Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) Non-Spoilers! (2 Viewers)

[TravisR]

I think people are blowing Palpatine way out of proportion. There's literally nothing in those clips that indicates that Palpatine has a big role in this movie. The character is in it but Ian McDiarmid could have shot one day on the movie.

Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi are in The Force Awakens, characters from nearly every movie (including the ones that take place decades afterwards) are in Rebels. The Star Wars galaxy is a weird place.

 

[Lord Dalek]

So basically we're going to back to the Endor system if that's the wreckage of the second Death Star (if not, its Yavin)

 

[joshEH]

J.J. Abrams consulted with George Lucas during the writing of the Episode IX screenplay:

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment...iting-star-wars-rise-skywalker-185700904.html

 

[JimmyO]

Not getting too worked up over Palpatine. He may just be a force ghost. Who knows.

 

[SamT]

I think the interesting question is why did they give away Palpatine? With J.J. Abrams being big on secrecy and very good at it (so many surprises stayed secret for The Force Awakens), why they give away that Palpatine is in it? Why they feel they need to? They could have perfectly kept him secret and it would have been a great surprise for the movie.

 

[holtge]

I'm sorry, but isn't it just a little premature to react this strongly to a movie that you haven't even seen yet? Let's give JJ Abrams, Kathy Kennedy, Bob Iger, and the rest of the Lucasfilm and Disney braintrust the benefit of the doubt. They may have crafted an incredible finale to a nine-film saga that started when most of us were young kids! I for one have no problem with Emperor Palpatine making an appearance in this last chapter. I can't wait to find out how they do it! But bottom line, let's all take a breath and wait to see the movie before passing judgment on what we think might happen.

 

[JimmyO]

I think the interesting question is why did they give away Palpatine? With J.J. Abrams being big on secrecy and very good at it (so many surprises stayed secret for The Force Awakens), why they give away that Palpatine is in it? Why they feel they need to? They could have perfectly kept him secret and it would have been a great surprise for the movie.

Damage control, pure and simple. It was a reaction to the poor reception of TLJ.

There may be *other* great surprises in the movie. Nah, forget may - there will be. I am sure this is not the only one.

 

[SamT]

They killed Han and it was a total secret to me. They didn't need damage control for killing a major beloved character.

 

[JimmyO]

They killed Han and it was a total secret to me. They didn't need damage control for killing a major beloved character.

The poor fan reaction to TLJ is what I am referring to here. And the title of episode 9 is what it is for the very same reason (my opinion only, of course).

 

[Carabimero]

I'm afraid you're dead on with this,

I wasn't clear. I was talking about the narrative vacuum that was left when Snoke went bye bye. That's the problem. It creates disjunctive storytelling. So it doesn't matter if I'm right or not. The vacuum still exists. And now they have to plug it. That's my point.

 

[Jake Lipson]

He may just be a force ghost.

If so, they'd have to explain how he knows how to do that. When Vader kills Obi-Wan, he clearly has no idea that Obi-Wan will be able to advise Luke from beyond the grave. As I recall, the implication was that Yoda tells Obi-Wan about how to communicate with Force ghosts at the end of Episode III just before they go into hiding, so it doesn't seem like that's something that the Sith know how to do. Of course, there could be a workaround for this, though.

I will mind Palpatine being in it *if* they do it in a cheap and ill-conceived way that undermines the moment in Return of the Jedi when Vader kills him. If it amounts to, "Oh look, there's Palpatine for no reason!" like the surprise cameo in Solo did, I'd be upset. If they have a good reason for bringing him back that genuinely influences the story, and it's done in a way that makes sense, then I'll be on board. It depends on the execution. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until we see what they did. I think they understand that he is such a significant and iconic character that they shouldn't bring him back in if they aren't going to use him. We'll see what happens.

 

[TonyD]

Am I forgetting something cause from what I remember, and I know I can just pop the disc in but I never saw a body.
The emperor was just tossed over a railing down a shaft.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I wasn't clear. I was talking about the narrative vacuum that was left when Snoke went bye bye. That's the problem. It creates disjunctive storytelling. So it doesn't matter if I'm right or not. The vacuum still exists. And now they have to plug it. That's my point.

It's only a narrative vacuum if a Big Bad behind the immediate villain is required. One of the most exciting things about The Last Jedi is that it blew up that structure: The final act took Kylo Ren from being the immediate villain to being the Big Bad. Just as Rey was transitioning from being an instinctual Force adept to something more deliberate, Kylo was graduating to the next phase of being evil.

I feel like the Boss Villains are played out in these movies. Having a flawed and ill-prepared villain against a flawed and ill-prepared hero was an interesting change to the formula. If Palpatine is resurrected as the Big Bad, not only is it not set up by the two movies that preceded it, it locks the movie into the same old stale narrative framework. Especially if we get to a point where Rey redeems Kylo as Palpatine cackles in the background, what's the point of even having this movie? We can just pop in Return of the Jedi instead.

Am I forgetting something cause from what I remember, and I know I can just pop the disc in but I never saw a body.
The emperor was just tossed over a railing down a shaft.

There is an explosion of energy up the shaft, which I always took as the Emperor's death.

The bigger problem is that if he didn't die, why did it take so long for him to reassert himself? Even if a fragment of the Death Star containing the Emperor crashed to the surface of Endor, there were a lot of ships going back and forth in the aftermath of the battle. This isn't Khan trapped on Ceti Alpha V for fifteen years; the Emperor would have had a means of escape. And given his bias against non-human species, there's no way he would have allowed an alien like Snoke to steal his spot.

And thematically, as has been mentioned previously in this thread, it lessens Anakin's sacrifice if Palpatine never died.

So whatever form Palpatine is in the movie needs to avoid undermining Return of the Jedi.

 

[TravisR]

I think the interesting question is why did they give away Palpatine? With J.J. Abrams being big on secrecy and very good at it (so many surprises stayed secret for The Force Awakens), why they give away that Palpatine is in it? Why they feel they need to? They could have perfectly kept him secret and it would have been a great surprise for the movie.

That's another reason why I think he's got a small part in the movie.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I never saw a body. The emperor was just tossed over a railing down a shaft.

You are correct. I suppose I could have worded my earlier post "when Vader throws him down the shaft," but up until yesterday, I thought there was no way he could survive that., especially with the explosion of energy that @Adam Lenhardt mentioned But maybe he did. We'll see in November.

If he is alive, there will have to be one hell of an explanation for what he's been doing in the 30+ years since Return of the Jedi.

 

[Carabimero]

It's only a narrative vacuum if a Big Bad behind the immediate villain is required. One of the most exciting things about The Last Jedi is that it blew up that structure: The final act took Kylo Ren from being the immediate villain to being the Big Bad. Just as Rey was transitioning from being an instinctual Force adept to something more deliberate, Kylo was graduating to the next phase of being evil.

I feel like the Boss Villains are played out in these movies. Having a flawed and ill-prepared villain against a flawed and ill-prepared hero was an interesting change to the formula. If Palpatine is resurrected as the Big Bad, not only is it not set up by the two movies that preceded it, it locks the movie into the same old stale narrative framework. Especially if we get to a point where Rey redeems Kylo as Palpatine cackles in the background, what's the point of even having this movie? We can just pop in Return of the Jedi instead.

One of the reasons I love your posts is because you get structure. I really enjoy that.

If Rian Johnson had been able to take a break, have the time he wanted, and direct IX, I think killing Snoke would have been brilliant. Because Johnson has the narrative and structural talent to make it a plus not a minus. But since he's passing the baton, we'll have to wait and see.

I simply don't believe, if you have good writing, you need to resurrect Palpatine. Abrams said that IX wasn't just a conclusion to the sequel trilogy, but a wrapping up of a nine-episode saga. I disagree with that. IX should be a conclusion to VII and VIII. The other trilogies had their own great conclusions, IMO. So it leads me to believe he's really forcing this Palpatine business, it comes across akward, and the studio is preparing fans for it. If it was a small role, in my view, all the more reason not to spoil the surprise.

The Last Jedi is available on Netflix.++

Thanks. I was just joking about having watched TLJ only once. I saw it in the theater three times, own the BD, and have watched it several times. It's a beautifully crafted movie in a lot of ways.

 

[Carabimero]

If he is alive, there will have to be one hell of an explanation for what he's been doing in the 30+ years since Return of the Jedi.

As this frame demonstrates, even early on, Palpatine was already selecting his horcruxes...

 

[benbess]

....I simply don't believe, if you have good writing, you need to resurrect Palpatine. Abrams said that IX wasn't just a conclusion to the sequel trilogy, but a wrapping up of a nine-episode saga. I disagree with that. IX should be a conclusion to VII and VIII. The other trilogies had their own great conclusions, IMO. So it leads me to believe he's really forcing this Palpatine business, it comes across awkward, and the studio is preparing fans for it. If it was a small role, in my view, all the more reason not to spoil the surprise....

You may have a point here, which relates to what I think is JJA's greatest weakness as a director—his infamous love of the "mystery box." When I heard the Emperor's laugh at the end of the trailer I was kind of blown away—"What? How is that even possible?!" I feel like JJA is good at setting up mysteries, but not always good at answering them, which as we know started with Lost if not before. That's one reason why I like TLJ even better than TFA. TLJ had almost as many surprises as any Star Wars movie I've ever seen (except Empire), but I felt that Rian Johnson's resolutions for these things were integral and emotional—rather than tacked on like some of JJA's "mystery box" answers.

 

[TravisR]

So it leads me to believe he's really forcing this Palpatine business, it comes across akward, and the studio is preparing fans for it. If it was a small role, in my view, all the more reason not to spoil the surprise.

But if it's a small role, it's not a big deal to let people know. Also, they had to know that Palpatine's vocal appearance in the trailer would be nearly the only thing that people would talk about so it could have been a deliberate move to misdirect the audience and help keep the plot secret until the movie comes out.

Also, it's not impossible but I'd be pretty impressed if Ian McDiarmid working a long time on the movie didn't get leaked back when it was shooting.

 

[Greg.K]

It's going to be a long 8 months.