Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hits theaters in 3 weeks. The cast and crew recently began to break their silence on what surprises the final Skywalker Saga film has. J.J. Abrams sat down to speak about the films’ villain, Emperor Palpatine.
In an interview with Uproxx, director Abrams spoke about Ian McDiarmid’s big return to the franchise, although he supposedly died at the end of Return of the Jedi. According to Abrams, Palpatine’s return has always been in the plans:
“You just look at what he talks about, who he is, how important he is, what the story is – strangely, his absence entirely from the third trilogy would be conspicuous. It would be very weird.
That’s not to say there was a bible and we knew what happens at every step. But when Larry Kasdan and I worked on The Force Awakens, we didn’t do it in a vacuum. We very purposely looked at what came before.
We chose to tell a story that touches upon specific things and themes and ideas that we’ve seen before, to begin a new story. But we examined all that came before to ask where does this feel like it’s going?
So there were discussions about that at the time. Yet, like any beginning, you want to put the threads in, but you don’t want to necessarily be literal about everything.
And then when Rian was brought on to do The Last Jedi, we met and we talked about things and he wrote his story.
And when I read it the script, I realized this didn’t get in the way of anything Larry and I talked about that I thought I’d get to.
There were some very specific things we did get to do in this movie that we were laughing and going, “Oh my god, we’re finally doing that thing we talked about five years ago.”
Palpatine is the central figure in one of Abram’s favorite Star Wars scenes – The Darth Plagueis opera scene from Revenge of the Sith.
There’s no telling what or how the former Emperor plays into the plot of The Rise of Skywalker. Rumors speculate that he might be the first Sith Force Ghost. However, it may tie into an idea that George Lucas had.
Lucasfilm chief, Kathleen Kennedy, recently told EW that a long meeting took place with Lucas before writing started on The Rise of Skywalker. The team left with “a lot of notes” for ideas on how to end the saga.
It’s unknown if Colin Trevorrow sat in on those meetings, as he was the first director tapped for Episode IX. The director’s getting a ‘story by’ credit in the film.
He plans to donate his residuals from The Rise of Skywalker to the Alexander Devine Children’s Hospice.
J.J. Abrams also spoke with Esquire confirming that the film reveals more about the Knights of Ren. It also takes the cast back the group setting rather than separating them into smaller duos.
A new television spot for the film and a featurette on the evolution of the Stormtrooper hit over the weekend. Check them both out below.
