Why Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Set up Palpatine’s Return in the Opening Crawl

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker co-writer Chris Terrio, who penned the film with director J.J. Abrams, explains the decision to start the ninth and final entry in the episodic saga referencing an inciting event that happens off screen: an ominous broadcast declaring the return of Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), the believed-dead Sith Lord who once ruled as the Galactic Emperor. The message, premiered in a crossover event with Fortnite, warns of the revenge of the Sith as the voice of the phantom Palpatine is heard across the galaxy: “At last the work of generations is complete. The great error is corrected. The day of victory is at hand. The day of the Sith!”

“The dead speak!” warns the opening crawl. “The galaxy has heard a mysterious broadcast, a threat of REVENGE in the sinister voice of the late EMPEROR PALPATINE.” The film then opens on the burned-out planet of Mustafar with Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), Supreme Leader of the First Order, searching for answers on the eerie planet Exegol.

“We debated and debated what the crawl would say, and we wanted to have the word ‘revenge’ in the crawl, a message of revenge in the voice of the late Galactic Emperor Palpatine,” Terrio told IndieWire. “We also wanted that line, ‘The dead speak.’ … You might be able to say ‘kill the past,’ and that might be genuinely what Kylo Ren is trying to do in Episode 8 and even at the beginning of Episode 9, but the past isn’t done with him yet. The character might be mentally ready to be done with it, [but] there’s the voice of the past, literally, the emperor saying, ‘Not so fast, my boy. History has its eye on you.’ History remembers what happened, and the Sith should not go quietly into the night.”

Terrio and Abrams also looked to 1977’s original Star Wars for inspiration: that film’s opening crawl briefed moviegoers on an ongoing conflict between Rebels and the evil Galactic Empire, two sides engaged in a star-spanning civil war.

“There were versions of the crawl that revealed less, that revealed more, and there was another version for awhile,” Terrio added. “Then we went back to the crawl of Episode IV and realized that it’s a fairly complex situation you’re being thrown into. It very much feels like a Saturday morning serial, because they’ve just stolen the plans to a battle station called the Death Star, and that’s all brand new information in 1977. We decided that we were going to just go for it and begin with an inciting event, which is that this broadcast has been heard.”

The filmmakers took a similar approach with Palpatine’s largely unexplained return: Abrams previously said he wanted to leave audiences with questions and the film’s editor, Maryann Brandon, recently revealed other versions of The Rise of Skywalker divulged more information behind Palpatine’s sudden return in Episode IX.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is now in theaters.