The Emperor Reborn: The Expanded Universe

The Emperor Reborn: The Expanded Universe
Palpatine returned in the Dark Horse comic book series Dark Empire, written by Tom Veitch and illustrated by Cam Kennedy in 1991.
In the series (set six years after Return of the Jedi), Palpatine is resurrected as the Emperor Reborn or “Palpatine the Undying.”
His spirit returns from the netherworld of the Force and possesses the body of Jeng Droga, one of the Emperor’s Hands, a group of elite assassins not unlike the Knights of Ren or Snoke’s Praetorian Guard in the Sequel Trilogy.

Then things get really wild. Sate Pestage, one of the Emperor’s advisors, exorcizes Palpatine’s spirit and channels it into a clone created by Palpatine before his death. Palpatine attempts to resume control of the galaxy, but is defeated when Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa Solo, who has received Jedi training from her brother, repel a “Force Storm” conjured by Palpatine and turn it back onto him, destroying his physical form once again.

Tom Veitch discusses Palpatine’s master plan in Return of the Jedi, when the Emperor says, “Strike me down with all your hatred, and your journey towards the dark side will be complete,” he seems indifferent to his own death.
“He feels that whatever the outcome of this confrontation with Luke, he, Palpatine, will conquer.”
According to Veitch, the Emperor chose this moment to come out of the shadows because he no longer feared for the safety of his physical form. With one swift stroke, Luke would fall to the dark side, and Palpatine would be reborn.
“His mastery of the dark side had become such that he was now ready to make a transition he had been working toward for many years — namely the replacement of his aging, diseased, and crippled body with a young clone.”

Operation Cinder
Palpatine had a plan, fitting in with what we know of Force ghosts in the Star Wars canon and some visual hints we’ve seen in Battlefront II comics and video games.

Palpatine recorded his visage into various droids so he could make orders after his death and destabilize the Empire and the Republic.
Palpatine's contingency plan upon his death included sending numerous droids out across the galaxy to give his final orders for what he called “Operation: Cinder,” a method of destabilizing the Empire and the Republic after his death so that no person would ever have the amount of power he did.
These red-cloaked, humanoid figures resembled the Red Guard but used a projection of Palpatine’s face on their own heads.

Possessing a Knight of Ren is a different thing entirely, but the visual of Palpatine existing after death by forcing his identity onto another being is Star Wars canon.

Emperor Reborn: A History of the Biggest ‘Star Wars’ Villain

From The Emperor Reborn: A Not-So-Brief History of the Biggest ‘Star Wars’ Villain and why he matters.

EPISODE IX
THE RISE OF SKYWALKER 

The dead speak! 

The galaxy has heard a mysterious broadcast, 

a threat of REVENGE in the sinister voice 

of the late EMPEROR PALPATINE. 

GENERAL LEIA ORGANA dispatches secret 

agents to gather intelligence, while REY, 

the last hope of the Jedi, 

trains for battle against the 

diabolical FIRST ORDER. 

Meanwhile, Supreme Leader KYLO REN rages 

in search of the phantom Emperor, 

determined to destroy 

any threat to his power….

In Star Wars, later subtitled Episode IV – A New Hope, the Emperor is briefly mentioned by Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin, who tells his fellow Imperials that the Emperor has just dissolved the Imperial Senate, sweeping away the last remnants of the Old Republic forever.

Lucas continues to define the Emperor’s role. 
“The introduction of the Emperor is a major plot development. He may be the one who is saved for the end. When you get rid of the Emperor, the whole thing is over. The final episode is the restoration of the Republic.”

Lucas had produced a handwritten treatment that’s similar to Empire’s final script, minus one major revelation.
In Brackett’s first draft, based on the treatment, Luke’s father appears as a ghost to instruct his son.
Unfortunately, Brackett died of cancer before a second draft could be written, leaving Lucas to pen the next draft alone.
In this draft, he introduced a new plot twist: Vader as Luke’s father.

The Emperor appears to inform his apprentice that they have a new enemy: Luke Skywalker.

“The Force is strong with him. The son of Skywalker must not become a Jedi.” 

A subservient Vader persuades his master that the young Jedi would be a great asset if he could be turned to the dark side of the Force.

Palpatine becomes the ultimate personification of evil in Star Wars, replacing Vader as the central villain. As Kasdan notes in Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays, “My sense of the relationship between Vader and the Emperor is that the Emperor is much more powerful… and that Vader is very much intimidated by him. Vader has dignity, but the Emperor in Jedi really has all the power.”

Makeup designer Phil Tippett talks about the Emperor’s look.
“The arch-villain was intended to be a Methuselah figure kept alive and intact by some unknown magic.”
Early art of the Emperor featured an age-wrinkled face with a large split cranium that was beginning to grow apart. This unused concept seems to have inspired the design for the Sequel Trilogy’s Supreme Leader Snoke.

The Emperor tells Luke to destroy Vader and take his place, but Luke refuses and declares himself a Jedi. Enraged, the Emperor tortures Luke with Force Lightning. Unable to bear the sight of his son in pain, Vader throws the Emperor into the Death Star’s reactor, killing him… or so we thought.

In an early draft of the script, Luke picks up Vader’s helmet and puts it on.
The Emperor leads his new apprentice to the controls of the Death Star superlaser to destroy the rebel fleet. Instead, Luke aims it at Had Abbadon — the Imperial capital, later identified as Coruscant — and destroys it.

The Trilogy That Wasn’t: The Sequels That Never Materialized
In these rough outlines, the Emperor doesn’t make an appearance until Episode IX.
There is no Death Star II. Luke and Leia aren’t siblings.
In this incarnation of Return of the Jedi, Han Solo dies during a raid on an Imperial Base.
Leia grapples with her duties as the newly elected Queen of her people, and Luke goes off into exile “like Clint Eastwood in the spaghetti westerns.”

Episode VII would focus on Luke’s life as a Jedi, while Episode VIII would see him reuniting with his twin sister, Nellith Skywalker, who is mentioned in Leigh Brackett’s draft of The Empire Strikes Back.
In Episode IX, Luke and Nellith would team up to battle the Emperor.

Colin Trevorrow’s Alleged Star Wars 9 Draft

How Colin Trevorrow’s alleged Star Wars 9 draft fixes Rise of Skywalker’s biggest problems.

Less than a month after Episode 9 hyperspaced into cinemas, an early draft of the movie, penned by original director Colin Trevorrow – who was fired from Episode 9 in 2017.

Firstly, how different is Trevorrow’s draft to the final product? For starters, it’s not called The Rise of Skywalker.
Instead, the alternate version is titled Duel of the Fates (a nod to the John Williams’ track used in The Phantom Menace) and the plot is the chalk to Abrams’ cheese.

Focusing on another of Palpatine’s grand plans, Duel of the Fates sees Kylo Ren – haunted by Luke Skywalker – discover an old holographic message from the Emperor instructing Darth Vader to seek out Tor Valum, the Sith who taught Palpatine the ways of the Dark Side.
Kylo takes Anakin’s place and heads to the Sith master for further training.
Meanwhile, The Resistance are hard at work trying to defeat the First Order by using a beacon – housed on the now-ravaged planet of Coruscant – to call on allies for help.
Rey continues her Jedi training, mainly in solitude, and Rose has a bigger role.

What’s clear from the “leaked” draft (verified by The AV Club) is how Trevorrow’s Episode 9 embraces the past, whereas The Rise of Skywalker is suffocated by it – a point that’s best demonstrated by Abrams’ treatment of Emperor Palpatine.

Most recently, new concept art for Episode IX has surfaced online that seems to show Colin Trevorrow's vision for the big Star Wars finale.
His movie, according to the leakers, would have been called Duel of the Fates. And by the looks of the art, Trevorrow had a very different Episode IX in mind.

It involves a Rebel uprising on an Imperial-occupied Coruscant, Rey wielding a double-sided blue lightsaber, and Luke Skywalker grabbing Kylo Ren's lightsaber with his bare hands. Very different indeed.

Rey follows a similar trajectory in Duel of Fates and The Rise of Skywalker: she struggles with the Dark Side, accepts help from dead Jedi, and becomes a neutral-ish Jedi who defeats evil.
The biggest difference between the two scripts – when it comes to Rey’s story – concerns Palpatine. The Emperor barely features in Duel of Fates and, therefore, does not get named as Rey’s grandfather.
However, what becomes clear from comparing the two stories is that Palpatine was not brought back into the fold for Rey’s benefit; the ultimate villain returned so Kylo Ren wasn’t the series’ Big Bad.

Duel of Fates does not redeem Ben Solo. The character, who’s haunted by Luke Skywalker throughout Trevorrow’s script, turns into a maniacal villain.
During the final act, Kylo blinds Rey with his lightsaber as they fight on the mythical Jedi planet of Mortis.
After that, Luke concludes that there’s no saving Kylo, and – with Yoda and Obi-Wan – they “extinguish” him.

The opposite happens in The Rise of Skywalker.
Ben Solo, after being killed and then healed by Rey, destroys/relinquishes all memory of Kylo Ren, throwing away his red lightsaber after a parental talk from Han Solo.
By the movie’s final act, Ben’s turned to the side of good and works with Rey to defeat Palpatine.
Ben then dies – as he does in Duel of Fates – but only after resurrecting Rey (with a smooching).

How come such a stark difference between the two scripts?
While Rey is tempted by the Dark Side through The Force Awakes and The Last Jedi, there was almost no chance of Disney allowing its leading hero to turn completely bad.
Ben was different; a pendulum swinging between good and evil, with the answer not being entirely clear.

We can only speculate about the conversations that happened at LucasFilm, but, judging by The Rise of Skywalker and Duel of Fates, the sticking point was almost certainly Kylo Ren and whether he should be redeemed.
As Rise of Skywalker was actually made, the answer over which way they wanted the story to go seems obvious. The question that Trevorrow couldn’t quite answer, though, was how to turn Kylo.
So, where do you start when turning Kylo? Using the foundations Rian Johnson built in The Last Jedi, the obvious answer seems to be to argue that Kylo’s subdued reasons for Rey could be enough.
Having them fall head over heels leaves you with two happy Jedi – and not much conflict.
Perhaps they battle General Hux together. But then, Hux isn’t exactly “final villain of the entire Skywalker saga” material.
You could introduce a new Sith Master, but there’s no real groundwork for that.

Abrams’ answer was to bring back Emperor Palpatine – a villain worse than Kylo who the young Skywalker could turn against. But, how do you make the formerly dead Sith relevant to the sequel trilogy story? Well, that’s easy: you make him the main protagonist’s granddad.

"Bringing back the Emperor was an idea J.J. brought to the table when he came on board," Trevorrow said, a month before The Rise of Skywalker reached cinemas. "It’s honestly something I never considered. I commend him for it. This was a tough story to unlock, and he found the key."

Frankly, bringing back Palpatine is a genius solution to LucasFilm’s Kylo Ren problem.
They wanted their main villain to turn good – so they needed a worse villain for him to fight.
You may not agree with the decision – and it’s hard to argue that The Rise of Skywalker is completely satisfying – but it certainly makes sense from a writers’ perspective.

“The dead speak!” begins the opening crawl.
How? Check Fortnite. Why? It doesn’t really matter. Palpatine’s back and there will be no further questions. He’s the Big Bad – then, now, and forever. Duel of the Fates changes that entirely.

In the alternate version, Palpatine’s poised as an ethereal threat, the former Emperor corrupting Kylo with words rather than being bafflingly resurrected.
A villain pulling the strings from beyond the grave is far scarier than one coming back from the dead to play puppet-master; a shade of subtlety that is sorely lacking from The Rise of Skywalker.

More importantly, the sequel trilogy’s new characters get room to forge their own paths in Duel of Fates instead of having to endlessly deal with what came before.
Kylo ignores Force Ghost Luke’s cries to return to the Light, and Ben Solo finally embraces his own mantra from The Last Jedi: “Let the past die, kill it if you have to.” In contrast, Palpatine becomes all-consuming in The Rise of Skywalker, and various secondary plots and characters melt away as the Emperor becomes the focus.
Even the sequel trilogy’s big mystery – the identity of Rey’s parents – becoming inexplicably tied to the Sith Lord.

Kylo’s tragic descent into becoming Duel of Fates’ Big Bad – without being redeemed along the way – feels far more earned and in keeping with the character.
The new revelation that he was the one who killed Rey’s parents (under Snoke’s orders) is more fitting than the kiss-and-make up conclusion of The Rise of Skywalker. Let’s just gently hand-wave away the genocide of millions across the galaxy, shall we?

The structure also feels vastly improved. Gone is the Sith planet of Exegol, sign-posted as the finale’s destination 10 minutes into Rise of Skywalker.
In its place, a series of classic Star Wars set-pieces, including BB-8 hijacking a Star Destroyer and Chewie riding an X-Wing. A series of daring escapades and suicide missions feels far more exciting than the paint-by-numbers MacGuffin chase we did get.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker movie poster in theatres Dec 20th.

Knight Of Ren: Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker Action Figure

Star Wars THE RISE OF SKYWALKER Vintage Collection Knight Of Ren action figure.
This Knight of Ren (Long Axe) is part of an enclave of masked warriors wielding distinct weapons for ranged and close quarters combat.
The Knights of Ren are elite, fearsome enforcers of Kylo Ren.

C-3PO & Babu Frik: Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker Action Figure

Babu Frik was a diminutive Anzellan, working as a droidsmith among the Spice Runners of Kijimi and could reprogram or modify almost any droid, regardless of its security measures.

D-O: Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker Action Figure

D-O was a droid that was once owned by the Sith assassin Ochi of Bestoon. The droid was created by a droidsmith, who was killed by Ochi.

The droid was reactivated by BB-8, in 35 ABY, when found on Pasaana aboard Ochi's mysterious ship.

How George Lucas' Episode VII Outline Became The Last Jedi

George Lucas helped shape Star Wars: The Last Jedi because the film's plot was basically his story for Episode VII.

Johnson was in part following a plan laid out by George Lucas himself.
Indeed, Lucas had a hand in the story of The Last Jedi...

Johnson's movie used many of the concepts Lucas first had in mind for Episode VII, specifically the story of an older, broken Luke training a young, Force-sensitive disciple named Kira (later renamed "Rey").

We know that when Disney bought Lucasfilm and the rights to Star Wars, it also purchased Lucas' ideas for the Sequel Trilogy, which he had been planning to make himself before he decided to sell the franchise. He wrote a story treatment and planned to participate behind the scenes as a consultant when it came time to craft the story for what would eventually become The Force Awakens.

The earliest concepts for the Jedi temple on the planet that would become Ahch-To were ironed out during these meetings as well as visualizations of what an older Luke and young Kira would look like. Lucas even approved the design for a bell-shaped structure for the Jedi temple.

Among the early designs tossed around for Luke were ones that looked pretty close to what we got in The Last Jedi as well as one or two that were a bit radical, such as a bald Skywalker who looked closer to a Buddhist monk than a shaggy hermit. Kira's concept didn't stray too far from the plucky young heroine we got in Rey.

Lucas' biggest contribution to The Last Jedi was the Luke/Rey story itself, which he'd originally planned for Episode VII, as confirmed by Lucasfilm Story Group member Pablo Hidalgo on Twitter (via Comicbook.com). The idea played out much like what we saw in Johnson's movie: Luke is down and out on a distant planet thirty years after the fall of the Empire. A new hope named Kira finds the old Jedi Master and they begin her training. We would have seen Luke struggling with his failure to stop the Jedi Killer (renamed "Kylo Ren") from destroying his Jedi Academy.

"[Luke] always had this potential dark side within him, being that his father was Darth Vader," explained Lucasfilm executive creative director Doug Chiang of the character's arc in the early days of Episode VII. "So he is really struggling with that. He ended up secluding himself in this Jedi temple on a new planet, and he's just there meditating, reassessing his whole life. Gradually, over the arc of the movie, he rediscovers his vitality and comes back to himself."
Eventually, Luke would have regained his mojo while teaching Kira the ways of the Force and rejoined the fight. That's basically the skeleton of The Last Jedi's plot.

Lucas also had a part in crafting the Kylo Ren storyline, including the fact that the villain was to be revealed as Han and Leia's son.

Hidalgo also mentioned a character named "Skyler" in his tweets who eventually became Finn.
It was screenwriter Michael Arndt's idea to push this story to Episode VIII. While Arndt was eventually replaced by Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan, who co-wrote the final draft of The Force Awakens, he came up with the basic structure of the plot, which involved the search for Luke Skywalker and "a victory lap" for Han Solo.

We'll never truly know what Lucas intended to do with the sequels, yet he was a part of the process early on and the Sequel Trilogy still carries part of his vision.

At least one person involved with the sequels, Mark Hamill himself, is a little disappointed that Lucas hasn't been more involved with the franchise going forward, according to an interview with Metro.
“What I wish is that [Disney] had been more accepting of [Lucas'] guidance and advice," Hamill told Metro. "Because he had an outline for ‘7,’ ‘8,’ and ‘9’. And it is vastly different to what they have done.”

Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Look at George Lucas’ Vision for the ‘Star Wars’ Sequel Trilogy.
George Lucas himself wrote a treatment for a new trilogy of Star Wars movies.

The new Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi book gives us one small peek at a George Lucas-approved Jedi Temple on the planet that later became known as Ahch-to.

Among the pieces presented at the meeting were portraits of an older Luke Skywalker training a new disciple named Kira (who was later renamed Rey).
The idea was that, 30 years after the fall of the Empire, Luke had gone to a dark place and secluded himself in a Jedi temple on a new planet.
The paintings show Luke meditating, reassessing his whole life.

The initial plan for Star Wars: Episode 7 was that Luke, over the course of that movie, would rediscover his vitality and train this new Jedi.
What we got from the Rey/Luke storyline in The Last Jedi was initially supposed to be the bones for George Lucas’ Episode 7.

The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi features many of these old designs, including one of an old Luke standing next to structures that crumbled long ago.
Another one features a bell-shaped building that was approved by George Lucas.

“This was a very early take on Luke’s temple, way back when there was still no director. This artwork was shown to George Lucas in a presentation.
Doug [Chiang] came back and said, “Congratulations, James. You got a George “Fabulouso” stamp.” VFX art director James Clyne recalls.

Some of these designs look very much like something from the prequels.
One features Luke in heavy thought and another could depict a Sith Force ghost haunting him.

The Legends of Luke Skywalker Novel

New Star Wars Novel Links Luke Skywalker With The Battle Of Jakku
By Michael Briers

A collection of myths and tall tales about the legendary Luke Skywalker, all of which are designed to fill in some of the gaps between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.
Told through the eyes of a young spaceship crew, that means those stories skate the line between truth and hearsay.

The Legends of Luke Skywalker provides some welcome context to Star Wars: The Last Jedi, with one excerpt, in particular, pointing to Luke’s alleged involvement in the Battle of Jakku.
The remnants of that conflict were littered throughout The Force Awakens, with Rey (Daisy Ridley) seeking shelter in a downed AT-AT.

But it seems Skywalker had a presence in said battle, as in Ken Liu’s “The Starship Graveyard,” a young crew member recounts a story she first heard from an Imperial officer who had fought under Emperor Palpatine:

    "I did not see any rebel star cruisers that could have launched the beams. In fact, the shots all seemed to terminate in the steadily spinning hologram of the Jedi, his machine of death, that red-striped X-wing, hovering over him like a trained bird of prey or a magician’s familiar."

Star Wars Novel Claims Luke Is Able To Down Entire Star Destroyers

A claim that Mark Hamill’s wayward Jedi is able to down entire Star Destroyers using only the Force. Remember those sun-kissed metal corpses scattered across the Jakku desert? Turns out Luke may have been the one responsible for bringing the Empire’s fleet out of the sky.

A member of the Galactic Empire bears witness to Luke’s devastating power:

   
"The bridge went dark. The overhead lights, the view screens, the blinking lights on the banks of consoles. Even the emergency lighting strips on the floor. All around us was the darkness of space…I saw that the bridge windows were rapidly filling with expanding columns of energy… A jolt, as if the entire Star Destroyer had been picked up by a giant hand and slammed against the ground. The ship slowed, drifted, stopped and then the stark lifeless surface of Jakku swung into view, filling the windows, and we fell, we fell."

The finer details of Luke Skywalker’s self-imposed exile remain stowed away.