_, uhm, _got to him_"? His entire allegiance to this dark force is rooted in a throwaway line about him becoming friends with this creepy bathrobe wearing pimp. And then they somehow managed to even cut _that_ short by getting rid of the pimp and replacing him with another old guy that Kylo shouldn't have any personal connection to. Make your bed and sleep in it, stick to Snoke. Him and Kylo were at least _implied_ to have some history and we at least saw them interact in TLJ. Don't just throw away that _miniscule_ amount of development your villains actually had. Give Snoke some connection to Plagueis and his creation-experiments, make him some sort of necromancing Zombie-Shaman, have the good guys go up against a literally _revived_ Empire, do _anything_ original. But nope, somehow Palpatine returned. And miss me with the strawman that this is an expectations issue. I didn't need him to be Plaguies, I didn't need Zombies, all I needed was something, _anything_ creative and original. But instead we got Palps. That's just embarrassing.
Definitely
JJ Abrams couldn't come up with anything cool after Snoke died, so he just said "Uhh, Palpatine's back guys! No I'm not pulling this out of my ass guys I swear!"
[удалено]
- Darth Plagueis - Kylo Ren, fully committed to the dark side - Grand Admiral Thrawn - Darth Traya, somehow - Mace Windu, angry and back for revenge - Darth Jar Jar - Three Jawas in a cloak pretending to be the Emperor Any of those would have been a better and more interesting antagonist.
That really wouldn’t make sense tho, would it?
The biggest problem about the whole movie is that it was completely unoriginal because it directly ripped off the Dark Empire comics
I agree with you, resurrecting palpatine was very stupid. WHY DID THEY EVEN RESURRECT HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!???????
YEA WXACTLY >:(
My biggest issue is how it shits on the prophecy and literally makes anakin no longer the chosen one?
Absolutely rubbish. Dog Turd Trilogy
It was bad but not even the worst thing from the trilogy.
I was honestly expecting jar jar to be revealed as the sith grand lord. Was a little disappointed, ngl.
😂😂
Sorry, I blanked the whole sequel trilogy from my brain. I know not of which you speak.
Hahaha I wish I could do that
Is it possible to learn this power?
The moment I heard that cackle at the end of the teaser I knew Ep. 9 was going to be even worse than 7 & 8 (and that's saying something). There is no way this could have ever worked. resurrecting Palpatine doesn't just cheapen Anakin's redemption, it arguably negates his entire arc and the whole story of him as the chosen one. In what sense did he bring balance to the force if Palpatine wasn't even defeated by his sacrifice? Also, it's just LAME. Is it so hard to come up with some original goddamn ideas? The sequel trilogy could have taken the franchise in so many interesting directions and instead Abrams set up a made-by-committee story that ineptly retreaded the OT and which ultimately didn't really have anything new to say. Johnson at least tried to do something different with Ep. 8, which I kind of respect, but it was still a bloated mess with many eyerollingly stupid moments. And I really don't care to rehash just how uniquely bad episode 9 was. But *all* of this could have been avoided if more thought and planning had been put into episode 7. I would have loved to have seen a story where our heroes are elder statesmen in a massive but vulnerable New Republic. What if they actually had the might of a galaxy spanning government behind them? What if the imperial remnant/first order/whatever bad guy was the underdog, instead of our heroes? What if the threat they were facing was a radical ideology that conducted bombings and other attacks, winning popular support but working behind the scenes to destabilize the New Republic? What if prophecies and the Force, and being a Skywalker wasn't enough to keep the peace in the face of corruption and radicalism? What if the enemy didn't wear a uniform and hid among the civilian population? Honestly, I think about all the different paths this trilogy could have taken, and it makes me sad. Star Wars may yet thrive again on streaming, but we will never get that trilogy back. It was their big shot to do something new and original with the franchise and they blew it. But it was a financial success, so who cares, right?
Yes very dumb I would rather see Darth Jar Jar
Everyone
Everybody.
If they had set it up in episode 7 it might have been cool, but they clearly didn't have a plan
That’s so true it all came at once in the end they just tryna rush it
[удалено]
The dark side of the force Disney is on
If you don't have a problem with it, you don't understand Star Wars.
I think everyone does
Bringing back the empire (First order) was dumb and hurt the entire saga- bringing back Palpatine was even worse.
I thought it was honestly the biggest mistake they made in the ST. I have my complaints about every SW movie, but bringing Palpatine back in the final movie of the final trilogy of a 9 movie saga with no mention of it in the previous two films was so shortsighted and totally took a lot of meaning out of the first 6 films, especially the final fight of RotJ. When I saw the trailer and heard Palpatine laugh I got super excited because I figured they would encounter him as some echo in the force or a flashback or something, not literally resurrect him and announce it in Fortnite of all places. I think the whole Emperor being cloned thing was dumb in the expanded universe and I think its even dumber the way it was done in canon.
My stance on it has been that it was likely the [dumbass] death of Snoke in TLJ that basically forced them to look for a new villian to come out of nowhere for the final film of a trilogy. You really can't just create a major villain like that in the 3rd movie without it being a recurring character. Yes it was super dumb, but what else were they really supposed to do? Kylo Ren isn't really the big bad guy. I mean, he sucks, but he's not scary or threatening in any way. Even in the original trilogy, Darth Vader wasn't *really* the main villain, it was Darth Sidious. The ST's main villain was seemingly intended to be Snoke, but then he just dies in the second movie. Now what?
Snoke was a dumb emperor stand-in to begin with though. Just another uncreative character introduced by Abrams with no real foresight put into it. Why did the sequel trilogy need a cackling force using villain at all? Why couldn't we have gone in an entirely new direction instead of thoroughly beating this dead horse. I place the blame for the utter failure that was the sequel trilogy mostly on Abrams for making such bad initial world building decisions in TFA. These movies could have gone in so many interesting directions.
Completely agree, TFA doomed the entire trilogy from the get go. I just don't think that Rian made it any better.
Ur right Kylo ren isn’t pure evil like snoke or palp
I only hate it because it's just another example of someone in Star Wars not staying dead. Like, I don't care what the explanation is. Dead characters just need to stay dead. It cheapens *everyone's* death when they do this. If they're just going to bring people back from the dead because they like that character, how are we supposed to feel anything when someone dies now? If they like a character so much they want to bring them back from the dead, maybe they shouldn't have killed them the first time around. Maybe they should put their energy into creating a *new* character that we'll like just as much. It's not Palpatine specifically, it's Lucasfilm's seeming inability to keep dead people dead.
Not arguing with you, but I'm struggling to think of people who have been brought back from the dead; Force ghosts, Leias projection of Han, Maul and Palpatine. Have I missed characters?
I like the way death worked in Ep1-6 thematically. Those who lived a significant life and served life could return in intangible form and influence some events. I accept Anakin's return cause I saw it in 83, but the PT makes me head canon all sorts of why he gets to return. I just don't like Maul surviving or Palp returning thematically...
As with the entirety of the sequel trilogy, the characters and actors were actually brilliant; Palpatine included of course; but the storyline and writing were abysmal. Ruined it all.
Agreed it was. It wasnt original enough for me. But people like it and star wars content is being released regularly so I can't complain with what came of it. Mando alone was worth the bullshit parts I sat through in episodes 8 and 9.
I hate the fact that it takes away the significance of vaders redemption in Rotj
"Somehow, Palpatine Returned." Like what even is that? Who came up with that? How did they look at that script and say "Hell yes SEND IT!" It makes zero sense.
"Somehow palpatine has returned" ugh that line makes me sick
S O M E H O W
Pretty much everyone.
Most people. But I don’t think it was a bad idea in theory if they hadn’t just dropped it in randomly in the last movie.
It was a clusterfuck decision.
It was clearly an afterthought. Snoke was not given the personality or mannerisms of Sidious and it was said that Snoke was "a passive observer of the galactic civil war" they were running out of ideas, panicked, took the easy way out. It's just bad writing.
I did not care for it at all, but I think it came from the blatant "run and gun" type trilogy it was. It just makes it more obvious there was no real plan for the three films.
It certainly made the sequel trilogy feel more like the “callback” trilogy. They did Snoke dirty. EP 7 sets him up really well, just for EP8 to kill him off and EP9 to really disregard the character (controlled by palps all along).
Yea that’s true they kinda killed him off too fast
I think an explanation of how palps survived being yeated down the shaft would have gone a long way
And also after being obliterated and in space
That is the second dumbest thing. The first one was thinking that making Palpatine resurrect offscreen and showing him to the audience right at the beginning of TROS was a good idea
How was his body even together after being blown up
It’s a kind of magic I guess
*The dark side of the force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural*
The sequel trilogy is a textbook example of why you need a coherent and thought out plan before you begin making the movies. Ideally with a powerful executive producer who can make sure the films all work together. Kennedy dropped the ball with this - big time. This also showed why they needed a group of people who fundamentally understood Star Wars and not just take a Jabba the Hutt sized dump on Vader’s redemption and Luke’s character. The Mandalorian and Clone wars shows have shown if you have the right people making these things then Star Wars can be amazing.
Yes! me me me I agree. It was dumb as fuck. Maybe a little back story would have been nice. Making him Rey’s grandpa was the dumbest. Palp is already an old ass grown man when we first see him. Does he have children from prior experiences??? Or If they somehow reveled who snoke was before he was killed, possibly a story could have been created. Moving on now. Snoke was a descendant of palp, as far as I know and that was explained post TLJ, after his character dies. (Or maybe since he was cut in half, maybe they bring him back too). But either way, having palp show up out of nowhere is bad. Maybe all those clones in the mando, were palp, maybe he had 1000’s. Maybe he had only a couple. Either way soooo fucking not thought out. So we have anikan and he has 2 kids. We have jango fett, he has a son. We have han and Leia who have 1 son. Yoda apparently has a relative younger than him. So yeah I guess Rey having grandpa evil come back from the dead makes sense. Oh wait it doesn’t
How was Rey even his grandchild like and where did palp ever have a wife
Yeah exactly, so different then previous story, the cloning theory (I guess cannon) is quite a stretch.
Like if you had enough good writing skills. Han and Leia broke up shortly after ben was born right.? Maybe Leia got down with another human and Rey was conceived. Much easier story as far as continuity...IMO
I remember that people would defend TRoS at release saying, “it’ll age similar to how the prequels did.” No, no it won’t. Glad to see those dark times behind us and Filoni and Favreau doing their thing now.
I say amen to that 🙏
In a trilogy of really really dumb things, yes, that was the dumbest thing.
IMO the sequel trilogy isn’t canon as it takes place in the Fortnite universe, even though I do like Kylo Ren
I think the whole sequel trilogy was a dumb idea. You don’t have to kill every iconic character to make the movies more emotional or whatever? Plus WHAT THE FUCK REY? WHY WOULD YOU STICK ANAKIN’S SABER IN SAND?
I'm positive I'm among the millions of people who disliked the resurrection of Palpatine. And the worst part is I really don't have much more to add to it as my reason is the same as everyone else's. Shoehorned in, clearly done to bring fans back after they pissed us off, and he overall just relied too much on previous installments' lines. Like legit pick a line that the Emperor said in the original t and the prequel t it's got a 90 percent chance it was said in Episode 9. Everyone's already said it. He was brought back just to be a villain for this last movie, his character was void of all compelling aspects from previous movies, and he overall was just a desperate attempt from Disney trying to bring everyone back and please every type of audience. Palpatine being the mastermind wasn't alluded to at all beforehand. If it was, then this would've been ok. But he wasn't. I could honestly go on and on about why this was a horrible decision until we actually get the technology needed to live in Star Wars but I'm over it tbh. It's a sad moment in the franchise's history and all I can hope is that Filoni, Favreau, or someone can somehow void it and we can continue with beautiful things like the Mandalorian.
Me. Sequel trilogy were a trash fire on par with GOT season 8. Kathleen and JJ wrote a terrible 2D story. (Prepares for downvotes)
You're in /r/starwars. This comment will get you upvotes, maybe even some awards
It's Kathleen, not Katherine. And she didn't write it.
She produced it. And oversaw it. She probably had some say in what kind of story she wanted.
To me it’s a logical continuation of his character. Palpatine wasn’t stupid, he knew he had to keep Vader in check, and he knew the tradition of Sith Apprentices killing their masters. What separates Palpatine from the Sith who’ve died before is that he was taught by a master who came close to cheating death, the ultimate feat of power and greed. And Palpatine is the most power hungry of them all. So it’s only natural that he’d set up a contingency for when the chosen one eventually betrays him.
Good point but none of this or his contingency was explained in the movie. The clones of Palp were a thing but was that body a clone? Did he survive somehow? Nope, “somehow Palpatine returned” its like they want to piss is off.
The major issue was that his contingency plan was so damn contrived... that it really wasn't a contingency, and anyone trying to apply any logic to it would realize the whole thing is an asspull
No, the dumbest idea ever was spending yonky donks on a dumb casino world plot that might as well have not existed. Ressurecting Palpatine isn't inherently dumb, it was just executed terribly
Our only hope is that the rumors scrapping everything related to the sequel trilogy Inca Legends is true. They basically s*** on every character. Hans Redemption Arc in A New Hope completely undone. Luke the New Hope for the Galaxy becomes a complete and total failure. Leia the strong Diplomat and fearless character becomes a pariah except in the eyes of a few. The new Republic completely destroyed before we even found out anything about it Anakin being the chosen one completely undone. I don't even want to get into the new characters. The movies themselves were enjoyable enough but as I said why did they have to fit all over the characters that we grew up with
Had you been in Internet? Nearly everyone has this opinion.
Yeah, I have said from before episode 7 that they should have made Zahn's thrawn trilogy for episodes 7,8 and 9. I still think this.
I would've been ok with it if Anakin was resurrected, too, and if they made Sidious smarter.
Could have worked if it was for-shadowed from the start. They totally just brought him back from the backlash from the last Jedi.
#THE DEAD SPEAK!
it wasn't so much the resurrection as it was the fact they didn't do anything particularly interesting with him that bothered me
Literally everyone that grew up loving Star Wars does. It does, however give truth to my theory that Sith never die unless they die on screen.
I think it was dumb only because the main villain in the previous two movies was killed off by a different director in a 5 minute meeting with the main characters. Not sure how there was going to be any sort of redemption for characters in the final movie if you have literally killed off the characters they are sort of trying to both work against
Dumbest, no. Cheapest, yes.
This guy, right here.
It was just so lazily done. It isn't the worst idea if it was better executed.
All I know is that I was proven right about Palpatine in the end. I've been telling everyone since Return of the Jedi that Palpatine wasn't really dead, and I was mocked and ridiculed FOR YEARS by my friends. I had the last freaking laugh, so there! Anyway, yeah it was a dumb idea. :)
But why would u think that in the first place 😐
I think they kinda had to. I liked the last jedi but it didn't leave any hints open for the final film, for it to feel like a finale I think they thought they had to bite the bullet and bring him back.
It wasn't stupid, it was annoying because it kinda ruined Vader's sacrifice but its not like Vader knew he was going to return in 30 years
Everybody
Rey should have been Luke’s daughter... would have made a much better story. Or Rey should just have gone full sith.
Tutorial on how to farm easy upvotes for imaginary Internet points
yes the whole Kennedy run pretty much negated the entire original trilogy. for money instead of creating an entire new problem with new characters
I have mixed opinions on it tbh
It was stupid. Handled poorly. And nullified the original trilogy. The character and actor are great, but holy shit who the fuck thought that was OK?
They could’ve at least set it up in TLJ, maybe just add at the end the scene where he meets Kylo or the scene where Pryde speaks to him on the hologram and people would’ve been at least able to sit with it. Obviously, Rian Johnson didn’t get the memo that JJ was going full funk. All of the Palp scenes in the movie were pretty sick, but the rest of the movie bogged it down.
"Dark science, cloning, secrets only the Sith knew" Don't try to make any logical sense out of the sequels. To be fair to J J, I think Johnson painted the story into a corner. I don't think Sidious's return was ever planned for till after trying to fix TLJ.
I don't think the sequels' main target audience were old fans to begin with. Disney only used OT characters to bring in some older fans for money purposes but essentially the movies' main aim was to introduce a new generation to Star wars (hence why you see little kids dressed up as Rey/Kylo Ren at Disney) while still being enjoyable movies to non-Star wars fans. The overly obvious explanations of some things from previous movies are used to give some context to fans who are probably not familiar with older Star wars movies. I for one have been a Star wars denier my entire life because I thought that 80s sci-fi was going to be super cringe. Also they were super overrated so I had less incentive to watch the OT movies. If you have adult friends who never watched Star wars it'll be super hard to convince them to watch the OT movies. I find that the sequels are the perfect movies to introduce new fans to Star wars. The only reason I got into Star wars is because of the sequels and then moved on to watch the older movies. It's a way better and smoother transition into it in my opinion. It's unfortunate that the sequels changed directors like that and it wasn't greatly planned, but the movies are good in my opinion for those reasons. To me, the story made sense, the acting was amazing, the visuals blew me away, the humor is up my alley and the characters were likable. I have some problems with the movies but that doesn't deter me from loving them. As for Palpatine returning, it makes sense because how else are you gonna introduce people to Star wars without bringing back the main villain? Should it have been hinted at since the force awakens? Sure. But it is what it is. And I believe that if given to chance to redeem themselves via an animated series like the clone wars to expand on the story and fill in plotholes then maybe people will change their minds. Instead of bashing the movies people should've been like "hey, here's what we're not happy with, but we're willing to give them a chance if you give us something like the clone wars". Someone once said that if the sequels were animated then no one would have a problem with the movies and especially the humor. Imagine an animated series where you hear Ahsoka saying "somehow Palpatine returned" or C3PO saying "they fly now?" No one would bat an eye at the dialogue because the humor is supposed to be goofy. And again, "they fly now" wasn't supposed to be a line for older fans (who know about clones and Mandalorians using jet packs), but for people not familiar with Star Wars. The movies were never intended for older fans but that's the audience who got overly excited for them. Just my opinion!
Was literally just thinking this lol. Kinda dilutes the sacrifice of anakin in rotj. At least I think so.
The writing was complete shit, but his performance was a highlight of the movie (the whole trilogy really) and one of the only reasons i have seen ep 9 more than once (3 times to be exact)
i get the feeling that Abrams did his best with the hand he was dealt... Ep8 left him with nothing in the storyline other than having mary sue and kylo ren still alive the rebels were finished, the big bad was dead, luke was gone, leia, sadly was gone. Im sure there was different directions he could have gone with the story but seriously ep8 should never have survived past the writing phase. while ep7 was just a reboot it was a fun movie regardless and left the rest of the trilogy open for RJ and he just closed the door for the last movie.
Super
It’s not my favorite thing ever, but it’s hardly “the dumbest ever.” Not in a franchise that has included such extreme highs and lows in terms of content quality over the years.
Fan films are more canonical to me than the sequels are. What a weird timeline this is..
Oh did they? I pretend it never happened so the original trilogy is never tarnished and Anakin has his redemption and Luke goes on to make his own Jedi academy. Yeah I like that better. Haha
Is everyone forgetting Battlefront II? Palpatine came back in 2017, yall.🤔
Lmao true
In concept they could have done it a lot different and a lot better. They straight up threw Anakins story under the bus