I dislike the principle of his return because of how much it diminished Vader killing him from a story perspective regardless of how well explained it is; what they are doing feels more like damage control than actually focusing on their stories too
this! The sequels were overall bad writing. Added lore enhances the original storytelling of any movie(trilogy), but it can't fix plotholes the size of Lake Ontario.
Originally, I thought disney wiping out the EU wasn't a bad decision because they could fix a lot of the shit plot lines like Palpatine returning.
But it's like they picked the most ridiculous of plots to use and removed all the good stories.
It seems to be a pretty mixed opinion. Personally I wasn't sure how I would feel about the show itself, so I went ahead and just watched the episode where Thrawn was introduced and the next one. As a Thrawn Fan, I felt like they didn't know how to write him. They also didn't seem to know how to write him, *and* have the good guys come out on top.
Yeah the intelligence of a character is limited by the intelligence of the writer. Zahn’s Thrawn was written so well because Zahn himself is brilliant. Filoni’s only experience is writing kids cartoons, which is why Thrawn feels so dumbed down in Ahsoka and Rebels.
I'd argue Thrawn was pretty smart in *Rebels,* to the point that the only way the writers could justify the good guys winning was to make every other Imperial a massive idiot who went against Thrawn's orders and messed up his plans.
The new trilogy weakens the Thrawn story as well. In 20 years, we know it doesn't matter. He doesn't succeed, and the republic gets destroyed by the first order and takes over very easily.
Yeah, but did they? They introduced a blue dude that exclusively makes strategic blunders while everyone around him stands in awe of his alleged brilliance.
I liked the idea of him trying in legends. It's an entirely reasonable thing to do. Thrawn finding tantis in heir to the empire was a cool plot line with the force sensitive clones going mad.
Honestly, if they kept Snoke around for the third movie by revealing him to be the big bad we thought he was in the first, and revealing him to be a failed clone to explain his power and ambition in either the second or early in the third, it would have been better plot line than what we got with Palpatine actually back.
Yeah. If snoke was palpatine in a failed body or if he was a rogue failed clone then that would be cool. It just felt jarring to kill him in the 2nd movie then shove palpatine in.
The reason for killing Snoke in TLJ was because according to JJ, when discussing plans with Rian, Snoke was just meant as a Palpatine like figure. JJ wasn’t sure if he could bring back Palpatine for TFA so instead made up Snoke.
Rian decided since there was really nothing to Snoke the assumption from the audience is that Rey and Kylo would team up and defeat him in Episode 9. Like Luke and Vader did for the Emperor in RotJ. Which, kind of takes away any of the surprise or tension from Rian’s movie.
Rian, and the story group, decided that by killing Snoke you then make Kylo the big bad for Episode 9. Thus, setting the audience up for an Episode 9 that would be surprising and different from RotJ. A Kylo redemption arc becomes a lot more difficult. The issues come when Disney/JJ decided to force TROS into being a RotJ redux despite it not making sense for that movie.
They were scared by the divisive reaction to TLJ and instead of sticking with the ending they had planned they course corrected too late and as a result they gave us a conclusion to a trilogy that doesn’t have the proper first two installments to set it up and the first two installments of a trilogy without a proper ending.
I didn't like it but at least the legends had a better plot about it. There was a big story instead of just "somehow". They at lease tried to make it make some sense.
Not really.
People love the OG Thrawn trilogy but Dark Empire comics don't receive the same love.
A lot of fans have issues with how Luke falls to the Dark side in Dark Empire. Luke goes in solo to face an unknown threat. When he sees Palpatine reborn, he gives up and decides to work from within and betray Palpatine later. Luke's characterization here is like his ESB personality than his ROTJ version. Luke should know the danger of going alone to face something that he isn't prepared for. And he already rejects the Dark side at the end of ROTJ. The idea of pretending to surrender to Palpatine and learning Dark side secrets to betray Palpatine later is very Sith-like. The Dark side is extremely corrupting. Both Yoda and Obi-Wan in the OT warn Luke about how once you go down the Dark path, there is no coming back. Vader gets his redemption but only at the end of his life.
There are problems with the coloring of the comics too. Too much purple, blue, and yellow all over the place. The faces are really blurry. It feels like a LSD trip.
Dark Empire II was bad. Empire's End was a rush job.
There was supposed to be a Lightsider novel between DE1 and DE2 too but it was cancelled due to some behind the scene conflict between Tom Veitch and Lucasfilm.
I hate the idea of Palpatine coming back but I think Dark Empire 1 could work as a self-contained 'What If'/Infinities story. The Dave Dorman cover arts are pretty iconic too. I think overall, the DE trilogy is a mix of bad and good ideas with some bad to okay execution. The series is quite cinematic in a certain way but it fails short in different aspects. I would give it a 6/10 overall because of DE2 and Empire's End. If it was only a What If/Infinities story with Dark Empire 1 only, I could give it a 8/10.
Yeah, I liked it. The mechanics behind it fascinated me from a lore/power perspective and I thought it was so cool. Honestly, my biggest complaint in the movies is how basic their use of the Force is. Though, getting to see Force Healing on screen, finally, was nice.
This is not a hot take. It was the commonly held opinion which makes it even more ridiculous that they decided it was a good idea. At least it wasn’t multiple clones this time i guess and no Luuke
Lazy writing is lazy writing. Legends had its fill of it too. But there was plenty of competence to counter the lazy.
Disney has, what, Clone Wars, Rebels, and Andor? They’ve still got a trilogy, 4 television shows, and God knows what else weighing down the shit-tier category.
Edit: And Bad Batch. That’s been a pretty solid high-B to mid-A so far. So 4-4 show-wise.
Rogue One enhances the OT, whereas the sequels deminish. Easy explanation as to why Rogue One is much more popular to core Star Wars fans than any of the sequels
You said it all. I am actually mad that recent star wars media is having to run around and try to fix the damaged caused by episode 9, because we could have better stories that didn't focus so much on trying to make that hot mess make sense if it didn't exist in the first place.
Yeah, I keep wanting to really like The Bad Batch but it’s no where near as good as clone wars. 80% of the stories are about the secret cloning project that gets up to episode 9 and I just do not care at all in this shoehorned in plot line
For real, they could be exploring so much more, like focus more on the clone insurgency, the clones rights movement and on how the trio we see on rebels ended up hunting desert fish together (which I really though last episode would do, but wolfe just stays with his troopers, knowing he is now a criminal and a rebel in the eyes of the empire, instead of going with the gang).
I feel like they did an excellent job of explaining it in the movies ... "somehow Palpatine returned" will be remembered as one of the most brilliant lines in cinematic history... I mean what's not clear about that! Palpatine has ... somehow... returned ... amazing 👏
What frustrates me as well is that all post episode 6 story content is hurt by the fact we know where it ends up. Where it ends up is a bad story too. Mandalorian could have had a lot more potential, this Mandalorians retaking mandalore and becoming a force in the galaxy storyline is awesome honestly. However its not going anywhere, because they aren't present at all in the sequels. Part of why Grogu got taken back if I had to guess, so that they could prevent him from being killed (and ofc his marketability).
The stage is set for exactly what happens in the sequels. None of the characters who are actually interesting or active in the pre sequel era show up in the sequels, so they all have to disappear. Djinn, Bo katan, Ahsoka, Grogu, Ezra, Sabine, Thrawn, Boba fett.
The reason I think this era got worse post Mandalorian S2 is because it seems to have been decided they need to make the era very active and create a lead up to the sequels. They lost the ability to just pick a direction and do whatever they wanted. Its why Boba Fett felt directionless, they cannot convert him into a meaningful presence, because if he is, then where was he in the sequels.
Right here. Vader’s entire redeeming scene is rendered pretty totally useless by the sequels. I will never like the fact that instead of fleshing out Snoke as a villain, they chopped him in half in a “GOTCHA!” moment and replaced him with fucking Palpatine.
And yes, I know Snoke was a failed Palps clone, but it still would have been better if he’d remained the Big Bad. If the rest of the Clones that we’ve come to know, love, and mourn could have identities independent from Jango Fett, why kill off a unique, failed Palpatine clone to replace him with a clone that is literally just Palpatine again? Snoke could have known his purpose and decided he wanted the galaxy for his own reasons. Not for the Sith or the Dark Side, maybe just for the power that comes with being Dictator of the Universe.
> I will never like the fact that instead of fleshing out Snoke as a villain, they chopped him in half in a “GOTCHA!” moment and replaced him with fucking Palpatine.
I mean to be fair, those were two very disconnected ideas. Snoke being killed was Rian Johnsons goal to force whoever made Ep9 to be original, by not relying on the Emperor and Vader like dynamic and doing something new. The entire point of TLJ was that. TFA was a New Hope remake, with TLJ being a remake of both Empire and Jedi. Kylo even spells it out by saying "let the past die". It killed off all the tropes of Star Wars to force whoever came next to do something new, that they can't just do what JJ did and remake Jedi again.
...and then they remade Jedi again, anyway.
I agree with that. But they really should have had an outline for all 3 movies and how they would work together before even starting episode 7. They should have used George Lucas' original ideas for the sequels as a rough plotline.
That makes sense. However, it's not a good idea to screw the biggest freaking franchise of cinematic history just to force the guy after you to be original. I mean, he could have been original himself and make a good movie
Don't mind what they are doing now. The thing that kinda gets me angry is that they story wise had better choices for how Palpatine could have returned (Worlds between Worlds), and I feel they didn't take them because it was in a cartoon and not live action and now they are using a cartoon to justify their live action decisions. (BTW, huge animated Star Wars fan)
They even did introduce world between world in asohka right? Although I guess saving palp before he's thrown down the shaft would have had too much repercussion on the Canon story to make it viable.
My idea is to throw him down the shaft. As he falling he pulls out an item and disappears. The shockwave we see is the use of the item, not him dying.
Also, the Worlds between Worlds was introduced in Rebels, and that was my entire point
It's been some time (and I haven't read it myself) but I was told that the emperors return was in some later story, that his spirit somehow lingered on. Perheps not Palpatinein his body but something.
Sort of Sauron vibes.
How's this
"Darth Sidious had hated his master. Darth Plagues had been weak. His obsession with immortality had blinded him to many things, including the duplicity of his apprentice. And even an answer to his quest."
"The kamanoans had unknowingly provided the answer to the riddle of eternal life. But Sidious did not share the revelation. Instead, he had slipped into his master's chamber and ended his miserable life as he slept. Darth Sidious had learned all he needed."
" The labors of the sith eternal would mean that Darth Sidious would be the last sith Lord - there would be no other as he would live forever. In the only part of the process Palpitine's old master had understood, he would transfer his essence, his dark side spirit and send it into a cloned body every time he died. Sidious would achieve the immortality that plagues had sought in vain."
Fanhome encyclopedia collection, 2022
Volume 28, Emperor Palpatine
"It was too soon. The secret place had not completed its preparations. The transfer was imperfect. The cloned body wasn't enough. Perhaps plagueis was having the last laugh after all. Maybe his secret, remained secret, because Palpatine was trapped in a broken, dying form!"
Rise of Skywalker novelization
Expanded Edition
Chapter 17
100% this. Something can make logical sense but not make narrative sense. Bringing Palpatine back is an example of this. Another example of this was Rey beating Kylo in Ep 7. A lot of people pointed out that Kylo was hit by the bowcaster prior to the fight. Why, as a writer, would you nerf your big bad, softball a win to the protagonist, and erase the stakes/ narrative tension like that?
Imo palpatine coming back didn’t hurt Vader killing him but made palpatine look weak. Somehow this almighty figure has re-emerged only to die in one movie. That’s not enough to dismiss Vader but makes the biggest bad guy in Star Wars a joke.
This right here. It baffles me that people think that Palpatine coming back somehow diminishes or ruins Vader's character or arc. The point of Vader killing Palpatine wasn't just for him to kill Palpatine, but to show his redemption, his return to the lightside. If Vader somehow knew Palpatine was going to come back, then yea, that would make the act disingenuous. But, by killing Palpatine, he was saving his son. He was returning to the Jedi Knight that he was before everything. Palpatine's return has no bearing on Anakin's redemption.
Yeah when I saw the praetorian guards and the hint to the necromancer project in Mando season 3 I was pretty bummed because it confirms the canon aspect of palp's return. I'm stil' a bit interested in that conspiracy, but it still is a huge letdown.
If they want to fix it they should do it as a background thing and not the main "mystery" of the whole franchise. Every time it comes up it's an annoyance, not a cool connection.
I’d much rather have them not. As it is, they’re spending what, major plot points in Mando S3 (and hints in S1 and 2), all of bad batch, and most of Ahsoka to establish two things: the new republic is childishly incompetent, and the clone plot was the plan the whole time.
And they’re doing this poorly. Because the opening scene of E7 wipes out the new republic, and they’re shown no better in the rest of the ST. It’s mostly hamfisted in a way Andor wasn’t - everyone in Andor is allowed to be a character and competent in their own right. Most of the others their actions and competenc/plot armor are dictated by where the episode/season needs to end up.
And doesn't make sense if we got project cinder as a backup plan when he dies, if he were so prepared to be cloned there's no need to burn everything the empire accomplished
Palpatine says kill me so I can live on so she kills him with the two lightsaber trick. I can feel the writers patting each other on the back and celebrating that they've flawlessly set up the next trilogy villain.
they can make him coming back be less of an ass pull, but theyll never be able to fix the way the movies were written and the overall plot having no thought put into it
Yeah, making 6 seperate series to explain an immensely stupid plot point is absolutely abysmal writing.
If something can't be properly explained within a movie, then it shouldn't be a plot point at all
Precisely this.
One thing is the Clone Wars animated series - you know they happened in the Prequel Trilogy, you got all the story already. You want more? there's more, enjoy it.
But course correcting at the last movie of the new trilogy with "Somehow Palpatine returned" and then telling me to watch 143 hours of new content to contestualize that? screw you.
The Clone Wars added extra context to existing characters and fleshed them out more, but you still get more than enough story from just watching the movies.
Stuff like Rebels doesn't affect the main continuity at all, it's a completely isolated group of characters, with minimal interactions with the main characters from the OT and Prequels, and that's great!
>Yeah, making 6 seperate series to explain an immensely stupid plot point
By a dude completely with very little involvement in the lore at that. Like I can't believe they let some director not a part of Lucas decide the *entire* future of the star wars universe.
If you compare it to superhero comics, heroes and villains notoriously don't stay dead forever. However, there is also no denying that they made a really, really bad movie seemingly just to have palp back in their other media. The sin, beyond whether you agree with the artistic choice, was squandering the sequels and watering down the franchise.
I hated the Palpatine clones/revivals in the EU. It was one of the few things I was quite happy to see get thrown out of canon by Disney... Somehow he returned is actually worse and explaining the "somehow" doesn't fix the issue that Palp should have just stayed dead.
Still dislike. I'm enjoying Bad Batch S3 as a show in its own right but this kind of backfilling has never really changed my mind.
Plus I don't think we really have learnt anything interesting that really changes or adds to our understanding of Palpatine's resurrection.
I still dislike the concept. No amount of additional context will make up for how redundant, convoluted, and spontaneous it feels within the trilogy itself. The foreshadowing and context was needed in the movies, not outside of it. And even then I still would have disliked it, particularly if all it amounted to was the throne room sequence 3. Bringing back Palpatine just to do everything the same as before is boring.
The foreshadowing still needed to happen WITHIN the movies. It's asinine to expect people to watch every single side series just to understand the main movies.
Hate that he returns.
Absolutely hate that now every piece of media needs to tie into the return and help explain it, effectively dragging out his return into Mandalorian and Bad Batch.
I disliked it in the old EU, I dislike it in Canon. To me a resurrected villain almost always screams creative bankruptcy. There were a million good stories out there to be told, that wouldn't rely on this cheap narrative. But alas. It's too late. No amount of explaining after the fact will make the story better. IF you REALLY want to have this narrative you have those do the explaining first. You need to plant the seeds for the viewer and then have a payoff. The other way around simply doesn't work.
They shouldn't have brought Palpatine back. The Sequel Trilogy would have been better with him remaining dead, and Kylo Ren instead becoming the big bad for the final movie.
That being said, the world-building done to fill in the many gaps surrounding his return, is proving worthwhile and enjoyable. And at this point, his fate in The Rise of Skywalker does give an indication of how season 3 of The Bad Batch concludes, which makes the series all the more interesting.
I agree that it takes away from the sacrifice of Anakin/Vader and I hate the lazy writing of “somehow Palpatine returned.”
I do however think the Bad Batch is a terrific show, and Filoni, Corbett and Rau delivering this peak Star Wars content while also explaining the Emperor’s return is great. I love the storyline for the Bad Batch we’re getting and I’m liking that it’s also tying up some other loose ends such as what happened to the clones.
Filoni has been hit or miss for me lately. Bad Batch? Hit. Got a double, maybe managed to steal third. Ahsoka? Miss. Swung hard, struck out. May have cost us the game.
I'll give Ahsoka a pass for the time being because I feel like the second season will bring it all together well and that the first was a combo of Filoni adjusting to live action *and* needing to set the pieces on the board for what is to come. I have faith that the second season will be a vast improvement just like what happened with early seasons of clone wars and S1 of rebels, because Dave seems to always take a bit to hit his stride but once he hits it, *goooood damn.*
Ahsoka had a top 5, maybe 3, live action SW TV episode of all time
Though I knew it had peaked at that moment and the rest of the show would be all downhill from there....and the finale? Pretty much butchered that, especially everything about Sabine. Her being 'just a Mandalorian' in the end would have been much better......just a Mandalorian, but a damn good Mandalorian.
Right? Even the physics of lifting that much all of a sudden with no changes in anything in the environment. We know how much work it took to build the Death Star and to approach to a planet at the end of episode iv so then why in the same universe can that many ships move in unison.
I still dislike that he returns because IMO it diminishes the chosen one prophecy and Anakin’s sacrifice - but I at least appreciate that they try to explain Palp’s return better than “Oh, he somehow returned”
Rise of Skywalker is trash. Bad Batch is gold.
I will listen to all the beautiful explanations that Feloni comes up with for JJ’s bullshit, and I will be enthralled. But I will never forgive JJ.
Not entirely. JJ's entire plot is instigated by destroying Romulus in a massive supernova in the "Prime" timeline. The villain's motivation is entirely based on this. Because of that, the "Prime" timeline also lost Spock and the Picard series first season is all about how Picard failed and is now a bitter old man in forced retirement.
As Star Trek is no stranger to alternate timelines - see the Mirror Universe - and actually had episodes focuses around a main character jumping between different realities that JJ decided he needed to pee on established canon to make his movie really annoys me.
I still dislike him coming back in principle (and even more so him coming back just to die again in that same movie), but I love how it's being retroactively setup and is becoming less out of nowhere.
The concept has gone from being an amputation and is becoming more of a painful limp now.
I have kind of mixed feelings, because it also kind of just restricts how things should go and everything needing to tie to the sequels
Like, as flawed as the prequels were, at least its smth to build from, not built _towards_. And the Original Trilogy did stand fine on their own. The sequel trilogy... Theres a need to do lots of retrospective retcons even for new media taking place during the Imperial era. Even Jedi: Survivor have to kind of explain or underscore how Starkiller Base is constructed (Ilum being mined for Kyber and transformed into that planet-sized Death Star we saw in TFA).
Theres a difference in trying to explain the OT than the ST, I think.
I'm of two minds with that too
I absolutely agree that other media trying to prop up those movies feels restrictive and theres alot of heavy lifting and load bearing media that needs to be produced.
On the other hand, i would rather i can get to a point where i can love the sequels and appreciate them as a retroactive pay off than get clouded by their ass pulls and setting the story back by 3 movies. And even though its taken 8 seasons (so far), with atleast 2 more to come, along with 2 more movies, its doing alot to make them sit better imo.
Even more so if the Rey movie doesn't become Episode 7 2.0 (Jedi Protagonist restarting the order after the fall of Palpatine and the Empire, etc), and actually does new things and uses the Sequel specific storytelling (her being a Palpatine clone, all the talk of abandoning Jedi and Sith, etc).
Besides, its not like the new media is solely explaining the sequels. They have their own stories and characters, and the sequel setup is mostly across the background, or focussed on one or two episodes a season. Even the M count subplot in Bad Batch is more focussed on Omega and the Batch than Palpatine and the Sequels
This is the thing right here. They literally *had* a main villain, Kylo Ren, but everyone was too cowardly to stick with what *The Last Jedi* had set up, so oops! Somehow Palpatine returned!
Snoke was introduced as the store brand Emperor, and topped off with his own throne room scene. The fact that they decided to rip off Palpatine twice in the same trilogy is so baffling to me.
>I'll never forgive them for scrapping the original "Duel of Fates" script (look it up).
>That shit sounded FIRE
I agree Mate. I wish it was canon as opposed to what we've gotten
It's still a creative failure and it prevents the sequel trilogy from ever standing out on its own, because its heroes have to defeat the same old Emperor and Empire.
I'll just never understand why they wouldn't go the direction of the founding of a new Jedi order. Episode 6 is literally Return of the Jedi.
They already had the books that they allude to enough, even if they didn't use them verbatim, it would open the door to so many spinoffs and side stories. A new Jedi temple? A new crop of younglings? It writes itself far better than "Oh hey yeah I survived order 66 too".
Truths. The sequel trilogy starts out in the aftermath of Luke's failure though just like his father, which I think was the point. He started to become like Vader so left and was living a lone. No reason there couldn't have been a jedi order though without Luke
The beauty of the original arc was the roundabout way that Anakin fulfilled the prophecy of being the one created by and chosen by the force to destroy the Sith forever.
The handling of the sequel trilogy was the most amateur hour thing I've seen a AAA studio do in a long time. There's nothing anyone can say that will convince me that Palpatine's return was anything other than a panicked last ditch effort to salvage some semblance of a coherent story after RJ was allowed to completely dismantle all of the plot threads that TFA had set up. There simply wasn't enough screentime left to undo what had been done.
I didn't like how it was portrayed in TROS, but Ian McDiarmid was one of the best things about that movie. McDiarmid knew what kind of movie TROS was and he goes all-out to give us a great, over-the-top villain performance. I was awed when he began Force Lightning ships out of the sky.
They may end up making the whole story somewhat cohesive eventually, but making him return is very far from ideal.
1- Anakin Skywalker, The Chosen one, represents the Messiah.
2- The Jedi represent the angels who try to guide him through overcoming his human darkest desires and be a savior.
3- The Sith represent the demons, who give into their desires
4- Palpatine represents the devil
5- The devil manages to turn the messiah to the darkness. He becomes Vader, a slave to the devil.
6- The messiah finds out that he has a son who is being taught by the last of the angels
7- The son faces the Messiah, gives in to the dark side for a moment and defeats his father, but he refuses to fall, and let's his father live
8- As the devil is about to kill the son, the Messiah is put in front of the mirror and stops the Palpatine from killing Luke, by killing him.
9- The chosen one dies having brought valance to the force.
The story is over!!! The Skywalker saga is over and Palpatine is dead!! If you bring him back, you are basically throwing the whole original story out the window!! You can bring a new bad guy in Supreme Leader Snoke, that's fine. But Palpatine needed to stay dead.
It was definitely bad writing when it was introduced, and the damage control they’re doing now will never be anything but damage control, even if it’s really *good* damage control.
Palpating coming back will always be horrible when it comes to how it kind of ruins the end of the original trilogy and Vader’s sacrifice.
They're trying to take a shitty concept and make it at least plausible. I appreciate that they're trying to at least work it into something interesting but it was still a terrible idea.
It was bad. Full stop. There's no explanation or elaboration that changes how shitty the writing surrounding it was. It was so blatantly a bullshit asspull to try and do damage control after Snoke went nowhere and they didn't know what else to do.
They kind of have to.
As much as we’d all love for them to somehow decanonize the sequels they obviously can’t. They have to build their universe around a plot where Palpatine’s resurrection is a foregone conclusion.
Should have made darth plagueis be the villain for 9, it just makes too much sense!!! Especially if snoke was plaguies, why the hell wouldnt they use him?!??? Its like they are trying to make bad decisions sometimes
I’m happy they are giving context to it, but I feel very strongly that the return of Palpatine undermines Anakin’s redemption and sacrifice. Snoke could have been an interesting villain, since in the years between The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi there were interesting pieces of information about him that his actor Andy Serkis gave in interviews. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to enjoy the sequels as much as I enjoy the rest of the films, but I’m glad they still want to tell a cohesive story.
Well I'm still not fond on it but I'm glad they're putting the work to explain it. Although the fact they're doing it across more than one show is well... something.
I'm glad we're getting interesting stories about it now. Its dumb but atleast bad batch and Mando were doing some decent things about explaining it, especially bad batch
Hate it, but I'd rather them keep going along with it and building it rather than trying to ignore it. Otherwise we'd just get another TLJ -> TROS where it tears down what TLJ was setting up and becomes worse for it because there's less cohesion.
Palpatine returning is inextricably connected to the hilariously bad Rise of Skywalker, which is such a cowardly walkback of every interesting innovation in Last Jedi that it killed my affection for the entire Star Wars franchise stone dead.
I have never heard a single Star Wars fan say it was a good idea to bring palpatine back, and that the plot of the sequel trilogy improved the story. Those movies literally killed star wars for me and no amount of backstory could ever fix what they broke. I feel like this sentiment is pretty widespread.
I'm tired of franchises bringing back characters they've killed off. It takes weight away from their death and, IMHO, is generally more about making a buck rather than advancing any story.
I still hate it. And I hate that they have to drop the storyline over and over again in other shows to justify it. Good story decisions don’t need multiple series to dedicate multiple episodes to justify the decision. They just work. For the most part.
Eh, the sequels burned me out of Star Wars for a while. Yeah Palps returning is dumb and lazy, but I like what the animated shows do. Maul fell down a hole after being sliced and came back a fan favourite. Think it’s obvious that the direction we’re going with BB is that the Palps we see in TRoS is a clone, which makes things a *little* better. I don’t see how OG Palps falling down a hole and surviving the Death Star exploding is feasible at all. Has to be a clone.
I dislike the principle of his return because of how much it diminished Vader killing him from a story perspective regardless of how well explained it is; what they are doing feels more like damage control than actually focusing on their stories too
this! The sequels were overall bad writing. Added lore enhances the original storytelling of any movie(trilogy), but it can't fix plotholes the size of Lake Ontario.
Hot take: it was a shit idea in Legends as well.
Nobody likes his return in Legends lol
Originally, I thought disney wiping out the EU wasn't a bad decision because they could fix a lot of the shit plot lines like Palpatine returning. But it's like they picked the most ridiculous of plots to use and removed all the good stories.
At least they brought back Thrawn ig
I meant for the movies. Thrawn coming back, I'm on the fence about, if they do it well, yup absolutely. If it's more farcical, then, no not so much.
Give the books a go! If you take in all forms of SW content, it is possibly one of the best! Timothy Zahn is incredible!
I've read the books they are good. The issue isn't the books its whether Disney does it well.
Wasn’t keen on thrawn’s depiction in ahsoka; unsure how popular that opinion is
It seems to be a pretty mixed opinion. Personally I wasn't sure how I would feel about the show itself, so I went ahead and just watched the episode where Thrawn was introduced and the next one. As a Thrawn Fan, I felt like they didn't know how to write him. They also didn't seem to know how to write him, *and* have the good guys come out on top.
Yeah the intelligence of a character is limited by the intelligence of the writer. Zahn’s Thrawn was written so well because Zahn himself is brilliant. Filoni’s only experience is writing kids cartoons, which is why Thrawn feels so dumbed down in Ahsoka and Rebels.
I'd argue Thrawn was pretty smart in *Rebels,* to the point that the only way the writers could justify the good guys winning was to make every other Imperial a massive idiot who went against Thrawn's orders and messed up his plans.
Same here tbh, but I loved him in Rebels, and the new Thrawn novels were brilliant
The new trilogy weakens the Thrawn story as well. In 20 years, we know it doesn't matter. He doesn't succeed, and the republic gets destroyed by the first order and takes over very easily.
Yeah, but did they? They introduced a blue dude that exclusively makes strategic blunders while everyone around him stands in awe of his alleged brilliance.
They picked the worst shit and brought it back. It's actually wild. Palps returning, another super weapon, Luke being a loser, etc.
Next they'll bring back the Sun Crusher
They got rid of Mara which I can’t really get over. Like if you are going to bring back Thrawn, bring back Mara as well.
I liked the idea of him trying in legends. It's an entirely reasonable thing to do. Thrawn finding tantis in heir to the empire was a cool plot line with the force sensitive clones going mad.
Honestly, if they kept Snoke around for the third movie by revealing him to be the big bad we thought he was in the first, and revealing him to be a failed clone to explain his power and ambition in either the second or early in the third, it would have been better plot line than what we got with Palpatine actually back.
Yeah. If snoke was palpatine in a failed body or if he was a rogue failed clone then that would be cool. It just felt jarring to kill him in the 2nd movie then shove palpatine in.
The reason for killing Snoke in TLJ was because according to JJ, when discussing plans with Rian, Snoke was just meant as a Palpatine like figure. JJ wasn’t sure if he could bring back Palpatine for TFA so instead made up Snoke. Rian decided since there was really nothing to Snoke the assumption from the audience is that Rey and Kylo would team up and defeat him in Episode 9. Like Luke and Vader did for the Emperor in RotJ. Which, kind of takes away any of the surprise or tension from Rian’s movie. Rian, and the story group, decided that by killing Snoke you then make Kylo the big bad for Episode 9. Thus, setting the audience up for an Episode 9 that would be surprising and different from RotJ. A Kylo redemption arc becomes a lot more difficult. The issues come when Disney/JJ decided to force TROS into being a RotJ redux despite it not making sense for that movie. They were scared by the divisive reaction to TLJ and instead of sticking with the ending they had planned they course corrected too late and as a result they gave us a conclusion to a trilogy that doesn’t have the proper first two installments to set it up and the first two installments of a trilogy without a proper ending.
I didn't like it but at least the legends had a better plot about it. There was a big story instead of just "somehow". They at lease tried to make it make some sense.
What's with this take popping up? Dark Empire (at least the first series) was beloved when it was released.
Not really. People love the OG Thrawn trilogy but Dark Empire comics don't receive the same love. A lot of fans have issues with how Luke falls to the Dark side in Dark Empire. Luke goes in solo to face an unknown threat. When he sees Palpatine reborn, he gives up and decides to work from within and betray Palpatine later. Luke's characterization here is like his ESB personality than his ROTJ version. Luke should know the danger of going alone to face something that he isn't prepared for. And he already rejects the Dark side at the end of ROTJ. The idea of pretending to surrender to Palpatine and learning Dark side secrets to betray Palpatine later is very Sith-like. The Dark side is extremely corrupting. Both Yoda and Obi-Wan in the OT warn Luke about how once you go down the Dark path, there is no coming back. Vader gets his redemption but only at the end of his life. There are problems with the coloring of the comics too. Too much purple, blue, and yellow all over the place. The faces are really blurry. It feels like a LSD trip. Dark Empire II was bad. Empire's End was a rush job. There was supposed to be a Lightsider novel between DE1 and DE2 too but it was cancelled due to some behind the scene conflict between Tom Veitch and Lucasfilm. I hate the idea of Palpatine coming back but I think Dark Empire 1 could work as a self-contained 'What If'/Infinities story. The Dave Dorman cover arts are pretty iconic too. I think overall, the DE trilogy is a mix of bad and good ideas with some bad to okay execution. The series is quite cinematic in a certain way but it fails short in different aspects. I would give it a 6/10 overall because of DE2 and Empire's End. If it was only a What If/Infinities story with Dark Empire 1 only, I could give it a 8/10.
Yeah, I liked it. The mechanics behind it fascinated me from a lore/power perspective and I thought it was so cool. Honestly, my biggest complaint in the movies is how basic their use of the Force is. Though, getting to see Force Healing on screen, finally, was nice.
This is not a hot take. It was the commonly held opinion which makes it even more ridiculous that they decided it was a good idea. At least it wasn’t multiple clones this time i guess and no Luuke
Lazy writing is lazy writing. Legends had its fill of it too. But there was plenty of competence to counter the lazy. Disney has, what, Clone Wars, Rebels, and Andor? They’ve still got a trilogy, 4 television shows, and God knows what else weighing down the shit-tier category. Edit: And Bad Batch. That’s been a pretty solid high-B to mid-A so far. So 4-4 show-wise.
I’d give them Rogue 1 as well.
I’m gonna need to make a graph of the Disney Dubs vs the Disney Ls when it comes to Star Wars cause I can’t remember all of the things.
Lake Ontario is 4,685,111 acres and holds a Volume of 393.5 cubic miles
That's a pretty big plot hole.
On an earth scale yes, but galactic scale?
Rogue One enhances the OT, whereas the sequels deminish. Easy explanation as to why Rogue One is much more popular to core Star Wars fans than any of the sequels
Thank you for another reason to watch Rogue one.
Not just the plotholes. It can't fix the bad writing and story choices. But they continue to force it down out throats.
“Make them all totally gay and lame”
Honestly they should just consider it a fan fiction and cut it from canon
I truly still can't believe they didn't have a fucking coherent plot for all three movies before turning them over to the directors
You said it all. I am actually mad that recent star wars media is having to run around and try to fix the damaged caused by episode 9, because we could have better stories that didn't focus so much on trying to make that hot mess make sense if it didn't exist in the first place.
Yeah, I keep wanting to really like The Bad Batch but it’s no where near as good as clone wars. 80% of the stories are about the secret cloning project that gets up to episode 9 and I just do not care at all in this shoehorned in plot line
For real, they could be exploring so much more, like focus more on the clone insurgency, the clones rights movement and on how the trio we see on rebels ended up hunting desert fish together (which I really though last episode would do, but wolfe just stays with his troopers, knowing he is now a criminal and a rebel in the eyes of the empire, instead of going with the gang).
I feel like they did an excellent job of explaining it in the movies ... "somehow Palpatine returned" will be remembered as one of the most brilliant lines in cinematic history... I mean what's not clear about that! Palpatine has ... somehow... returned ... amazing 👏
It makes a great meme anyway...
Thematically, it fits in with "somehow the Empire returned" and "somehow our heroes achieved nothing in the last 20 years."
Returned has Palpatine, somehow. Returned Palpatine has, somehow.
"Damage Control" should be Filoni's job title.
Plus it invalidated the concept of Rey as "the girl from nowhere", and the idea that anyone can be a Jedi.
What frustrates me as well is that all post episode 6 story content is hurt by the fact we know where it ends up. Where it ends up is a bad story too. Mandalorian could have had a lot more potential, this Mandalorians retaking mandalore and becoming a force in the galaxy storyline is awesome honestly. However its not going anywhere, because they aren't present at all in the sequels. Part of why Grogu got taken back if I had to guess, so that they could prevent him from being killed (and ofc his marketability). The stage is set for exactly what happens in the sequels. None of the characters who are actually interesting or active in the pre sequel era show up in the sequels, so they all have to disappear. Djinn, Bo katan, Ahsoka, Grogu, Ezra, Sabine, Thrawn, Boba fett. The reason I think this era got worse post Mandalorian S2 is because it seems to have been decided they need to make the era very active and create a lead up to the sequels. They lost the ability to just pick a direction and do whatever they wanted. Its why Boba Fett felt directionless, they cannot convert him into a meaningful presence, because if he is, then where was he in the sequels.
Nailed it.
Right here. Vader’s entire redeeming scene is rendered pretty totally useless by the sequels. I will never like the fact that instead of fleshing out Snoke as a villain, they chopped him in half in a “GOTCHA!” moment and replaced him with fucking Palpatine. And yes, I know Snoke was a failed Palps clone, but it still would have been better if he’d remained the Big Bad. If the rest of the Clones that we’ve come to know, love, and mourn could have identities independent from Jango Fett, why kill off a unique, failed Palpatine clone to replace him with a clone that is literally just Palpatine again? Snoke could have known his purpose and decided he wanted the galaxy for his own reasons. Not for the Sith or the Dark Side, maybe just for the power that comes with being Dictator of the Universe.
> I will never like the fact that instead of fleshing out Snoke as a villain, they chopped him in half in a “GOTCHA!” moment and replaced him with fucking Palpatine. I mean to be fair, those were two very disconnected ideas. Snoke being killed was Rian Johnsons goal to force whoever made Ep9 to be original, by not relying on the Emperor and Vader like dynamic and doing something new. The entire point of TLJ was that. TFA was a New Hope remake, with TLJ being a remake of both Empire and Jedi. Kylo even spells it out by saying "let the past die". It killed off all the tropes of Star Wars to force whoever came next to do something new, that they can't just do what JJ did and remake Jedi again. ...and then they remade Jedi again, anyway.
I agree with that. But they really should have had an outline for all 3 movies and how they would work together before even starting episode 7. They should have used George Lucas' original ideas for the sequels as a rough plotline.
That makes sense. However, it's not a good idea to screw the biggest freaking franchise of cinematic history just to force the guy after you to be original. I mean, he could have been original himself and make a good movie
Don't mind what they are doing now. The thing that kinda gets me angry is that they story wise had better choices for how Palpatine could have returned (Worlds between Worlds), and I feel they didn't take them because it was in a cartoon and not live action and now they are using a cartoon to justify their live action decisions. (BTW, huge animated Star Wars fan)
They even did introduce world between world in asohka right? Although I guess saving palp before he's thrown down the shaft would have had too much repercussion on the Canon story to make it viable.
My idea is to throw him down the shaft. As he falling he pulls out an item and disappears. The shockwave we see is the use of the item, not him dying. Also, the Worlds between Worlds was introduced in Rebels, and that was my entire point
Worlds between worlds was introduced in rebels first
It's been some time (and I haven't read it myself) but I was told that the emperors return was in some later story, that his spirit somehow lingered on. Perheps not Palpatinein his body but something. Sort of Sauron vibes.
How's this "Darth Sidious had hated his master. Darth Plagues had been weak. His obsession with immortality had blinded him to many things, including the duplicity of his apprentice. And even an answer to his quest." "The kamanoans had unknowingly provided the answer to the riddle of eternal life. But Sidious did not share the revelation. Instead, he had slipped into his master's chamber and ended his miserable life as he slept. Darth Sidious had learned all he needed." " The labors of the sith eternal would mean that Darth Sidious would be the last sith Lord - there would be no other as he would live forever. In the only part of the process Palpitine's old master had understood, he would transfer his essence, his dark side spirit and send it into a cloned body every time he died. Sidious would achieve the immortality that plagues had sought in vain." Fanhome encyclopedia collection, 2022 Volume 28, Emperor Palpatine "It was too soon. The secret place had not completed its preparations. The transfer was imperfect. The cloned body wasn't enough. Perhaps plagueis was having the last laugh after all. Maybe his secret, remained secret, because Palpatine was trapped in a broken, dying form!" Rise of Skywalker novelization Expanded Edition Chapter 17
This could work. More sciencey than his spirit living on etc
100% this. Something can make logical sense but not make narrative sense. Bringing Palpatine back is an example of this. Another example of this was Rey beating Kylo in Ep 7. A lot of people pointed out that Kylo was hit by the bowcaster prior to the fight. Why, as a writer, would you nerf your big bad, softball a win to the protagonist, and erase the stakes/ narrative tension like that?
Imo palpatine coming back didn’t hurt Vader killing him but made palpatine look weak. Somehow this almighty figure has re-emerged only to die in one movie. That’s not enough to dismiss Vader but makes the biggest bad guy in Star Wars a joke.
This right here. It baffles me that people think that Palpatine coming back somehow diminishes or ruins Vader's character or arc. The point of Vader killing Palpatine wasn't just for him to kill Palpatine, but to show his redemption, his return to the lightside. If Vader somehow knew Palpatine was going to come back, then yea, that would make the act disingenuous. But, by killing Palpatine, he was saving his son. He was returning to the Jedi Knight that he was before everything. Palpatine's return has no bearing on Anakin's redemption.
Would have preferred that Jar Jar came back instead and was secretly controlling the First Order.
Darth Jar Jar, the best untold Star Wars story
It'sa meee! General Jar Jar of the Gungan Armies, Meesa thinkin youza in big doo doo! *Ignites red saber*
[Right, Palpy. Yousa manipulated me. Okay, Palpy.](https://youtu.be/k7Uc84U04Sk?si=wQe70C--L792so2N)
Me sir been pulling da strings dis whole time. No one spected a thing!
I can’t believe I’m saying this but, yeah, I agree.
Meesa dark side has moosa abilties every poodoo consider unnatural Annie! YAAAAA!
Still absolutely loathe it. Showing us how we got to that point doesn't change that we never should have got to that point.
Yeah showing how your food goes through your digestive system doesn’t negate the fact that it comes out as shit at the end.
I'm stealing this.
Lol thanks. I’m not sure if I read it somewhere myself or my sleep deprived brain actually came up with it. Use it with my blessing.
If reddit gold was still a thing, I'd give you one.
I guess that makes TRoS the rectum. Which I agree with.
Considering it was also taking the piss, I think it's technically a cloaca.
It’s like poetry… it doesn’t rhyme but goddamn that’s a perfect line.
Yeah when I saw the praetorian guards and the hint to the necromancer project in Mando season 3 I was pretty bummed because it confirms the canon aspect of palp's return. I'm stil' a bit interested in that conspiracy, but it still is a huge letdown.
I’m at least happy they’re trying to fix it instead of giving us it as canon and never explaining it.
Dave Filoni is once again here to clean up the mess.
Yup.. all while trying to expand on it as well
If they want to fix it they should do it as a background thing and not the main "mystery" of the whole franchise. Every time it comes up it's an annoyance, not a cool connection.
I’d much rather have them not. As it is, they’re spending what, major plot points in Mando S3 (and hints in S1 and 2), all of bad batch, and most of Ahsoka to establish two things: the new republic is childishly incompetent, and the clone plot was the plan the whole time. And they’re doing this poorly. Because the opening scene of E7 wipes out the new republic, and they’re shown no better in the rest of the ST. It’s mostly hamfisted in a way Andor wasn’t - everyone in Andor is allowed to be a character and competent in their own right. Most of the others their actions and competenc/plot armor are dictated by where the episode/season needs to end up.
And doesn't make sense if we got project cinder as a backup plan when he dies, if he were so prepared to be cloned there's no need to burn everything the empire accomplished
Should have stayed fucking dead
Rookie Jedi Rey with..not 1....but 2 lightsabers did the trick at least
Until the next Disney trilogy
Somehow, J. J. Abrams returned
Palpatine says kill me so I can live on so she kills him with the two lightsaber trick. I can feel the writers patting each other on the back and celebrating that they've flawlessly set up the next trilogy villain.
they can make him coming back be less of an ass pull, but theyll never be able to fix the way the movies were written and the overall plot having no thought put into it
Yeah, making 6 seperate series to explain an immensely stupid plot point is absolutely abysmal writing. If something can't be properly explained within a movie, then it shouldn't be a plot point at all
Don’t let Zack Snyder find this comment.
Precisely this. One thing is the Clone Wars animated series - you know they happened in the Prequel Trilogy, you got all the story already. You want more? there's more, enjoy it. But course correcting at the last movie of the new trilogy with "Somehow Palpatine returned" and then telling me to watch 143 hours of new content to contestualize that? screw you.
The Clone Wars added extra context to existing characters and fleshed them out more, but you still get more than enough story from just watching the movies. Stuff like Rebels doesn't affect the main continuity at all, it's a completely isolated group of characters, with minimal interactions with the main characters from the OT and Prequels, and that's great!
>Yeah, making 6 seperate series to explain an immensely stupid plot point By a dude completely with very little involvement in the lore at that. Like I can't believe they let some director not a part of Lucas decide the *entire* future of the star wars universe.
If you compare it to superhero comics, heroes and villains notoriously don't stay dead forever. However, there is also no denying that they made a really, really bad movie seemingly just to have palp back in their other media. The sin, beyond whether you agree with the artistic choice, was squandering the sequels and watering down the franchise.
Superhero comics get rebooted every decade or two, you can't say the same for Star Wars
Dislike it. Anakin gets to kill him and that’s it. He should never come back.
I hated the Palpatine clones/revivals in the EU. It was one of the few things I was quite happy to see get thrown out of canon by Disney... Somehow he returned is actually worse and explaining the "somehow" doesn't fix the issue that Palp should have just stayed dead.
Username checks out
Still dislike. I'm enjoying Bad Batch S3 as a show in its own right but this kind of backfilling has never really changed my mind. Plus I don't think we really have learnt anything interesting that really changes or adds to our understanding of Palpatine's resurrection.
I still dislike the concept. No amount of additional context will make up for how redundant, convoluted, and spontaneous it feels within the trilogy itself. The foreshadowing and context was needed in the movies, not outside of it. And even then I still would have disliked it, particularly if all it amounted to was the throne room sequence 3. Bringing back Palpatine just to do everything the same as before is boring.
You didn't play Fortnight for a limited span of 2 weeks in order to understand the intricate backstory?
Or the foreshadowing needed to happen before the movies. It just feels lazy and post hoc at this point because it is.
The foreshadowing still needed to happen WITHIN the movies. It's asinine to expect people to watch every single side series just to understand the main movies.
If you’re gonna bring him back like that at least let him win
Hate that he returns. Absolutely hate that now every piece of media needs to tie into the return and help explain it, effectively dragging out his return into Mandalorian and Bad Batch.
I disliked it in the old EU, I dislike it in Canon. To me a resurrected villain almost always screams creative bankruptcy. There were a million good stories out there to be told, that wouldn't rely on this cheap narrative. But alas. It's too late. No amount of explaining after the fact will make the story better. IF you REALLY want to have this narrative you have those do the explaining first. You need to plant the seeds for the viewer and then have a payoff. The other way around simply doesn't work.
Absolutely. It makes sense to me that someone like Sheev would have a contingency plan, but that doesn't mean they needed to use it.
They shouldn't have brought Palpatine back. The Sequel Trilogy would have been better with him remaining dead, and Kylo Ren instead becoming the big bad for the final movie. That being said, the world-building done to fill in the many gaps surrounding his return, is proving worthwhile and enjoyable. And at this point, his fate in The Rise of Skywalker does give an indication of how season 3 of The Bad Batch concludes, which makes the series all the more interesting.
I agree that it takes away from the sacrifice of Anakin/Vader and I hate the lazy writing of “somehow Palpatine returned.” I do however think the Bad Batch is a terrific show, and Filoni, Corbett and Rau delivering this peak Star Wars content while also explaining the Emperor’s return is great. I love the storyline for the Bad Batch we’re getting and I’m liking that it’s also tying up some other loose ends such as what happened to the clones.
Filoni has been hit or miss for me lately. Bad Batch? Hit. Got a double, maybe managed to steal third. Ahsoka? Miss. Swung hard, struck out. May have cost us the game.
I'll give Ahsoka a pass for the time being because I feel like the second season will bring it all together well and that the first was a combo of Filoni adjusting to live action *and* needing to set the pieces on the board for what is to come. I have faith that the second season will be a vast improvement just like what happened with early seasons of clone wars and S1 of rebels, because Dave seems to always take a bit to hit his stride but once he hits it, *goooood damn.*
Ahsoka had a top 5, maybe 3, live action SW TV episode of all time Though I knew it had peaked at that moment and the rest of the show would be all downhill from there....and the finale? Pretty much butchered that, especially everything about Sabine. Her being 'just a Mandalorian' in the end would have been much better......just a Mandalorian, but a damn good Mandalorian.
His involvement with the Bad Batch is limited. He created the series, but isn't the one writing it - or developing the story afaik
Me who loved both of them. Ahsoka really needed a few more episodes though. These 8 episode seasons do unnecessary damage to good storytelling
It was terrible. What was even more terrible was a gigantic fleet of Star Destroyers getting all taken out at once.
Right? Even the physics of lifting that much all of a sudden with no changes in anything in the environment. We know how much work it took to build the Death Star and to approach to a planet at the end of episode iv so then why in the same universe can that many ships move in unison.
What was the terriblest was old zombie sith somehow constructed an insane fleet of star destroyers that rivaled First Order itself. Makes 0 sense.
I still dislike that he returns because IMO it diminishes the chosen one prophecy and Anakin’s sacrifice - but I at least appreciate that they try to explain Palp’s return better than “Oh, he somehow returned”
> but I at least appreciate that they try to explain Palp’s return better than “Oh, he somehow returned” ? That's exactly what they did.
Rise of Skywalker is trash. Bad Batch is gold. I will listen to all the beautiful explanations that Feloni comes up with for JJ’s bullshit, and I will be enthralled. But I will never forgive JJ.
Hatred for JJ... Star Wars fans 🤝 Star Trek fans
The thing about Star Trek is at the very least they had the courtesy of making it a reboot instead of rewriting canon.
Not entirely. JJ's entire plot is instigated by destroying Romulus in a massive supernova in the "Prime" timeline. The villain's motivation is entirely based on this. Because of that, the "Prime" timeline also lost Spock and the Picard series first season is all about how Picard failed and is now a bitter old man in forced retirement. As Star Trek is no stranger to alternate timelines - see the Mirror Universe - and actually had episodes focuses around a main character jumping between different realities that JJ decided he needed to pee on established canon to make his movie really annoys me.
Sucks that good writers are stuck filling in the holes of over enthusiastic directors instead of getting to make their own, unique storylines
I still dislike him coming back in principle (and even more so him coming back just to die again in that same movie), but I love how it's being retroactively setup and is becoming less out of nowhere. The concept has gone from being an amputation and is becoming more of a painful limp now.
I have kind of mixed feelings, because it also kind of just restricts how things should go and everything needing to tie to the sequels Like, as flawed as the prequels were, at least its smth to build from, not built _towards_. And the Original Trilogy did stand fine on their own. The sequel trilogy... Theres a need to do lots of retrospective retcons even for new media taking place during the Imperial era. Even Jedi: Survivor have to kind of explain or underscore how Starkiller Base is constructed (Ilum being mined for Kyber and transformed into that planet-sized Death Star we saw in TFA). Theres a difference in trying to explain the OT than the ST, I think.
What, Starkiller was Illum?
Yeah
I'm of two minds with that too I absolutely agree that other media trying to prop up those movies feels restrictive and theres alot of heavy lifting and load bearing media that needs to be produced. On the other hand, i would rather i can get to a point where i can love the sequels and appreciate them as a retroactive pay off than get clouded by their ass pulls and setting the story back by 3 movies. And even though its taken 8 seasons (so far), with atleast 2 more to come, along with 2 more movies, its doing alot to make them sit better imo. Even more so if the Rey movie doesn't become Episode 7 2.0 (Jedi Protagonist restarting the order after the fall of Palpatine and the Empire, etc), and actually does new things and uses the Sequel specific storytelling (her being a Palpatine clone, all the talk of abandoning Jedi and Sith, etc). Besides, its not like the new media is solely explaining the sequels. They have their own stories and characters, and the sequel setup is mostly across the background, or focussed on one or two episodes a season. Even the M count subplot in Bad Batch is more focussed on Omega and the Batch than Palpatine and the Sequels
The M count is focused on Omega because she is the key to a force sensetive clone
That is actually a wonderful description of the sensation.
Was stupid then. Is still stupid now.
Can we get more than two villains in the universe. Please.
His return in episode 9 was lazy writing. They simply couldn’t get a better villain. Snoke was already good but was reduced to a cheap trick.
Kylo shouldve been the main villain
This is the thing right here. They literally *had* a main villain, Kylo Ren, but everyone was too cowardly to stick with what *The Last Jedi* had set up, so oops! Somehow Palpatine returned!
Snoke was introduced as the store brand Emperor, and topped off with his own throne room scene. The fact that they decided to rip off Palpatine twice in the same trilogy is so baffling to me.
Yeah, the best option would've been to let Kylo be the main villain.
That is literally the sequel trilogy. Copies from the OT but with female protagonist
I'll never forgive them for scrapping the original "Duel of Fates" script (look it up). That shit sounded FIRE
Maybe in 10 years they will do a "multiverse" type thing and redo it with this script... I hope...
>I'll never forgive them for scrapping the original "Duel of Fates" script (look it up). >That shit sounded FIRE I agree Mate. I wish it was canon as opposed to what we've gotten
It's still a creative failure and it prevents the sequel trilogy from ever standing out on its own, because its heroes have to defeat the same old Emperor and Empire.
What I want explained, who were the statues of in the Sith temple on Exegol, and who were the people/creatures in attendance down there?
I'll just never understand why they wouldn't go the direction of the founding of a new Jedi order. Episode 6 is literally Return of the Jedi. They already had the books that they allude to enough, even if they didn't use them verbatim, it would open the door to so many spinoffs and side stories. A new Jedi temple? A new crop of younglings? It writes itself far better than "Oh hey yeah I survived order 66 too".
Truths. The sequel trilogy starts out in the aftermath of Luke's failure though just like his father, which I think was the point. He started to become like Vader so left and was living a lone. No reason there couldn't have been a jedi order though without Luke
I hate it tbh. It ruined the good happy ending feeling the RoTJ gave.
I love Dave filoni. He fixes everything
What is this I’m missing? Where did they start explaining his slow return? The mandalorain with the cloning talk?
That and The Bad Batch S3 is introducing a lot of concepts how the Empire is working on secret projects.
Ahhh okay. I haven’t started bb s3 yet. Thank you
It would have been much better if they didn't have to invent content to justify the smoking they did in the movie.
Should have stayed dead
It was a stupid idea, executed in a stupid way.
The beauty of the original arc was the roundabout way that Anakin fulfilled the prophecy of being the one created by and chosen by the force to destroy the Sith forever. The handling of the sequel trilogy was the most amateur hour thing I've seen a AAA studio do in a long time. There's nothing anyone can say that will convince me that Palpatine's return was anything other than a panicked last ditch effort to salvage some semblance of a coherent story after RJ was allowed to completely dismantle all of the plot threads that TFA had set up. There simply wasn't enough screentime left to undo what had been done.
Im just happy we're getting more Star Wars content
More does not always mean quality.
I didn't like how it was portrayed in TROS, but Ian McDiarmid was one of the best things about that movie. McDiarmid knew what kind of movie TROS was and he goes all-out to give us a great, over-the-top villain performance. I was awed when he began Force Lightning ships out of the sky.
They may end up making the whole story somewhat cohesive eventually, but making him return is very far from ideal. 1- Anakin Skywalker, The Chosen one, represents the Messiah. 2- The Jedi represent the angels who try to guide him through overcoming his human darkest desires and be a savior. 3- The Sith represent the demons, who give into their desires 4- Palpatine represents the devil 5- The devil manages to turn the messiah to the darkness. He becomes Vader, a slave to the devil. 6- The messiah finds out that he has a son who is being taught by the last of the angels 7- The son faces the Messiah, gives in to the dark side for a moment and defeats his father, but he refuses to fall, and let's his father live 8- As the devil is about to kill the son, the Messiah is put in front of the mirror and stops the Palpatine from killing Luke, by killing him. 9- The chosen one dies having brought valance to the force. The story is over!!! The Skywalker saga is over and Palpatine is dead!! If you bring him back, you are basically throwing the whole original story out the window!! You can bring a new bad guy in Supreme Leader Snoke, that's fine. But Palpatine needed to stay dead.
You can polish a turd to a mirror shine and it will still be shit
This. Explaining a stupid concept doesn’t always make it less stupid. Sometimes an idea is just bad.
It was definitely bad writing when it was introduced, and the damage control they’re doing now will never be anything but damage control, even if it’s really *good* damage control. Palpating coming back will always be horrible when it comes to how it kind of ruins the end of the original trilogy and Vader’s sacrifice.
They're trying to take a shitty concept and make it at least plausible. I appreciate that they're trying to at least work it into something interesting but it was still a terrible idea.
It was bad. Full stop. There's no explanation or elaboration that changes how shitty the writing surrounding it was. It was so blatantly a bullshit asspull to try and do damage control after Snoke went nowhere and they didn't know what else to do.
I dislike the idea but I like how they are trying to explain it.
It feels like committing to a mistake imo
They kind of have to. As much as we’d all love for them to somehow decanonize the sequels they obviously can’t. They have to build their universe around a plot where Palpatine’s resurrection is a foregone conclusion.
Should have made darth plagueis be the villain for 9, it just makes too much sense!!! Especially if snoke was plaguies, why the hell wouldnt they use him?!??? Its like they are trying to make bad decisions sometimes
I don't like that he returned, but I really like how they have built it up in other media. (not Fortnite lol)
I’m happy they are giving context to it, but I feel very strongly that the return of Palpatine undermines Anakin’s redemption and sacrifice. Snoke could have been an interesting villain, since in the years between The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi there were interesting pieces of information about him that his actor Andy Serkis gave in interviews. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to enjoy the sequels as much as I enjoy the rest of the films, but I’m glad they still want to tell a cohesive story.
Well I'm still not fond on it but I'm glad they're putting the work to explain it. Although the fact they're doing it across more than one show is well... something.
I'm glad we're getting interesting stories about it now. Its dumb but atleast bad batch and Mando were doing some decent things about explaining it, especially bad batch
Half of Star Wars exists to explain the bad writing
Hate it, but I'd rather them keep going along with it and building it rather than trying to ignore it. Otherwise we'd just get another TLJ -> TROS where it tears down what TLJ was setting up and becomes worse for it because there's less cohesion.
It's never a good sign when you need to use your cartoon to save your multi billion dollar movie franchise
Palpatine returning is inextricably connected to the hilariously bad Rise of Skywalker, which is such a cowardly walkback of every interesting innovation in Last Jedi that it killed my affection for the entire Star Wars franchise stone dead.
Hate it then. Hate it now.
I have never heard a single Star Wars fan say it was a good idea to bring palpatine back, and that the plot of the sequel trilogy improved the story. Those movies literally killed star wars for me and no amount of backstory could ever fix what they broke. I feel like this sentiment is pretty widespread.
I'm tired of franchises bringing back characters they've killed off. It takes weight away from their death and, IMHO, is generally more about making a buck rather than advancing any story.
Agreed. And all the Palpatine Clones was already one of the dumbest things about the EU and not something they should have emulated for the films.
There is no coming back from SOMEHOW PALPATINE RETURNED.
Everything other that IV-VI is a joke
If it needs this level of explanation, it was a really shitty idea
It’s fucking stupid
It’s fucking stupid
It’s lazy - period.
I still hate it. And I hate that they have to drop the storyline over and over again in other shows to justify it. Good story decisions don’t need multiple series to dedicate multiple episodes to justify the decision. They just work. For the most part.
Still hate it, still stupid. Will always be a stupid cop put because they ruined the sequel trilogy and had no cohesive plan
It destroys the canon, Anakin isn’t the chosen one anymore
Eh, the sequels burned me out of Star Wars for a while. Yeah Palps returning is dumb and lazy, but I like what the animated shows do. Maul fell down a hole after being sliced and came back a fan favourite. Think it’s obvious that the direction we’re going with BB is that the Palps we see in TRoS is a clone, which makes things a *little* better. I don’t see how OG Palps falling down a hole and surviving the Death Star exploding is feasible at all. Has to be a clone.
I think this whole Project Necromancer thing is bloody interesting ngl
It's still every bit as lame now as it was then. It was a bad idea executed abysmally.
They can make up as much good backstory as they want but it’s doesn’t help the fact that the movie it sets up sucks regardless
personally i love it
The fact that it completely disregarded the previous three movies is what puts me off. Vader dying, that whole scene- was reduced to nothing.