"Somehow, Palpatine..."

That’s very well stated and I very much agree. The only debate here is where that desire to have answers is rooted. Is it plot centric logistics concerning the rules this imaginary world obeys. Or is it story centric consistency of thematic continuity. I happen to believe it’s the latter. People don’t just want an answer just to know. They want a reason to care. A reason to invest. Whether they realize it or not.

The great Satan of Star Wars returned. What enabled that to be possible? That should matter. It should connect to us emotionally and allow us to invest in its significance. It shouldn’t just happen as due course. Like the first day of Fall or something. “Oh, it’s Palpatine season again, kids. Better bring a coat.” There should be a reason for it. And that reason should inspire us look inward and outward at ourselves and the broader world around us. That’s where I think this is really coming from. Maybe I’m wrong.

 

The return of Palpatine COULD have been something special if it had been plotted out over the three films.

Contrast how the return of Palpatine's spirit was handled in the STs with the return of the Dark Lord Sauron in Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy. The difference in the emotional resonance for each trilogy's audience couldn't have been more stark.

 

I wonder how Peter Jackson would have made the ST?

 

At 60 frames per second probably.

 

( ♥ ͜ʖ ♥)​

 

I believe nobody batted an eye at the Death Star plans being stolen right before the movie started because this was our insertion point into Star Wars. There was no Star Wars before this, so the stolen plans and who the Emperor is and what the state of things are, all those are just accepted because this is the first entry in the Star Wars world. It had to start somewhere, so it started there. But, by the time TROS comes around, we've had ten movies and a lot of history that we have actually seen with our own eyes, the Emperor's death being one of them. The Death Star plans being stolen also didn't conflict with anything we'd seen previously. It was simply history.

My own opinion of why Palpatine's unexplained return bothers people is that it leaves us with a feeling of "something is broken". It would be like watching the General Lee explode into thousands of pieces, but at the end of the episode, Bo and Luke Duke drive off in it without seeing them buy a new one or putting all the pieces together or some other solution to the problem. I would argue that Luke's blue lightsaber has a similar feel to it. This long lost artifact shows up unexplained and enables the heroes to fend off the villain and we're given a similar "Somehow, Luke's lightsaber has returned" explanation.

I will also add that the fans' love for these things is significant. People cosplay as the Emperor, buy toys of him, do impressions and quote him with their Star Wars friends. Even though he's a villain, he's a beloved character. We're invested in him. Not explaining his return was insulting to fans of the character. People also spend hundreds of dollars buying replicas of Luke's blue saber. It's instantly recognizable. There are web pages dedicated to making your own. To me, it feels like important people, places and things were simply treated with indifference in the ST.

 

Already bloated movies that stop dead for fifteen minutes just so we can go on a river rapids ride or run a gauntlet of massive insects with the actors doing their best Natalie Portman in the droid factory acting.

 

Ouch...that's harsh!

 

The problem is maybe that Poe should have said "Somehow, Palpatine survived, and now he is threatening to return".

"Returned" suggests that Poe et al are already aware of where Palpatine went and that they should have been able to see him coming if he should ever return. Which he can't.

Everything that happened to enable Palpatine to be in a position to challenge for and assume the chancellorship (having concealed his Sithness for, who knows how long) seemingly happened as due course. Since there was similarly scant explanation of what enabled that to happen.

That's probably why it doesn't bother me so much. It was clear that how Palpatine was enabled prior to becoming senator and then chancellor was not an aspect that the saga was ever going to take any time to explain.

ROTS does provide enough clues for the audience to put something together. It enhanced the danger of striking someone down in anger - You not only risk being tempted by the darkside. You risk becoming the Sith Lord you sought to vanquish. Literally. With the spirit of Palpatine and whoever came before him possessing the hated filled victor. If that process is not complete then the cloned vessel of a Sith lord can become the vessel for that evil. It doesn't take that much imagination on the audience's part to mix the Sith method of succession and the cloning shenanigans displayed with Snoke and in the rotting clone of Palpatine that his spirit is clinging to in order to get a picture of how his return was "enabled".

It seems that some people just can't get past Poe's admission of being out of the loop that they ignore all the breadcrumbs being left for them to figure it out.



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I feel I need to point out that Palpatine did not die in front of our eyes in ROTJ, he disappeared off screen and was replaced by a light show and howling winds in his wake. This happened at the same time as his plan to entrap and destroy Alliance with his new Death Star was blowing up in the Empire's face. Symbolically , and actually, ending his reign. It's just not true that we need it explained to us how we didn't see what we saw. It was almost twenty years between when we saw Ben die at Vader's hands and it being explained that Jedi can learn how to merge with the force and retain their identity. Meaning we didn't actually see Vader kill Ben. Ben chose to merge with the force at the moment he was about to die. So there is already precedent for critical plot points involving unnatural feats remaining cryptic, at best, for decades. There is just far less tolerance for it in the discourse these days, amidst the constant need to micromanage our lore experience in real time..

 

Palpatine fell, screaming, down a very long hole and lights and wind popped up. That was definitely supposed to be him dying. Then, the space station where that took place exploded. I believe Palpatine was supposed to be really, most sincerely, dead. In the context of the movie, Poe's line makes sense, for sure. He doesn't know any more than he just found out. But then someone throws out some guesses as to how it could be, and I think that's supposed to be how the audience "learns" how it happened, even though he was just guessing. And then that's it. If there were some explanation after that, or had it been set up before, then maybe it wouldn't be such an issue. But we got nothing.

Obi Wan didn't choose to become one with the force at the exact moment Vader swung at him. Obi Wan says, "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.". Vader killing him is what allowed Obi Wan to merge with the force. Yoda died, then merged with the force. He didn't just merge with the force at his own choosing. Anakin died and then merged with the force. Leia died and didn't disappear for a while, but then did. Luke did seemingly merge with the force at will, unless he died immediately before disappearing. Luke and Leia's deaths were in the ST, so they are excused for not making sense.

 

I maintain that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that line. Only what it represents: the filmmaker’s total disinterest in exploring that aspect of the story. I don’t believe it’s any more complicated than that.

The opening crawl establishes that everybody is already aware that Palpatine has ‘maybe’ returned. The intel they get from the spy then confirms it. I don’t feel anyone had a hard time following that. Basically, “we’ve all heard the rumors and yes it’s true.” Pretty straight forward to me.

There’s a whole movie explaining how Palpatine became Chancellor. He orchestrated the invasion of his home planet, the one he represented in the Senate, in order to shake confidence in the current administration’s effectiveness and put himself in line to succeed him. And he manages all that through deliberately manipulating the fears and doubts of everyone around him.

That’s how the evil of Star Wars operates. It doesn’t just randomly show up one day. It was here all along. And it doesn’t just kick the front door in to take what it wants. It convinces us to let it in and then give it what it wants. Palpatine becomes the Chancellor, and then the Emperor, because those who could have prevented it were too focused on their own apprehensions to see what was happening until it was too late.

The doom visited on everyone is the consequence of a decision. It’s the result of an action or an inaction. Evil can’t prevail if good people don’t let it. But nobody allowed Palpatine to secretly resurrect himself. Nobody allowed him to secretly build a super weapon that could annihilate the New Republic in one shot. Nobody allowed him to secretly amass the "the largest fleet the galaxy has ever known." No folly or failure or manipulation of anxieties enabled him to do those things. He just did them.

The explanation is on the screen. We see his rise to power play out over that trilogy. We see how he did it. How it was possible. How it was enabled. It’s a very prominent aspect of those films that his incremental elevation runs directly parallel to everyone else’s decline. Anakin, the Jedi, the Republic - they all fall as he rises, having granted him that influence born from their fears.

Again, you’re talking about function and I’m talking about theme. Palpatine “dies” at the end of ROTJ because his world view, his Sith philosophy, couldn’t comprehend the prospect of a father’s love for his son. Just as Vader in ANH couldn’t possibly imagine the concept of Obi-Wan becoming part of the Force (giving up the material world for something so much larger), the Emperor couldn’t imagine the possibility of his apprentice being swayed by Luke’s devotion. He’s undone by the very sense of compassion he mocked - Luke’s faith. He believed his ideology and value system was superior, but it wasn’t. It was proven false and that’s why he loses.

Well, what countered that? What aspect of Palpatine’s philosophy granted him the capacity to endure beyond that ideological defeat? I guess he magically managed to put his soul into a specially augmented clone body of course. Because . . . he’s rich and evil and that’s just a thing evil rich people can do in this world. Fair enough, but man, that’s dissatisfying for someone who gushes over literary motifs.

More likely that they can’t get past the idea of there being no real point in figuring it out. Even if TROS took a blatant timeout to gratuitously explain every aspect of exactly how Palps was able to make a cloud backup of his soul and download it to his failover site, the folks with this problem wouldn’t suddenly be onboard. It isn’t exposition that’s lacking here. It’s resonance. Where’s the emotional hook? What ethical cost did this unnatural act require? None. It was an elective procedure with no collateral price.

 

I'm sorry but how Palpatine was able to be a senator and corrupt most of the senate and conspired with TF, openly as a Sith, without this info ever leaking and without the Jedi ever suspecting until years later right before their doom is NOT explained in TPM. We are shown the reason for him being elected chancellor. But how he was able to get into that position in the first place without detection is as mysterious as his ability to remain unsuspected for another 13 years afterwards.

 

Something Luke brought up in TLJ.

 

Are you comparing ‘holding an elected office’ to ‘returning from the dead’? Seriously? We don’t need to know how he became a Senator. We see how he employed deception and manipulation as a political methodology to become Chancellor, broaden the authority of the Chancellor and then become Emperor.

That’s his modus operandi. That’s how he works. He achieved his past positions of power through the same means as his ultimate position of power. That’s not even remotely within the same sphere as necromancy.

Who ever said he did that? The Senate was already flawed. He simply knew it well enough to exploit those flaws to his own advantage. Just like with Anakin. Just like with the Jedi. He saw the cracks that were there and he pushed on them until they broke. Again, that’s his pattern. That’s how he works.

So you’re proposing that private multinational megacorporations are totally averse to making horrifically exploitative deals with rogue despots and then successfully covering that corporate malfeasance up? George Lucas created the ‘Galactic Trade Federation’ right after the creation of the ‘World Trade Organization’. Coincidence? Well . . . maybe.

That the Jedi are so thoroughly self-confident that they don’t see the wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing right in front of them, is kind of a big point in the story. “What if I told you that the Republic was now under the control of the dark lord of the Sith?” “No, that's not possible. The Jedi would be aware of it.”

I never said it was. I said it explained how he became Chancellor. Which is detail you claimed was left unexplored. It’s not. There’s a whole movie about it.

You’re confused as to how a crooked politician could rise to the highest office in the land without being uncovered? You realize this character was directly inspired by Richard Nixon, right?

But if you need an in-universe reason, you have one: “The dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see the future is.” The Jedi, who live in the light, can’t perceive what the Sith do in the shadows. Just as the Sith, who live in the shadows, can’t perceive what the Jedi do in the light. They’re ideological opposites. Antithetical and blind to one another because they fundamentally see the world through converse perspectives. It’s a metaphor.

VADER: My son is with them.
EMPEROR: Are you sure?
VADER: I have felt him, my master.
EMPEROR:Strange that I have not. I wonder if your feelings on this matter are clear, Lord Vader.

The Emperor can’t sense Luke as Vader does because it’s coming from a place that he can’t perceive or understand. It’s a parent’s care for their child. He can’t grasp that. Just as the prequel era Jedi can’t grasp Palpatine’s greedy, destructive machinations. It’s too foreign to them to comprehend.

To be clear, I’m not saying Palpatine’s rebirth NEEDED to have these thoughts on their mind and expertly execute on them. Or that the film is poor because of it. But, personally, I would have appreciated that mindfulness. To not simply have something that momentous happen because the plot needed it to. It could have been something that supported and reinforced the greater narrative, rather than distracting from it.

 

Somehow....Palpatine won.

 

How so?

 

He wanted to see the end of the Skywalkers.....and he did. Even said so himself.
Ironic really....Sheev killed Anakin by zapping him with Force lightning, and his granddaughter killed his grandson by sucking out his life force. If Palps was 'Satan', his descendant is a succubus.

 

You’ll have to jog my memory here. When did he say that? I recall him wanting to restore his strength, his religion and his empire. But he was blasted to smithereens before achieving any of those stated goals. You’d need a rather warped standard of success to consider that a victory.

Ben freely and knowingly gave his life in order to save Rey’s. He’s only able to do this because Rey did this for him first. Rey literally gave him a part of her soul. And Ben literally gave her a part of his. You can purposely approach that from a cynical and ugly place, but at least do yourself the basic courtesy of asking ‘why’?

What is it you’re getting out of this? You’re deliberately misinterpreting and misrepresenting the presented text in order to revel in a negative and unfulfilling perspective. You seem to be inventing reasons to dislike the story’s conclusion and reinforce your personal discontent. That can’t be bringing you any sort of joy. Can it? Is this making you happy? Are you just trolling? I'm genuinely curious.

 

I'm not trolling, eep. Just saying the truth about what I feel for something that once meant a great deal to me...
I think we are all allowed to be honest here. And debate isn't just about praising something.

Regardin Palps' words...forgive me for being slightly off about the exact words he said, but I couldn't make myself sit through TROS more than once.

 

It’s one thing to share a negative opinion about something and then articulate why you hold that opinion. To intentional misstate the facts of the matter in order to better justify that opinion, is something else. It’s a big part of what incites combative discourse in our culture these days.

Claiming that the Rey character vampirically drained the Ben character of his life like a succubus, isn’t being “honest”. That’s clearly not what the movie presented you with. Maybe that’s how you feel about it, but that’s not what’s on the screen. You’re the one bringing that to it. Not the other way around.

Ben willingly gave up his life to save something precious to him. Just like Obi-Wan. Just like Anakin. Just like Luke. Just like Leia. You can dislike that for whatever reason makes sense to you. But you can’t say that’s not what happened and then claim to be “honest” about it.

“As once I fell, so falls the last Skywalker.” In other words: “A s**thead Skywalker, like you, threw me down a big hole one time. Now it’s my turn.” It isn’t ever his stated goal to end the Skywalker bloodline or whatever. Sheev is just being a petty little b***h. Doing what was done to him out of pure spite.

It wasn’t part of some grander plan that was finally brought to fruition. He was killing someone in his way in a manner he felt was fitting. Ben miraculously surviving that attack and then going on to save the last Jedi, isn’t something Palpo would consider a ‘win’.