Much has been debated and discussed online, as to whether or not the illustrious production team at Disney Lucasfilm had any sort of plan for their crappy trilogy.

In April of 2019,in the release of the first trailer for The Rise of Skywalker, the audience heard Palpatine’s trademark cackle. They wondered if Palpatine was always meant to return?

ScreenRant reported:

It Was Always The Plan To Bring Back Palpatine In Star Wars 9

President of Lucasfilm Kathleen Kennedy explains that bringing back infamous villain Palpatine for Star Wars 9 has been the plan for a long time.

You can watch Kathy state this here:

But then in November of 2019, fired director Colin Trevorrow started talking about a “creative relay-race,” which suggested that there wasn’t any such plan at all.

ScreenRant reported:

There have been a lot of revisions to the sequel trilogy since Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ release in 2015. That film, which was written and directed by Abrams, served as the first part of a proposed 3-person creative relay race; Rian Johnson continued The Force Awakens’ story with The Last Jedi and Colin Trevorrow would continue The Last Jedi’s story with Star Wars 9. Unlike the original Star Wars trilogy, Disney gave creative autonomy to each writer/director; for example, Abrams conceived The Force Awakens with certain story threads in mind, ideas which Johnson didn’t necessarily have to honor.

 

Mark Hamill confirmed:

“Remember, George had an overall arc. If he didn’t have all the details, he had sort of an overall feel for where the three were going. But this one’s more like a relay race. You run and hand the torch off to the next guy, he picks it up and goes. Rian didn’t write what happens in 9 – he was going to hand it off to, originally, Colin Trevorrow and now J.J.”

Then The Rise of Skywalker was released to theaters, and it was revealed that Rey was not a nobody after all, but was the daughter of a failed clone of Palpatine. This upset many SJWs who had glorified the notion of Rey being a nobody.

So screenwriter Chris Terrio started pointing the finger directly at Kathleen Kennedy for coming up with the idea to bring back Palpatine in December of 2019.

SyFy Wire reported:

According to Chris Terrio, who wrote The Rise of Skywalker with J.J. Abrams, this plot point came from on high at Lucasfilm. According to McDiarmid, Lucas told him that Palpatine was dead. What changed? Well, Lucasfilm changed hands over from Lucas’ control to Disney and the managerial purview of president Kathleen Kennedy and senior vice president Michelle Rejwan — two executives and producers that Terrio, in an interview with Awards Daily, credits with shaping the end of the Star Wars saga.

 

IGN reported:

Palpatine’s Return in Rise of Skywalker Was Apparently Kathleen Kennedy’s Idea

Though Colin Trevorrow, who was originally tapped to helm Episode IX, had credited J.J. Abrams with having the idea to bring the Emperor back for the conclusion, a new AwardsDaily interview with Rise of Skywalker co-writer Chris Terrio seems to shift the narrative a bit.

In it, Terrio possibly credits Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy with wanting to bring back Palpatine. “Kathy Kennedy and [SVP] Michelle Rejwan had a clear plan for where they wanted things to end,” Terrio said. “They had clear plans about certain narrative marks they wanted us to hit. They also gave us a lot of freedom within that. We knew that Rey and Ren were utterly key to this trilogy, but we also felt that there was no way that we were going to not find a path to redemption for Kylo Ren, the son of Han and Leia.”

“That’s when we really started aggressively pursuing this idea that there is old evil that didn’t die,” he continued. “The source of the evil in the galaxy is this dark spirit waiting for its revenge and biding its time. The entity known as Palpatine in this version – his body died in Return of the Jedi – is patient and has been waiting. He dug his fox hole and has been waiting for his chance to re-establish his total domination.”

When asked if Palpatine had always been the plan, prior to Episode IX, Terrio said “Well, I can’t speak to Kathy’s overall intent. That was certainly discussed and was discussed before I ever came on. Kathy had this overall vision that we had to be telling the same story for nine episodes. Although from the sleight of hand of Episode VII and Episode VIII, you wouldn’t necessarily know immediately that we were telling the same story. She thought it would be a very strong end for the ninth movie. This fits well with J.J. because he loves magic tricks.”

It was a “clear plan” Terrio said.

“No source material” provided Chris Terrio with a “clear plan.”

 

Also in December of 2019, comic book writer Tom Vietch recognized some of the “clear plan” as having come from his comic book, Dark Empire. So it’s been quite the back and forth as to whether or not there was any sort of plan for the Disney Trilogy, and who might be responsible for it.

And now Daisy Ridley has made the following comments, as reported by comicbook.com:

Star Wars: Daisy Ridley Said They Were “Toying” With Rey Being Obi-Wan’s Granddaughter

As teased in the two previous flicks, her heritage was a “nobody,” per se — nothing but a child of intergalactic junkers. Then Episode IX and turned that notion on its head as it was revealed Rey was, in fact, the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine. As Ridley herself says, it wasn’t always that way.

In fact, there was one point in the development of the sequel trilogy that Rey was going to be a descendent of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s. That was eventually tossed out as the Lucasfilm Story Group continued working on the arc they wanted to implement throughout the three features. Tuesday night, Ridley appeared alongside frequent collaborator Josh Gad on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, where she spilled the details.

“No, at the beginning they were toying with an Obi-Wan connection,” Ridley said of the dangling plot thread. “There were different versions and at one point she was no one… it kept changing.”

 

You can watch that interview here:

“Excuse me…”

So how could Rey’s lineage have “kept changing” if there was always a “clear plan?” And how does a “clear plan” reconcile with a “creative relay-race?” We may never know.

But the crack team of feminists at Lucasfilm was known to have an actual plan. George Lucas’ treatments for the Sequel Trilogy, which they chose to throw away.

IndieWire reported in September of 2020:

Ian McDiarmid Says George Lucas Wouldn’t Have Brought Palpatine Back from the Dead

“I thought I was dead!” McDiarmid told Digital Spy in a recent video interview. “I thought he was dead. Because when we did ‘Return of the Jedi,’ and I was thrown down that chute to Galactic Hell, he was dead. And I said, ‘Oh, does he come back?’ And [George] said, ‘No, he’s dead.’”

 

So only one thing is for sure: the patriarchy had nothing to do with this mess.

Ryan Kinel comments:

John Talks comments:

Updated:

Anyone claiming George Lucas didn’t have a plan either… send them here.

Originally published here.