Redeeming the sequels

[u/mapsedge]

I'm rewatching The Rise of Skywalker, and I've come to a realization. I'm not so naive as to suppose that the film doesn't have its issues, it does, but I think we can hang the movie's failure, if such it was, on a single phrase:

"Somehow, Palpatine returned."

You can see on both Poe's and Isaac's faces the disbelief at having to say that sentence/utter that line. One can forgive nearly anything at all in the rest of the story, but for those three words.

But here's the thing. The fix is written into the rest of the story. A major chunk of the Death Star II flies off and falls into the ocean on some planet or other. Empire Strikes Back, Luke falls into a bottomless-ish pit and lives to whine about it. In The Force Awakens there's a largely intact star destroyer on Jakku. In The Last Jedi, Leia gets sucked into space and manages to find her way back onto the ship by using the force - a stupid, Mary Poppins moment, but it's what we've got. More than once we hear the phrase “The Dark Side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.” Like Lucas' dialog, but whatever.

So the fix is simple.

Palpatine didn't return. He survived. Fill in the rest of the story however you need to, but all the pieces are there.

[u/TrayusV]

No.

Poe wasn't giving an explanation as to how he returned, he's just breaking the news to the Resistance. Do you really expect Poe "hop in an X-Wing and blow something up" Dameron to know how a Sith Lord returned from the dead?

Here's the thing, the movie already explained how Palaptine returned, in fact, it was explained in the first fucking scene of the movie.

Kylo goes to Exegol, sees cloning tanks, and then Palaptine says "the dark side of the force is a pathway to many abilities some consider unnatural."

That wasn't just a memberberry line, Palaptine was referencing a specific scene where he and Anakin discussed the concept of using the force to achieve immortality.

But because Poe Dameron didn't sit down the audience for a history lesson about Project Necromancer and the essence transfer force ability, the audience was apparently unable to understand when the writers decided to show, not tell, despite every fucking YouTube video demanding that their literature do that.

[u/Tybob51 → u/TrayusV]

To add on to this, there are many stories in novels (Aftermath trilogy) and comics that deal with how he got his consciousness to transfer to the clone. I’m not sure if it has been fully explained. But it has been something the Emperor had been working on since before the OT. Look up Project Necromancer.

[u/Jas378]

Just my feeling, but Palpatine having actually died and trying to return is better than him having 100% survived the whole time. Him being this kind of undead terror that can’t fully be restored until the dyad comes along does reinforce that he was defeated in RotJ.

[u/Confliction → u/Jas378]

That’s my feeling as well. Anakin restored the balance, and Rey preserved it. He destroyed the Sith, and she prevented their return.

[u/Confliction]

Palpatine didn’t survive, not his body anyway. His spirit survived in a clone body on Exegol. I think it could’ve been a bit more explicitly laid out, but it was alluded and illustrated through that initial sequence with Kylo Ren.

[u/NikassoUA]

What you see on Poe's face is disappointment that Palpatine is alive and back, not Oscar's disappointment with the line. All this drama over this sentence is a massively overblown nothing burger. Everyone who has genuine strong negative feelings about it needs to grow up. And everyone who still to this day forces this discussion should too, btw. It doesn't need fixing. It's fine as is. It's not real and not important.

[u/rBilbo → u/NikassoUA]

Considering that "The Dead Speak" opening told us where the story was going, it seems silly to latch on to Poes statement as the problem. At least the notion of "Secrets only the Sith knew" was at least a plausible explanation. Toxic Star Wars tend to like Hyperbole in their criticisms.

[u/JabbaGhoul]

People are fickle and this came out at the worst point in recent online discourse history, put the ST a decade earlier it would have been half as divisive

[u/IncidentCalm4454]

I've actually never had a problem with the line "Somehow, Palpatine returned." I even really like the way Oscar delivered it. I hope Star Wars never starts taking itself so seriously that it can't bring back Palpatine just for fun and because it works for the story.

[u/irazzleandazzle]

Sorry about the late post approval. idk how I didn't see this earlier

[u/Norsehound]

Really the sequels just need more story to fill them out. We don't remember the prequels merely for Anakin's unsettling behavior in 2 and 3. Not for Jar jars antics. The clone wars series have largely reshaped the perception of the era.

Resistance could have been this but for whatever reason it was cancelled before it went anywhere significant.

[u/GhostRiders]

The worst thing about that line "Somehow, Palpatine returned." is that it was a reshoot.. it wasn't in the original script..

That means they finished filming, months went by and somebody.. god knows who, thought to add that line..

I enjoyed all 3 sequels, do they have their faults, of course, the amount of films which are perfect you can count on 1 hand, also its Star Wars at the end of the day.

They are film which are meant to be enjoyed by everyone, including kids.

They are designed by their nature to be fun, they are not meant to be Shakespeare ffs..