The biggest and most controversial choice J.J. Abrams made going into “Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker” was bringing back Emperor Sheev (that’s his name) Palpatine. His reasoning was that he simply couldn’t make a “Star Wars” movie without taking advantage of a tiny little piece of dialogue from an already poorly-received “Star Wars” movie: “Revenge of the Sith” that explained that the Sith were into dark and unnatural experiments. Well, while Abrams may have believed he absolutely had to bring Palpatine back, Sheev himself, Ian McDiarmid thinks the franchise’s creator would have disagreed.
READ MORE: ‘Rise Of Skywalker’: J.J. Abrams Explains Why Emperor Palpatine Is Back In ‘Star Wars’
In an interview with Digital Spy, McDiarmid, who plays Sheev Palpatine, talked about his surprise upon hearing that he would be coming back to the franchise after his death in “Return of the Jedi.” More surprisingly, he mentions what George Lucas himself said about his character’s fate: “I thought I was dead! I thought he was dead,” McDiarmed said. “Because when we did Return of the Jedi, and I was thrown down that chute to Galactic Hell, he was dead. And I said, ‘Oh, does he come back?’ And [George] said, ‘No, he’s dead.’ So I just accepted that. But then, of course, I didn’t know I was going to be doing the prequels, so in a sense he wasn’t dead, because we went back to revisit him when he was a young man. But I was totally surprised by this.”
He has every reason to be surprised by this decision, as we found out recently, the choice to bring back Palpatine was a recent one. Colin Trevorrow, who was originally attached to write and direct the then-untitled Episode IX, has gone on record to say he didn’t intend to bring Palpatine back, so this is 100% a J.J. Abrams choice.
Bringing back Palpatine opens up a big can of worms when it comes to future “Star Wars” movies, as we now have no reason whatsoever to believe that he can’t simply come back time and time again. Maybe future movies in the franchise should simply change focus and become all about Palpatine and his endless coles/ghosts/whatever and their attempts at conquering the galaxy over and over again.