From Dark Empire to The Rise of Skywalker

We are less than two months away from The Rise of Skywalker, and all I can think about is the return of the greatest Star Wars villain of all time: Sheev Palpatine, former Supreme Chancellor of the Republic then self proclaimed Emperor of the now presumably fallen Galactic Empire. He is the ultimate phantom menace as he is back from the dead after we last saw him during the final act of Return of the Jedi. What we don’t know is what he’s been up to hiding in the shadows and most importantly in what form will he reveal himself in The Rise of Skywalker, but this is not the first time Palpatine has risen back to haunt our heroes. Star Wars: Dark Empire, a six-issue limited series (and first chapter of the trilogy by the same name) written by Tom Veitch and drawn by Cam Kennedy, takes place after the events of Return of the Jedi and explores Palpatine’s return along with introducing the readers to a dark side Luke Skywalker!! That’s right … remember when everyone was speculating about Luke’s return as a servant of the dark side in The Last Jedi (which did not happen)? The series has various similarities to the sequels, from plot points to character design to new Force abilities. In the following sections, I will do an analysis on them and speculate on what the return of Palpatine (and his ultimate defeat?) will look like in The Rise of Skywalker.

Luke vs the Walker

The first visual from Dark Empire that I immediately thought had a high degree of familiarity with the sequels—more specifically with The Last Jedi—was Luke Skywalker’s epic entrance as he comes out of the shadows to face one of the Empire’s most feared weapons: the AT-AT or “walker”. Now we all remember Luke’s final sacrifice in the final moments of The Last Jedi when he comes out to face the entire First Order armed and ready with their latest technological terror: evolution of the walker, the AT-M6. These two almost mirrored scenes are separated, being that Dark Empire is part of Legends and then The Last Jedi as part of the official Canon timeline.

In Dark Empire, the remnants of the Empire have regained strength ten years after the Battle of Endor and have reclaimed their territories, once ruled by the New Republic. A civil war has erupted on Coruscant where our heroes are fighting their way out of the carnage. In The Last Jedi, the leftover Resistance are seeking refuge on the planet Crait from the First Order’s grasp. A final confrontation between the two factions is imminent. Unfortunately for General Organa and what’s left of the Resistance, what remains of the old Rebel Alliance outpost on the mineral planet is no match for the might of the First Order. Luckily in both stories the legendary Luke Skywalker comes to the rescue. But each Luke has taken on a different path and the final outcome will have The Last Jedi Luke become one with the Force and Dark Empire Luke eventually join the dark side.

The Return of Palpatine

Probably the most mouth-dropping moment of Dark Empire was the return of Palpatine. We’ve now gotten used to seeing major characters come back from a deadly fall in Star Wars. Darth Maul reemerged in The Clone Wars after tumbling down Naboo’s core (and being sliced in half by young Obi-Wan) in The Phantom Menace. Boba Fett did not meet his fate down the Sarlacc pit (we learned from The Force Unleashed that it’s possible not to get digested in the beast’s belly) in Dark Empire as he returned to claim his most wanted bounty, Han Solo. And finally, after 10 years plotting in the shadows, Palpatine is back and more powerful than ever. When Luke is once again—shockingly—standing in front of his worst enemy, Palpatine openly explains his trick of cheating death to the young Jedi Master. He reveals that his body has decayed many times because of his great power and that every time he’s had to transfer his formless energy to a new clone of himself.

The concept of clones in Star Wars was exhaustively covered in the prequels, and it was a common thing in the Expanded Universe (now considered Legends). To me, it totally makes sense that Palpatine would be able to achieve immortality through the Force and “unnaturally” transfer his energy into a physical body. After all, if Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Anakin were able to manifest themselves as Force ghosts, then why wouldn’t the most powerful Sith be able to achieve just as great of a task? I can’t stop thinking about the moment when Palpatine was thrown into the shaft by Vader and as his body is falling down into the void a sudden rush of blue energy came back up like strong hurricane winds. Was that the energy of the Sith himself leaving his crippled, free-falling body?

I think every Star Wars fan will be freaking out in the theaters in December when Palpatine will finally appear on the big screen after 14 years since Revenge of the Sith. The question is: how will JJ Abrams and his team bring back the big baddie? Here are my crazy speculations:

• Palpatine will be back in a physical, crippled form desperate to move his Force energy into a new, young and powerful host. That’s why he will attempt to lure in Rey and Kylo and ultimately choose the winner of the duel between the two Force wielders.
• Palpatine will be back in a physical, crippled form desperate to move his Force energy into a new, young and powerful host. That’s why he transferred his energy into a clone of his favorite apprentice, Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader (that’s who Kylo was communicating with in The Force Awakens). He will then challenge Kylo Ren in a duel. Kylo will definitely accept because he wants to prove once and for all that he is stronger than his grandfather, Darth Vader.
• Palpatine will be back in a physical, crippled form desperate to move his Force energy into a new, young and powerful host. That’s why he cloned a younger self (perhaps played by Matt Smith?) This is very similar to the version in Dark Empire and probably the least likely as we all know JJ wouldn’t just copy the plot but add his own twist.

Whether any of these speculations will turn out to be true or not, I think we will all be at the edge of our seats in December!

How to Defeat the Ultimate Evil

As stated before, Dark Empire explored yet another mind-blowing concept: the fall of Luke Skywalker to the dark side. As Palpatine reveals his secret to immortality, Luke cannot just strike down his enemy. The solution to this dilemma is from within the dark side. The young Jedi Master has to learn its secrets, and perhaps find a way to wipe out Palpatine from existence.

This makes me think of another mind-blowing reveal as a Dark Rey unfolds and ignites her double-bladed red lightsaber in The Rise of Skywalker teaser trailer. There have been quite a few theories and speculations about Dark Rey. Is she a clone? Did Rey actually turn to the dark side? Is it just a vision like the one Luke had in the cavern on Dagobah? Here are my thoughts. After reading Dark Empire, I feel like Rey could temporarily pledge herself to Palpatine’s teachings to learn the secrets of the dark side from within to defeat him once and for all. I don’t think she’s a clone (I’m more convinced we might see a clone of Anakin instead) and most likely it will just be a vision, but where’s the fun if you can’t fantasize on all the possible outcomes before the movie comes out?

Astral Projection

There is one more similarity between Dark Empire and The Last Jedi that is worth mentioning. Back to Crait, Luke’s final battle against the First Order and his nephew Ben Solo, aka Kylo Ren is not what we all thought. I remember watching that scene for the first time in theaters at the Star Wars: The Last Jedi – Opening Night event and being confused, shocked, and excited at the same time. As the Jedi hero comes out of the shadows to face his enemies, his look from Ahch-To is very different: a lesser aged man with a darker outfit wielding the legacy blue saber. As the scene kept going my mind was trying to figure out how by the stars Luke managed to get a haircut, color, change clothes, steal Rey’s lightsaber, and travel to Crait in such a short period of time. As Dan Solo then pointed out to me later that week, if you looked at Luke’s feet movement you would have noticed he does even stir up the salt to expose the red surface of the planet! Then finally we see Kylo sinking his crackling saber through Luke’s chest to realize his uncle was actually not there but merely an astral projection of the old man. This extremely challenging Force power was Luke’s last effort to save his friends. Believe it or not, this wasn’t the first time Luke attempted such Force ability. In Dark Empire, Luke helps his sister Leia (who’s expecting her third child, Anakin) and the rest of the crew of the Millennium Falcon escape the Emperor’s grasp and then revealing to everyone’s astonishment that he was actually not onboard the Corellian ship, but still on Byss (Palpatine’s HQ), where he is preparing to face Palpatine (which will then take on a new body, a younger clone of himself) in an epic clash of lightsabers.

The first chapter of Dark Empire is full of jaw dropping moments, many of them mirroring the sequel trilogy. I’ve analyzed a few, but I am sure there are many more stones left unturned. If you’ve read Dark Empire, make sure to share this article on your preferred social media platform to spark the conversation.