“Somehow Palpatine has returned” became a memed dialogue from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. The line was so vague and unintentionally hilarious that it spread like digital wildfire all over the internet. The line was meant to convey the Emperor’s return in the last movie of the Sequel Trilogy. But do you know that George Lucas himself hated the idea? Let us explain.
George Lucas And His Views On Emperor Palpatine’s Return
The “Somehow Palpatine has returned” line was clearly a last moment decision since nothing in the first two Sequel Trilogy movies had hinted towards it. It was a widely reviled decision, that once upon a time even George Lucas was against.
Long before the Sequel Trilogy was a glimmer in the eyes of Disney, the Lucasfilm Publishing division was up and running at full speed. Former Lucasfilm Director Of Publishing Lucy Autrey sat down with Star Wars Interviews and talked about George Lucas’ involvement with the project.
She said that the creator wasn’t too involved with the publishing department. And in fact he was apparently getting the book and comics only after they had been published. Autrey particularly mentions his reaction to the cloning of Palpatine in the Dark Empire books. She says:
“After he read the Dark Horse trilogy Dark Empire, he mentioned to me that the Emperor would never have been cloned.”
It’s interesting that something that he didn’t want to happen was indeed canonized by Disney. Also, the Expanded Universe that was non-canonized was in a way brought back as well. After all, the house of mouse revealed that the idea of cloning the Emperor was taken from the Dark Empire books and was put in the film so that Palpatine could be a villain for Kylo Ren and Rey.
Lucy Autrey Talks About The Star Wars Books Being Non-Canonized
Star Wars is comprised of the 3 main movie Trilogies, a number of animated shows, and now a TV show universe as well. But that’s just the visual media. The galaxy far far away also had books and comics continuously expanding its lore.
But after Disney’s acquisition those books and comics were relegated to being the Expanded Universe or EU and it was declared as being non-canon. Lucy said that the Star Wars book universe was never meant to be canon and so this decision from Disney didn’t shock her. She said:
“Our expanded universe books and comics were never intended to be canon. Only what George wrote was canon.”
Eventhough she felt saddened by the decision to non-canonize the books, she understood why it was done. She explained:
“The continuity we had worked so hard on was being put aside. They didn’t have much choice. We had developed so much of the universe, it would have been very difficult to hire new talent and tell them their hands were tied as to what they could do. There were lots more people getting into the action besides the novel and comic writers including multiple film directors, TV developers, computer gamers, etc., which made things much more complicated.”
What do you think of George Lucas’ Palpatine cloning comment? And how Rise of the Skywalker handled it?
