The Emperor strikes back! Why an 'absolutely dead' 'Star Wars' villain returns in 'Rise of Skywalker'

Brian Truitt | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption 'Star Wars' quiz: 'Skywalker' stars Daisy Ridley, John Boyega face off John Boyega and Daisy Ridley get the same graduate-level quiz from USA TODAY to see who has better knowledge of the galaxy.

In the “Star Wars” galaxy, Boba Fett’s not the greatest fellow. Neither is Jabba the Hutt, who’s repulsive in every way. Count Dooku totally wouldn’t make Santa’s “nice” list. And then there’s Darth Vader, whose name alone sparks fear in the hearts of so many.

But none hold a lit red lightsaber to the Emperor, that dastardly politician/secret Sith lord who ruled the universe with a craggy Imperial iron hand in George Lucas’ original “Star Wars” trilogy. He’s primed to be the villain yet again in the new movie “The Rise of Skywalker” (in theaters Dec. 20), which concludes the nine-episode Skywalker saga and features the Resistance waging a final all-out battle against the evil First Order.

It’s a pretty epic comeback considering the climax of 1983’s “Return of the Jedi,” when the Emperor's apprentice Vader threw his boss into the Death Star’s reactor and found redemption in his dying moments by saving son Luke Skywalker.

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“Really, he's the ultimate bad guy of ‘Star Wars,’ and for this film to have worked, the Emperor needed to be there,” says Daisy Ridley, who plays “Rise of Skywalker” heroine Rey.

Played by Ian McDiarmid in the first six “Star Wars” movies, Sheev Palpatine was a Republic senator who manipulated events – as well as turning young Jedi Anakin Skywalker to the dark side – to build a massive galactic Empire. Not only would it fall but also the Emperor as well (down a long shaft), all thanks to the efforts of Luke, Leia, Han Solo and the rest of the Rebellion.

So when the Emperor’s wicked laugh, sounding straight from the depths of hell, was heard in the first “Rise of Skywalker” trailer earlier this year, fans went berserk and many were surprised. But it made complete sense to director J.J. Abrams.

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“If you look at the nine movies, and you look at that character, it's not that shocking when you think about it: who he is, what he talks about, what his ultimate game plan was,” the filmmaker says. “The fact that he, in a trilogy of trilogies, would disappear and never be referred to again or reappear in any way is more odd than not. There's an inevitability to what we did.”

Abrams had help: His Oscar-winning co-writer Chris Terrio (“Argo”) is a guy “who really wants to kick the tires and ask the questions and make sure that things add up,” the director says. The two of them talked about the theme of no final victories and “that every generation needs to refight the old evil that really never dies,” Terrio adds.

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McDiarmid told USA TODAY in 2013 that he’d be excited to appear in Abrams’ then-upcoming “The Force Awakens” film, though there was that small problem of Vader sending the Emperor to "cosmic hell" at the end of Lucas’ “Return of the Jedi.”

"I remember saying, 'Is he dead, George?' at the time, and he said, 'Yes, he is. Absolutely dead,’ ” McDiarmid said. He figured the Emperor couldn’t have survived, “unless of course he'd been clever enough to clone himself."

Terrio won’t get into specifics about how, why or even what form the Emperor takes this time around, but says he enjoyed writing the confrontation between Rey and Palpatine, with the dialogue between the generational characters being "an interesting musical counterpoint."

The scene was one of Ridley’s favorites in the new film. “When J.J. first told me the Emperor was back, I guess I had all the questions that a lot of other people have,” she says. “And then I read the script and was like, ‘OK, this is (expletive) awesome."

John Boyega, who plays Finn, came to the set on his day off just to see it all go down (“That’s dope,” he promises of their faceoff). As a longtime fan, though, he initially worried that the Emperor’s return might be a “cop out” merely to have another big bad after the demise of the First Order’s Supreme Leader Snoke in “The Last Jedi” and Rey’s complex arch-enemy Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) “being undecided in his position” as the antagonists’ new main man.

But after understanding the reasoning behind the Emperor’s reappearance, “I was just like, ‘I can't wait to see that onscreen.’ He's definitely a formidable challenge for Rey and everything that's going down with her,” Boyega says. “He's scary. But it's so, so cool.”