Star Wars: Rise Of Skywalker - Everything It Gets Wrong
15. Retconning Everything So Palpatine Has Been Around Since The Beginning
As if flying through Palps' return in a sentence wasn't bad enough, his opening dialogue does its utmost to bash you over the head with the idea that all of this was planned since the beginning.
Heavy-handedly monologuing to Kylo that he was "the voice all along", Palps was Darth Vader's breathing from Force Awakens, AND the creator of Supreme Leader Snoke, who the Emperor grew in a vat .
The problem?
Not a single strand of this feels believable.
Despite Lucasfilm's Kathleen Kennedy stating that Palps return had been planned "for quite some time", the execution feels like the most forced thing possible.
Not taking the time to do him justice and instead falling back on "Actually it was me all along!" rings hollow, and nothing that happens afterwards makes Palpatine's "background agency" feel any more believable.