As excerpts of the novelization of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” continue popping up online, it is turning out to be pulling off near J.K. Rowling-levels of over-explaining and retconning, to the point that this news is being met with comments like “just stop, please” on social media.
SPOILERS AHEAD FOR “STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER”
Yesterday came the reveal of the novel’s explanation as to how Palpatine survived his fall at the end of “Return of the Jedi” – he transferred his essence to a clone. Numerous other clone bodies were also made before the one we saw, and not all of them were successful – the implication being Snoke was one of those failed attempts.
Now, the in-canon novel has explained another mystery. The film revealed that Rey was Palpatine’s granddaughter, raising the obvious question of who did The Emperor knock up to sire a child and when did he find the time? Turns out, there was no grandmother.
The novel writes up the scene in which Rey is feigning taking part in the Sith Ritual on Exegol to trick Palpatine. During this, she has visions of her grandfather’s past and sees him “thrusting his consciousness” into a clone body. But the transfer was imperfect and so the ‘Sith Eternal’ worked tirelessly to engineer a new vessel.
One of these attempts is dubbed “a useless, powerless failure” and “a not-quite-identical clone.” That body was discarded, yet lived and eventually became Rey’s father.
In January the film’s editor Maryann Brandon said additional Palpatine backstory was cut from the film in order to condense the runtime, and it’s quite possible this vision with these flashbacks were among the cuts. Certainly a line in the script about Palpatine being a clone was excised.
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” is available on digital March 17th and Blu-ray March 31st.
Source: Screen Rant
