Recently, Empire magazine featured a wonderful interview with The Rise of Skywalker writers JJ Abrams and Chris Terrio. Abrams, who also wrote/directed The Force Awakens and is among the most credible sources for any Skywalker Saga commentary, said:
This quote is revealing in several ways, beyond it simply reiterating similar sentiments he gave in the Vanity Fair interviews this summer. For one, it seems that Abrams has evolved his position from before as he now thinks the best way to experience the story is in chronological order—echoing sentiments by George Lucas and Daisy Ridley. It also should put a nail in the coffin of this fan conspiracy that he hates the prequels or disregards them. Obviously, Lucasfilm wasn’t going to hire someone that actively disliked half the films—as a brief aside, they have Jon friggin Favreau running interference on behalf of the prequels in interviews. The Rise of Skywalker is going to directly loop back to the prequels in its ending; it is resolving the problems and questions posed in those first three films.
Abrams is evoking the imagery of the Skywalker Saga as one chapter book, and not three or nine separate, in its storytelling. His point is valid—seldom, if ever, does a book’s ending not link back to the beginning. There’s something satisfying about stories that are circular, which is why so many foundational stories of a society (myths, religious texts, oral fairy tales) are circular. This leads to a question: How is the Skywalker Saga circular?
A few weeks ago, I talked about Anakin’s journey (links to all four posts are found here if they would be helpful in understanding where I am coming from) and how that evolves over the course of the saga. Yet, while he is the focal point in the saga, he is not the only relevant character. Padme and Palpatine, especially within the Prequels but within the saga as a whole, are the next most important characters. WhatTheForce had a superb podcast about this dynamic that should almost be required listening to any Star Wars fan. Palpatine’s return in The Rise of Skywalker is not just for some fanservicey reason—according to JJ Abrams, this comes from the highest power of them all. It serves a clear and necessary purpose in ending this story of a generation. In order to triangulate what this purpose with the ending may be, three sub-questions come up: (1) What are the central themes of Star Wars, (2) What is Palpatine’s role in the previous eight films, (3) How does Palpatine being involved in the conclusion connect to these central themes. If there isn’t this clear linkage, then it wouldn’t be so important for him to show up in the film that it was a precondition for Episode IX’s existence.
The best way of understanding the central theme of Star Wars is to do one of two things—watch Star Wars and parse out the not-so-subtle meaning or listen to George Lucas talk about it for thirty minutes to a bunch of kids.. An impactful quote from the conversation, though the whole video is worth a watch, comes from a discussion on addition:
Lucas isn’t directly talking about Star Wars in this moment, but he uses some of the terminology (dark side) in reference to the way an addiction to anything—drugs, buying things, eating, gambling, or whatever—separates from reality. He links this to fear and that this fear creates the dark side. One fears to lose something and they’ll do anything to prevent losing that possession. They can't let go and because of this they turn to darkness.
Consider Anakin in the prequels in regards to Padme. He never viewed her as a person and viewed her as a “thing” to put on a pedestal and idolize, just like his mother. He couldn’t accept the reality of life (death) and sold his soul to try to prevent losing this thing. In true fairytale fashion, his deal with the devil—much like Lando Calrissian’s in The Empire Strikes Back with Vader—gets him nothing but pain and suffering. Anakin’s inability to let go precipitates all the pain the galaxy suffers. After he fails to save Padme from death, he falls into a deep anger and descends into a place where he loses sight of reality.
Padme, though, isn’t completely without blame in this story. In The Phantom Menace, she engages in a deal with the same devil as Anakin—giving him power in exchange for the protection and safety of her people. The devil gets all the power in the galaxy and Padme gets...nothing. Her people continue to suffer under the dominion of the Trade Federation until she sheds her mask and returns to her planet to broker peace between the two groups of Naboo (the Gungans and the Naboo) to fight the larger threat. Only through symbiosis can we take down what we cannot on our own, there’s simply no other way of living. But Padme learned this lesson too late and the fate of the universe became unbalanced. By trying to take the easy path, Padme planted the seeds for what would become the Empire.
What ends the Empire and brings a temporary solace of healing to the galaxy is when Anakin lets go of his anger and his addiction to darkness. When he sees his son suffering, just as his wife suffered, he regains his true self and is able to topple the tyranny that he and his wife created. He is reborn through the liberation of letting go.
This is the theme of Star Wars—when we let go of what we cannot control and accept who we are, we are reborn to our best self and can accomplish anything. We aren’t an all-powerful Sith or the paragon Jedi, we are only human. What allows Anakin to remember his humanity is the love he feels for his son, which reminds him of the wife that spiralled him down the dark path.
But if this is the case, why are there three more films? Why did the story of a generation not end after Return of the Jedi?
Because there was no real healing, only a temporary soothe. The Skywalker family was still in pieces.
Palpatine is the closest thing to “evil incarnate” in Star Wars; he is the Devil per George Lucas. He is the Serpent lurking around, whispering dark thoughts into our heroes. He is greedy and knows nothing of love. He hardly has any shred of humanity left to him. In the prequels, Palpatine is one of the three forces—he, the Jedi, and Shmi/Padme—pulling at Anakin to get his power. As Ian McDiarmid says, these films are all about “fathers and sons”. Palpatine usurps the “father” role in Anakin’s psyche from Obi-Wan in Revenge of the Sith and manipulates him to darkness in order to serve his machinations. He uses his power and wisdom for exclusively selfish purposes, which leads to the Originals films where he rules the galaxy with an iron fist until he is thrown into a pit and never seen again.
In the Sequels, Palpatine has become an increasingly looming phantom over the films. In The Force Awakens, he’s only vaguely referred to by Maz—with evil taking various shapes throughout time. In The Last Jedi, he is mentioned by name by Luke Skywalker. He is invoked as a horror story for why the Jedi are failures and need not returned. Luke still harbors fear for the Emperor all these years later; still holds so much anger for what he’s done to his family.
This is Palpatine’s role in the first eight films. He is the embodiment of evil that manipulates our heroes to create the opportunity for him to seize control and turn the galaxy to darkness. He is a selfish being who sees others not as fellow people or the shared godstuff, but as tools for his own ambition. He knows nothing of love and everything of fear, using this fear to fuel his control. He relishes in suffering and fosters pain. He is the complete antithesis of “letting go”. He never lets go until someone stronger makes him.
In hindsight, it makes perfect sense for him to return in The Rise of Skywalker. He has always been there, always lurking in the shadows controlling everything like a puppeteer with their strings. He is the Sith, the darkness, the evil. If this ninth film is to close the saga, bring a victory for all time, and see this family rise, then he has to appear in it. Anakin and Padme, Luke and Leia, and now Kylo and Rey each fight against him in their own individual journeys.
There’s this great video Lucasfilm made for children describing Palpatine. Whenever they are presenting this story to little kids, pay attention—they’re boiling it down to its most basic essence to express the simplest and most fundamental truths. In the video, they say Palpatine got the galaxy to “give up freedom for peace” and asks the kids “How would you fight someone as evil as the Emperor?”
How would you fight someone as evil as the Emperor?
Rey and Kylo will certainly reckon with this question in The Rise of Skywalker. Anakin tried to fight Palpatine using violence and pain, but that only resulted in him coming back. Decades earlier, Windu and Yoda tried to defeat the Emperor using their power and blade—both Jedi Masters failed. All these men tried to kill Palpatine and he just keeps coming back. The films make it clear that the Emperor can’t be defeated through raw, masculine power alone. Strike him down and he just keeps coming back stronger than ever. In order to defeat him, something new and novel must be done. If he is pure evil and the Devil, then through his defeat the thesis of the story would have to be evoked.
Consider how Harry Potter defeats Voldemort, not by killing him but by giving him a chance of forgiveness while defending himself. Or consider how Aang defeats Fire Lord Ozai—Aang stays true to his ideal of pacifism while also neutralizing the threat to the world. In both of these children's stories, which bear a lot in common with the Skywalker Saga, the hero defeats the villain not through violence and pain. The messages of these stories—which involve the same ideas of love and transformation through letting go of fear as Star Wars—are expressed in their climactic showdowns between good and evil.
In order to defeat Palpatine and bring balance to both this divine family as well as the galaxy, Rey and Kylo will need to simply let go of their fear and anger towards him and towards anything. Only when they do this successfully will they apotheosize to their truest self and have the power to bring balance. Once they let go, them and the galaxy will return to the reality of their true selves—beings of love and selflessness, not of greed.
Because why kill Palpatine? What does that actually do? As the films show, simply killing him does nothing. Violently responding to him comes from fear of what he could do and anger at what he has done—not the Jedi way. As Padme says in Attack of the Clones, it is perfectly natural to be angry. What is unnatural, what is wrong, is to act out of that anger. This is where the Jedi and SIth are confused—and where Rey and Kylo will do different than the past. Much like Harry or Aang, Rey and Kylo will recognize their anger and then let go of it. In letting go, they will achieve the healing victory the galaxy needs.
How letting go is expressed could take many forms. It could be a compassionate gesture towards Palpatine. It could be a refusal to kill him; a throwing down of a weapon, just like Luke all those years ago. Perhaps a hug is all it takes to defeat evil—not through anger but through integration. In whatever form it takes, Palpatine’s role in The Rise of Skywalker is to express this point of the darkness lurking within and the acceptance of it. He is fear and anger and death, and our heroes will look at this and say “Ok”. Because just like these negative things lie within all of us, within someone like Palpatine there is still humanity. There’s that shared bond that unites everyone. The “us” and “them“; “this“ and “that“—these dualities seek to break this link. Star Wars has a duality at the core of it—that of the light and the dark of the force, the Jedi and the Sith.
This isn’t to say that the Sith are “good” or the Jedi are “bad” or there is any grayness—there isn’t. But what The Rise of Skywalker has to show is this balance. Not through destruction or supremacy, nor unfettered control or power. But through unity. Through healing. Something happened in the past to make the Sith seek the revenge Maul expresses desire for in The Phantom Menace. Some ancient, long-festering wound needs healing. With the healing of this wound, symbolized by the recognition of Palpatine’s humanity, peace and balance are finally had. The past will be let go and the future will be as bright as a star.
Submitted October 18, 2019 at 06:50PM by BlindManBaldwin https://ift.tt/2BqwPPG
![”But if you’re looking at the films as one story [in regard to Palpatine], I do not know of many books where the last few chapters have nothing to do with those that came before. If you look at the first eight films, all the set-ups of what we’re doing in IX are there in plain view.”](https://i.imgur.com/GUiTmYL.jpg){kind=link}
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