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Who da fuk knows. Will have to wait for the novelisation.

These movies dont stand on their own without novels and comics to fill in the major plot gaps.

Probably one of your first 2 theories. Either a clone or some kind of resurrection ritual

Originally posted by Darth Thor
Who da fuk knows. Will have to wait for the novelisation.

These movies dont stand on their own without novels and comics to fill in the major plot gaps.

And video games.

And tv shows.

And cartoons.

And so on.

It's quite impossible he survived EP6. Not only did he fall into the core, but he should have also withstood the explosion of the death star a few minutes later. And if it weren't enough, he would be literally floating in space since there is no death star or any imperial ship left since they withdrew. Nah, he transferred his consciousness or he is a clone

He manipulated the midichlorians to gather his lifeforce/soul and re-sequence him Trek-style.

The RoS Visual Dictionary states: "When the battle of Endor was over, it had claimed the lives of the Empire's key leadership, including Palpatine and Darth Vader." So Palpatine(as we knew him) is still recognized to have 'died' in RotJ.

In the film itself, Palpatine states to Kylo: "I have died before... The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural."

The Dictionary implies that the Sith Loyalists resurrected Palpatine through "a mixture of technology and the occult."

In the film itself, Beaumont Kin(who is recognized as an expert in the field of Sith occult) states: "Dark science...Cloning...Secrets only the Sith knew", upon learning of Palpatine's return.

Tack that onto the vat of Snoke clones seen in the film, and I'd say that Palpatine cloned himself, and learned how to transfer his own essence(along with the essence/power of EVERY Sith Lord in history) into a cloned body by way of esoteric Sith rituals. It also seems like the clone bodies begin prematurely deteriorating when exposed to that much dark power(similarly to what happened to Palpatine's clones in DE), so it's possible that he may have needed to body-hop more than once... But when Palpatine absorbs the power of a Force dyad, it is able to heal/stabilize his decayed body and restore his full power.



...And Lord Momin also showed us that there are other ways to resurrect oneself after death, but that's neither here nor there.

Yet despite all that and the similarities...DE handled the story better.

Also Dyad?...I just can't get behind that.

Dyad...Force Dyad....Force. Dyad.

.....Nope.

Yeah. Balance I can understand, but the dyad concept is just an unneeded plot device that overly complicates things, imo.

Also, Snoke was aware of the dyad between Rey and Ben, but Palpatine seemed to have only realized it when he absorbed their power during the final battle. If Palpatine was pulling Snoke's strings the entire time, you'd think he would have already been aware of the dyad, but I digress...

Originally posted by Galan007
Yeah. Balance I can understand, but the dyad concept is just an unneeded plot device that overly complicates things, imo.

Also, Snoke was aware of the dyad between Rey and Ben, but Palpatine seemed to have only realized it when he absorbed their power during the final battle. If Palpatine was pulling Snoke's strings the entire time, you'd think he would have already been aware of the dyad, but I digress...

PM it to Quan and watch the movie forum burn.

Originally posted by StiltmanFTW
PM Quan

Without explaining it and clearing up why this time is different, theres absolutely no reason why Palpatine would not still be alive.

Just stupid AF.

And yes Dark Empire handled it a million times better.

My interpretation was that Palpatine was pretty much dead at the start...and that his body was hooked up to machines to slow down the decomposing process.

The white eyes implied to me that his spirit was possessing his dead body. Hence he is able to speak but not move very much.

Cloning was mentioned as a possibility in the film, though.

By someone who has nothing to do with his resurrection.

Sure, just saying.

Originally posted by ares834
By someone who has nothing to do with his resurrection. Granted. But the guy is still credited as an expert in Sith lore/occult, so he's not just some random Resistance dipshit meant to be arbitrarily throwing red herrings around. /shrug

I agree that it doesn't *have* to be a clone body, but there are signs pointing in that direction, imo... Especially when Snoke's existence tells us that Palpatine's occult-science was indeed capable of amalgamating the force with cloned vessels.

Either way, given the evidence at hand, it does seem that Palpatine(as we knew him) died in RotJ. How exactly his resurrection came to be afterward is the biggest question... And who knows if it will ever be satisfactorily answered.

I think the biggest question is....WHY Dyad?...Just....ugh...whyyy??

Originally posted by StiltmanFTW
Cloning was mentioned as a possibility in the film, though.

Only the Snokes were clones - as evidenced in the Cloning-Vats.

Originally posted by Galan007
Granted. But the guy is still credited as an expert in Sith lore/occult, so he's not just some random Resistance dipshit meant to be arbitrarily throwing red herrings around. /shrug

I agree that it doesn't *have* to be a clone body, but there are signs pointing in that direction, imo... Especially when Snoke's existence tells us that Palpatine's occult-science was indeed capable of amalgamating the force with cloned vessels.

Either way, given the evidence at hand, it does seem that Palpatine(as we knew him) died in RotJ. How exactly his resurrection came to be afterward is the biggest question... And who knows if it will ever be satisfactorily answered.

I know someone who worked on Rise Of Skywalker, and he said that Palpatine survived by teleporting to Exegol after Vader threw him down the shaft.

He was damaged in the process, but teleported to Exegol and spent decades recovering there, while watching from afar through his puppet, Snoke.

I don't mind that we aren't fully certain how Sheev returns, after all it has been implied in some media that Anakin's birth was also orchestrated so there is a precedent in the Saga that murks Force knowledge and science quite enough for this to be left ambiguous.

Upon reflecting on this, giving an open ended explanation to Sheev's return is something this film did right. The bad taste on Palpatine's return is that we know for a fact it was a cop out on this trilogy after TLJ wrote the saga into a corner

Without explaining Palpatines Return theres nothing to say hes even dead at the end of this.

When Dark Empire gave the clone body explanation, then we knew once he was out of clone bodies, That when he dies now, then thats it.

This whole thing was just stupid. And I dont mean stupid given the lore, I just mean outright bad story telling.

Honestly taking the Lore out of it, and just taking the films on their own, TLJ is better than this.

Dear Darth Thor, I feel your fatigue after battling evil for so long, but you have to understand that opposing those forces is an endless struggle, that no matter what kind of ending we propose the devil will come back lurking again, stop trying to shield yourself with plot devices that are meant to give you momentary relief. Evil will be back



And it will always come back as Palpatine!!!!!!

Originally posted by CaveDude33211
I know someone who worked on Rise Of Skywalker, and he said that Palpatine survived by teleporting to Exegol after Vader threw him down the shaft.

He was damaged in the process, but teleported to Exegol and spent decades recovering there, while watching from afar through his puppet, Snoke.
Except he says in the movie that he died, and it also says he died in the visual dictionary. So that explanation wouldn't work

My updated theory is that his body was recovered by his sith loyalists and taken to Exegol where they resurrected him using sith magic. This brought him back to a zombie state and he was kept alive using some sort of technology.

I think this is the most logical explanation. We saw in the movie that there was still a lot intact in the death star wreckage, so it's definitely possible that his body wasn't completely destroyed in the explosion.

How can his body be recovered after falling in the reactor?

Originally posted by Total Warrior
How can his body be recovered after falling in the reactor? Lazy writing. It's a universal remedy.

Well hopefully the novelization that comes out next month will give us a good answer

Originally posted by xPRIMEx
Well hopefully the novelization that comes out next month will give us a good answer

Wish I had your optimism. Then again, I guess the novel has nowhere to go but up at this point.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2020/03/01/star-wars-rise-of-skywalker-novel-reveals-palpatine-was-a-clone-raising-serious-questions/amp/