Where did Palpatine get his powers to cheat death? Wasn’t the Second Death Star already a Plan B? In case the first Death Star was destroyed. This contingency plan was triggered at the end of Return of the Jedi, when Vader betrayed Palpatine and threw him into a pit aboard the Second Death Star.
His loyalists there, called the Sith Eternal, were ready and waiting to transfer his spirit into a reconstructed body in the case of his death.
It turns out he ran a Sith cult on the hidden world of Exegol in the Unknown regions. Well, you know, Sheev Palpatine always had a Plan B in the case that whole Galactic Empire thing didn’t work out. Let’s start from the beginning: how did Palpatine come back in The Rise of Skywalker? Didn’t he die in Return of the Jedi? This deep dive into Palpatine’s Final Order promises to clear everything up about how the Emperor’s whole plan actually makes total sense if you think really hard about it. Abrams and Lucasfilm have been planning for years. Luckily, The Hollywood Reporter contributors (and Star Wars experts) Andrew James Myers and Dan Gvozden are here to attempt to answer all the questions you have about what exactly J.J. Many Star Wars fans came out of The Rise of Skywalker baffled about Palpatine’s return, complaining that his master plan was illogical, inconsistent and maybe even a little convoluted.
