Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker author defends Palpatine return

Note: This article incorporates some delicate spoilers for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

For higher or worse, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker introduced again Ian McDiarmid’s Emperor Palpatine for one final spherical of scenery-chewing and Force Lightning-blasting.

While Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy has mentioned that it was all the time the plan to have Palpatine return, followers have been blended concerning the determination, with detractors saying it undermines the occasions of Return of the Jedi and is nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake.

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However, Chris Terrio, who co-wrote the script with director JJ Abrams, has now defended the truth that the Sith Lord is again, saying they wanted to seek out an antagonist who was a “bigger” dangerous man than Kylo Ren.

“We felt that proper from the start, when JJ established Kylo Ren in Episode VII, there was a warfare happening inside him and that he had been corrupted by one thing greater than himself and had made dangerous selections alongside the way in which,” Terrio instructed Awards Daily.

“JJ and I felt we would have liked to discover a approach through which he may very well be redeemed, and that will get tough on the finish of Episode VIII as a result of Snoke is gone. The largest dangerous man within the galaxy at that second seemingly is Kylo Ren.

“There needed to be an antagonist that the good guys could be fighting, and that’s when we really tried to laser in on who had been the great source of evil behind all of this for so long,” Terrio continued.

“That’s when we really started aggressively pursuing this idea that there is old evil that didn’t die. The source of the evil in the galaxy is this dark spirit waiting for its revenge and biding its time.”

Terrio additionally said that Lucasfilm boss Kennedy “had this overall vision that we had to be telling the same story for nine episodes” and that she thought Palpatine’s return can be a “strong” finish for the saga.

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“When you rewatch the earlier films,” he added, “issues begin to make further sense. Ren and his devotion to the thought of his grandfather. The voice that he is all the time heard in his head. The sure similarities between Snoke and Palpatine.

“The intention was that, by the point you get to [The Rise of Skywalker], you realise there have been actual causes that is all taking place. It all exhibits how this story is being fought cyclically by means of the collection.“

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is out now.

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