One of the biggest questions that J.J. Abrams’ “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” never properly answered was how Emperor Palpatine came back from the dead.
The character was last seen falling into a reactor and vaporising in “Return of the Jedi,” so his re-emergence as a physical flesh and blood corporeal being (albeit on life support) and it is explained away with a repeat of a nebulous line from “Revenge of the Sith” – that isn’t going to cut the mustard with a lot of people.
The early scenes of ‘Rise of Skywalker’ suggest the Palpatine we see is a clone, a new vessel that character’s essence could inhabit. The scene also suggests Snoke was some sort of clone too, albeit a malformed one. now, official confirmation that he’s clone has arrived with the film’s novelization due on sale on March 17th.
Penned by Rae Carson, advanced copies were handed out at the C2E2 convention in Chicago this weekend and excerpts are already online. One from the scene of Kylo Ren’s arrival on Exegol explains what’s happening (via Screen Rant):
“All the vials were empty of liquid save one, which was nearly depleted. Kylo peered closer. He’d seen this apparatus before, too, when he’d studied the Clone Wars as a boy. The liquid flowing into the living nightmare before him was fighting a losing battle to sustain the Emperor’s putrid flesh.
‘What could you give me?’ Kylo asked. Emperor Palpatine lived, after a fashion, and Kylo could feel in his very bones that this clone body sheltered the Emperor’s actual spirit. It was an imperfect vessel, though, unable to contain his immense power. It couldn’t last much longer.”
Whether the book explains when and how Palpatine had time for a brood, not to mention how so many Star Destroyers were built and manned without anyone’s knowledge and just what was up with that ‘Sith audience’ at the fight on Exegol isn’t clear.
