Star Wars: How Episode 9 Fixes The Last Jedi’s Biggest Mistakes

6. A "Big Bad" Villain You Actually Care About

I'll get to how this can retroactively "fix" Snoke's role in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi in a moment, but the new teaser ends on one of the riskiest moves yet: The return of Emperor Palpatine.

It's arguably the only "old school card" left to play (short of bringing back Salacious Crumb for one last laugh, but at this stage why the hell not), and marks a continued showcase of J.J.-helmed fan service.

Abrams has noted he had to balance the business and economic side of a two year shoot with the "childlike" wonder of delivering on the end of Star Wars as a saga, and the script is a mix of the two, with co-writer Chris Terrio apparently reinforcing the need to "play in this world".

Emperor Sheev Palpatine is possibly the only figure who could feasibly come back in a way that makes all nine films "make sense" as one overarching story about an individual's lust for power and control across the entire cosmos.

This leads me nicely onto...