10 MAJOR Plot Holes In The Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
6. But Can't Palpatine Just Return Again?
Upon the first teaser trailer for The Rise of Skywalker culminating with the ever-familiar, eerie, chilling cackles of Palpatine, the collective Star Wars fandom lost its mind.
This, of course, being the one and the same Palpatine who was last seen, at least in a chronological sense, thrown to his death by a reformed Anakin Skywalker at the climax of Return of the Jedi. But just how did the most notorious Sith survive his Episode VI demise, and just where has he been in the decades since then?
Truth be told, it's never actually fully explained in The Rise of Skywalker just how The Emperor is alive and well. Dominic Monaghan's Beaumont Kin even hazily questions this resurrection at one point, suggesting it could be dark science, cloning, or some sort of Sith shenanigans. The point being, no finite answer is given to just why Palpatine isn't as dead as we were so long led to believe he was.
At one point, Kylo Ren's bravado of saying he'll kill Palpatine is outright mocked by the Sith Lord, as he kindly informs Kylo that he's died before.
So, if the reason for Palpatine's return here is never properly explained, then what's to say that his apparent death at the hands of Rey and the thousands of Jedi who she channelled would stop any future Palpatine return?