SPECULATION Palpatine will be in episode IX but what will he do in it?

If Palpatine is back, so is Anakin. Gotta be!

 

That was the thing that I "fear" the most. The return of Palpatine. Not sure if I will like if he is a clone or a spirit...maybe in a flashback, a flashback I think is easier to accept...hehehe

 

Pessimistic me: So awesome. He would probably be on a flashback or a hologram for a minute or two.

Fanboy me: OHMYGOFDJASFPAFOIHADFKASLFHAKSNRLKSAJFLKKLASJFKASJFHIQOU!!!!!

 

The prequels were his rise. The originals were his pinnacle and fall (maybe). Up until now he was only (briefly) mentioned by Luke in TLJ. After this trailer, however, he seems to have cast a long, evil shadow over everything.

I'm of the opinion that he won't be in TROS physically, but maybe as a hologram/sentinel, and tell Kylo something that makes Kylo doubt everything. Doubt what? Who knows?

 

Finally the topic everyone was waiting for! Curious how his return will play out. A physical Palpatine, a kind of ghost, a memory, ...

I look forward to the Phantom Menace panel now, I guess Ian will be part of it? And I hope someone will ask a question about that laugh...

 

Now I am really curious if Palpatine has any relation with Snoke. Master/apprentice relation? Did they meet before?
Because I don't think JJ will discard Snoke in IX, he will be mentioned in some way.

 

It would be disappointing if Snoke would be suddenly completely forgotten. *Knights of Ren Episode VIII, cough*


I think (and in honesty, I hope) that Sheev will appear as a Sith Holocron, similar to Bane. He'd be teaching Kylo and being a kind of a better mentor to him. Perhaps him being a Master to his idol, Darth Vader, would create some kind of conflict.

 

Hologram, Flashback, Never died, brought back to life, already had a plan in case Vader killed him, ghost? I don't know yet. May have to watch all the movies again and read Aftermath trilogy books again. The whole deal with being reached from the beyond is a clue.

But I do think Aftermath has the clues

 

"He taught his apprentice everything he knew"

I'm betting on physical Palpatine. JJ said they have to face the ultimate evil in this film, I doubt he would be much of a threat in ghost or holocron form. They wouldn't have him feature so prominently in the trailer if he just has a cameo of some kind either. It seems he can come back from the dead which itself is exciting because it has huge ramifications for the saga going forward.

He's also one of my favourite characters ever, not just in SW so I'm absolutely desperate to see him back in a big role.

One of my main concerns after TLJ was that we no longer had a villian to fear, hate or want to see our hero's beat down. This raises the stakes and emotional weight of the story massively.

 

Rian's like"No more big bad guys"

JJ"Hold my Bluemilk"

 

If I needed to come up with an answer to this question. I would think that Snoke was either Palps puppet behind the scenes or that Snoke did something to trap a significantly weakened Palps. Now that Snoke is gone. Palps is doing what he always does. Drives powerful people into conflict so that he can control them.

 

If that's the case, they wouldn't have revealed him in the very first teaser for IX. You're spoiling the whole movie when you do that. If all he is a hologram. Also, they flew him all the way to Chicago to say, "roll it again"?

 

After Last Jedi I was convinced that Snoke wasn’t Plagueis, but with Palpatine being “back in a way”, it still could be possible... I’m sure IX will provide us the answers to many speculations.

 

I have some theories, parts of which I've pieced together from other speculation I saw prior to the trailer and it all seems to fit and bring the saga together. Palpatine is key.

How is he back?

ROTS quote "The dark side of the force is pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural"

His master learned how to stop people from dying, so Palpatine is able to save himself. Maybe by cloning, maybe he was a just force projection in the throne room in ROTJ, maybe he's just a powerful darkside force ghost or more likely some other way we have yet to learn about.

Why is he important to the plot?

Palpatine learned how to create life from his master and may have used to it create Anakin and many others such as Rey.
I'm thinking like the clones of Hitler in the film 'The Boys from Brazil'. A film which I also think was JJ's inspiration for the First Order. I think these are what Skywalker refers too as they (Rey and others) share DNA with Anakin.

How will it play out?

I have no idea but have 8 months to enjoy speculating.

 

They didn’t include him in the trailer to just be a hologram. It wasn’t a coincidence that in the panel abrams said they will face the greatest evil. Palpatine is alive and well. In the trailer there is clearly a remnant of the Death Star II where sheev allegedly died. These images weren’t picked at random. This means he is not the main plot twist. I believe that to be Anakin’s rise

 

Possible ways he is back.

Clone - Hate it. To easy to continually trot him back out.
Survived - He put himself in a force bubble of some sort that protected him from reactor and crash lands on Endor or another planet close by. He should be badly disfigured and gruesome.
Ghost - Not force ghost per see, but limited to haunt where he died. Thus the visit where remnants of where Death Star crashed. Think about this Ben did go find Vader mask. While on Endor ghost of emperor feels his presence and what he can do in the force he begins to manipulate the galaxy.
Sentinel Droid - In Battlefront 2 we have hologram recordings of Emperor. They visit the wreckage and run into one of these that survived and it basically mocks them.
Time travel - Rey/Kylo does the world between worlds thing from Rebels and visits Palpatine.
Sith Holocron - Like what Yoda experienced in Clone Wars

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 13, 2019, Original Post Date: Apr 13, 2019 ---

Wasnt RJ responsibility to tell us Snoke backstory. Not even needed, but this is way to do it. They visit whatever form this Palpatine is and he brags that he knew about Snoke and sent the remains of the Empire to find him and rebuild. Then we all know what we already know.

 

It's difficult to know what to expect here. The way they have revealed him, suggests to me that he has a big and substantial role. But how is he a part of this now, how does he connect to the current conflict? And will his role manifest as some kind of evil force ghost? Hologram? Flashback?!