ST Ian McDiarmid (Plapy) in Episode IX

We will never know if JJ had envisioned Snoke as a "front/evil wizard of Ozz" of sorts since the beginning while Sidious was preparing/finishing his Sith Fleet and the Return of the Sith at Exegol, or if Johnson's script forced JJ to come up with the "Sidious Reborn" idea because he didn't want Kylo Ren to be the main villian of IX (exactly what he became by the ending of TLJ).

And as for the FO, it's pretty clear (according to the events of TROS) that they always were the actual Imperial Remnants/Hardline Loyalists, reunited with new resources and a paint job/ new name, funded, blessed and guided in the shadows by Sidious through Snoke, just as much as it was Sidious who seduced and turned Ben Solo (through Snoke). "The FO was just the beginning". As I've said in other posts, the crew of the new Sith Fleet (Final Order) by the time Kylo Ren arrives on Exegol was minimal at best. Sidious needed FO personel for the Sith Fleet, FO admirals like Pryde (also former Imperial and probably a veteran of the Clone Wars). Sidious needed more than 20 years to even make it fully functional, that's why the FO/Starkiller Base was the front/the beginning. Losing the SB and the murder of Snoke (betrayal of Kylo Ren!) in the same week, probably made him advance his plans (galactic broadcast, deployment of the Fleet), as other posters have said. Note that he still needed more than a year (between TLJ and TROS) to actually "finish" the Fleet ("we shall double our efforts", indeed). The only loose end was Rey herself (ironically his undoing).

 

There was also the Luke Skywalker factor. Facing a Jedi Master was probably his greatest fear. No matter how powerful Sidious was, an experienced Jedi Master would still be a huge threat (Mace and Yoda gave him a run for his money) The First Order took care of that problem, even if they didn't do the deed themselves.

The First Order was a vanguard force for the Final Order. They decapitated the New Republic's leadership and saw to it that the last Jedi Master died.

 

The Sith Eternal reminded me of the robed guys from Hellfire.



Though I could also see some people seeing the legions of them being a reference to that shot of all the Siths standing together in the Old Republic trailers.

 

Ian's performance blew me away. He was amazing.

If I had a criticism it was his death was far far too rushed. Like it had been cut for the censors.

Sent from my SM-J600FN using Tapatalk

 

I will say, Ian was great - as usual.

Also, I was impressed with the Leia scenes (probably my biggest reason for seeing TROS...how were they going to incorporate her)

That said, how long had her body been sitting out until Poe came back to talk to her corpse....that was a little unnerving....

 

Palpatine aint your grand daddy Ben Solo.

 

This his dead eyes were so convincing

 

In the film (his scene with Pryde) you can see how Palpatine senses what was going on between Leia and Ben. He calls Leia 'princess of Alderaan', and then drops the part of his plan that relied on Kylo Ren being Kylo Ren, and not Ben.

In other words, the bond mother-son was something Palpatine was never able to touch. Ben/Kylo interrupted Snoke in the TFA novel when he started to talk about Leia.

When it came to Rey, was part of the plan not killing the mother? 'Remember what you told me about your mother and the sand people'? Like, little Rey would have sensed it, or known about her parents having been killed before it was time. Palpatine's plan relied on the father (a Palpatine) being killed with a sith blade, but nothing about the mother. Rey's mother is not killed in the film, just the father. Did she survive?

 

I think Rey’s mother is dead

 

Do you have more details about that scene from TFA novel?

I was under the impression that after Rey's father was stabbed, Rey's mother was stabbed too at the end. Although I'd love if they left Jodie Comer alive because she's a great actress.

 

TFA novel, (p.90):

https://journalofthestarwars.wordpress.com/novelisations/

The mother being stabbed too makes sense, and maybe she was and that was it.

The flashback ends with someone walking towards her, after Ochi stabbed the father. The camera is behind that person. The almost exact mirror of this, which happened years later after Kylo stabbed the clan leader:

Adult Rey is not there, but someone's behind her. Someone wearing some sort of cape (which can't be seen in this gif due to its low quality), maybe the sort of hooded cape the mother wears in TROS, maybe not. Was this person spared? Was Kylo Ren reminded of someone, did he feel something weird about this person? Adult Rey turns and then, in the place this person should be, little Rey appears. Is that the literal meaning of 'the belonging you seek is not behind you, it is ahead'?

 

What if she isn't and Palpatine has been using her for his play thing, be his slave servant and Rey killed her during the big force explosion, she might be with the sith cultist.

 

The movie wouldn’t lie about that

 

well we didn't see her die, for all we know she gets a scar,

 

Thank you for posting that Leia reference!

I didn't even realize that parallel between Rey's mother and Rey in her vision.

 

Also, in the Rise of Kylo Ren comic we see the KOR leader 'Ren', years before Ben became Kylo Ren. They are trying to recruit another member. Their 'master' (Palpatine, I guess) is guiding those efforts.
In the comic, we see the KOR, all of them, except this Ren. Kylo Ren is the master of the knights of Ren, so maybe 'Ren' was his predecessor.

But the clan leader is listed as a KOR in the TFA credits (Mark Stanley) So maybe they found a new member after all.

The point is, Palpatine needed Ochi, but also another KOR. And this KOR in TFA didn't look like one.

In the comic mentioned above, we are shown two candidates. You need to be FS but also capable of 'good death': killing someone dear to you, if you want to be a KOR. Those candidates -one of them is FS- happen to be siblings.

One of the 2015 leaks has: 'Rey's parents escape the attack' but also 'the family drops her off on Jakku and never comes back'.

http://www.starwarsunderworld.com/2015/10/rumor-new-details-about-crucial-scene.html

Parents or family? In TFA, Rey uses the word 'family'.

 

(partial post from anothert thread)

It's curious how Internet as a whole (not just this site) is divided about how Palpatine returned:

a) body exploded yet was reconstructed (sort of) from scratch with midichlorian/DNA cloning technology + "unnatural" Sith techniques (+ Sidious ghost possessing this "reborn" body).

b) there was an explosion (that wasn't the reactor core) in ROTJ when he fell but his (mangled) body kept on falling and was rescued by cultists, etc. His Sith Spirit hosted this corpse and also Snoke.

I prefer the later option. Althought JJ hints at the first option .My guess is that his body fell down that energy shaft, there was the explosion that effectively killed his body off (liberating tons of dark side energy and probably several Sith ghosts?), kept on falling already dead and his corpse eventually stopped somewhere (I'm thinking of something like the bowels of Bespin, DS-style) and was rescued by loyalists (acolytes and probably Guards). It's funny (more like a plot hole) how nobody never noticed that Sidious had been killed. "Guards, leave us", indeed. But obviously someone (a Crimson Guard?) immediately found out and preferred to raise the alarm and ignite the search&rescue operation of Sidious than facing Vader/Luke (smart). And it all happened rather quickly before Wedge/Lando blew up the whole DSII (although I've always thought that the Battle of Endor was not edited in real time, unlike the Battle of Yavin, so perhaps the rescuers had 25-30 good minutes).

 

In retrospect, we should have seen the Palpatine lineage reveal coming from miles away in 2014, when Lucasfilm decided to give him the first name of Sheev.

 

Funny video good old Palpy.

 

To be fair I don’t think that was Lucasfilm decision so much as James Luceno’s

 

It's good to see McDiarmid, but it isn't enough to hear him cackle the same lines from ROTS and ROTJ.

I'm also less than impressed with the Leia footage. While it was more than I expected, it was clear that the actors had very little to work with and had to say Leia's lines as well as there was very, very little in terms of dialogue that could be used. The sequence with "Never underestimate a droid" simply had Emun Elliott (as lt. Brance) replaced with Daisy Ridley. However, it was nice to see Carrie Fisher one last time.

 

I love Ian McDiarmid, and he turns in another solid performance. BUT they really didn't give him many new memorable lines, a lot of his dialogue is recycled from the other films.

 

He brought back "Dewit!" "Goood" and a few others but we were still owed an "Unlimited Power!" when he fired the lightning at the ships. Will say so that "The Jedi are dead!" made me laugh and could become a meme which really is what they were trying so desperately to do. I felt bad for laughing but he was entertaining but the audience seemed mixed in their responses which usually doesn't happen at my screenings. Sometimes they were into it legitimately it seemed and others they laughed at moments I don't think they were meant to be laughing at like Hux's reveal and death, Reylo and a couple of other things I'm sure just can't recall now but it was a mixed response.

I probably was the only one laughing at the Emperor though so I was trying hard to keep it quiet. Half laughter and half bewilderment at what I was seeing in some moments again a thing I don't normally do. Trailer moments I missed because I didn't see later trailers like the space horses and "They fly now" left me with my hands out a few times as to go "Okay. That's a thing?"

 

I think the likeliest option is that they created a cloned body that was strong enough to incarnate his spirit but far from perfect, hence his undead appearance. So it’s Dark Empire but not quite as clean-cut. Which I appreciate, their making the cloning process more of an occult, twisted science mixed with Sith secrets.

It’s also kind of cool that, for most of his reborn life, Palpatine was once again looking like his old Sidious-self, pre-mutation/scarring. It’s like he had to start again from scratch and become a phantom menace once more. He just took some short-cuts: blasted the politics out of the way with the First Order and left the seduction to his dark side creation, Snoke.

 

@Sauron_18 , I guess it'll be left to EU (like most major concepts in this film) to explain everything. You'd think the clone wouldn't look so....terrible....so either Dark Side clones aren't very good (which probably explains why Palps wanted to possess Rey), or it's not quite cloning.....who knows...