So Apparently Emperor Palpatine Was A Clone In "The Rise Of Skywalker" And Rey's Dad Was A Failed Palpatine Clone Because Why The Fuck Not?
So these two tweets have been making their rounds on Star Warriors Twitter with the novelization of The Rise Of Skywalker coming out soon, which should fill in some of the many missing pieces from the movie, so I figured I would get something on the blog about them.
Robbie and I discussed Palpatine being a clone for a little bit on this week's My Mom's Basement.
Screen Rant- The novelization of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker confirms Palpatine was a clone. The Disney era of Star Wars has frequently used novelizations to tie up loose ends from the films themselves. In the case of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the film had a startling number of plot holes that writer Rae Carson will surely be hoping to navigate.
Although the novelization isn't officially on sale until March 17, Lucasfilm Publishing decided to sell advance copies at this weekend's C2E2 in Chicago and passages have begun appearing online. The book does indeed confirm that the Emperor's spirit has been transferred into a clone body. When Kylo Ren arrives on Exegol and encounters Palpatine, he looks closely at the machinery the Emperor is physically attached to, and recognizes it from his studies of the Clone Wars. He then deduces Palpatine's dark side spirit is too strong for the clone body, and is causing serious degeneration to it.
Star Wars discussion starts around 10:20
When news of Palpatine being a clone came out, I shrugged and cackled to myself a little because it fit in perfectly with so much else bullshit from the movie where big reveals were either never revealed or revealed in places that were decidedly not the movie.
I feel like there are 100 other examples where a loose end from the movie wasn't even close to being tied up, which I'm sure the book will shed light on them because that's not at all annoying. But as I've said before, after The Last Jedi I stopped caring about how the sequel trilogy would end. And by the end of The Rise Of Skywalker, I was fine with it being a flawed meh movie that wrapped up a massive trilogy of trilogies.
That is until I heard about Rey's dad being a Palpy clone. When I heard that, I was livid. Furious even.
Screen Rant- The Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker novelization reveals Rey's father is actually a failed Palpatine clone. One of the biggest (and most controversial) reveals in the film is that Rey is the Emperor's granddaughter, descending from ultimate evil.
At the time of The Rise of Skywalker's release, the information presented made it appear as if Palpatine had been intimate with an unknown woman, giving birth to a son. For the past few months, fans have speculated who Rey's grandmother could be, but now it's been confirmed she does not have one.
During the scene in the Rise of Skywalker novelization when Rey is feigning taking part in the Sith Ritual on Exegol to trick Palpatine (right before she passes the lightsaber to Ben), she has visions of her grandfather's past. This passage in the book reveals after Return of the Jedi, Palpatine "thrust his consciousness" into a clone body. However, "the transfer was imperfect" and members of the Sith Eternal worked tirelessly to engineer a new vessel for Palpatine's essence. One of these attempts is described as "a useless, powerless failure" who was "a not-quite-identical clone." While this body wasn't fit to house Palpatine's power, it was still able to live and eventually became Rey's father.
I was not mad because these books continue to screw the pooch that The Mouse has been screwing for a while now. I actually find that side of things pretty funny as someone who came to peace with the sequel trilogy being FUBAR after The Last Jedi put them in an impossible position to wrap everything up and making everyone happy.
The reason I'm upset is that in my head canon, Emperor P was dropping big D and big loads while clapping cheeks as the most powerful man in a galaxy far, far away. Being able to spread legs and your seed is the reason many people try to become powerful. Empy flopping around in a robe 24/7 as the literal head of an empire without ever looking to make a true heir to his throne instead of his burnt up apprentice is the most unrealistic part of this movie with aliens shooting lasers in spaceships.
At this point, I want to find out in the books that everyone in The Rise Of Skywalker was a clone. Rey. Kylo. Even C-3PO is a robot clone of that golden know-it-all asshole whose hard drive was swapped from one machine to another like when you get a new iPhone and all your stuff magically transfers over because of the cloud. They could even swap the title of Episode IX with Episode II because The Rise Of Skywalker makes a hell of a lot more sense when discussing Anakin becoming a powerful Jedi than whatever came out in December and Attack of the Clones fits in with a movie full of clones attacking each other.
By the way, this quote is now LOL funny.
Not only did the Emperor not foresee himself getting thrown down a shaft by his right-hand man. But he also didn't see himself coming back to life, going into another body that couldn't hold him which would give him his "granddaughter", jumping around a few other bodies, then finally getting cloned into another body after disappearing for two full movies because he almost definitely wasn't coming back until Rian Johnson blew up the storyline like Luke blew up the Death Star.
Whatever. I actually think it's good that the Skywalker Saga is over so whoever is in charge of the next movies can start with a fresh slate and go in a completely different direction. If the franchise bounces back, cool. If not, we still have the original trilogy which looks so much better after the other 6 movies.
P.S. As I was blogging this story, my brother sent me this tweet and I honestly wouldn't be shocked if any of this actually came out in the book.