One of the biggest reveals in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was the return of Sheev Palpatine, who was later confirmed to be a clone of the original one – but is that really why he looked so bad? Following the acquisition of Lucasfilm by Disney, the studio began working on a new trilogy of Star Wars films, with the purpose of closing the Skywalker saga and introducing a new generation of heroes and villains. The sequel trilogy began in 2015 with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which brought together old characters from the saga and new ones.
Two years later came Star Wars: The Last Jedi, one of the most divisive Star Wars films – but nothing compared to the reaction to the final entry in the trilogy, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. The film ended up retconning various elements from The Last Jedi and brought Palpatine back, even though there hadn’t been clues about his return in the previous films. Though it was a surprise for fans, the way his return was approached was a big failure, and the film didn’t explain how he came back, leaving it to the novelization to reveal he was actually a clone – and yet, he was in very bad shape.
Palpatine being a clone is an element taken from Star Wars Legends (the old Expanded Universe), specifically from the Dark Empire series. The Emperor had various clones, and they deteriorated like any other body, to the point where his latest one was on the verge of dying (again). Palpatine’s clone could have been one of those, struggling to contain the Emperor’s power. In the novelization of The Rise of Skywalker, Kylo Ren deduced that Palpatine’s dark side spirit and power were too strong for the clone body to handle, causing major deterioration, which is known to happen to many dark side users – the stronger they get, the more damage to their physical bodies.
Palpatine had a very gross look in The Rise of Skywalker, with milky eyes and vials puncturing his neck, and that wasn’t the initial plan the makeup effects crew had. Speaking to Insider, special makeup effects creative supervisor Neal Scanlan shared they almost went with a “dismembered or disjointed” version of the Emperor, but ended up choosing the less horrific version. Still, they had to come up with a way to represent the “physical evidence of his time in waiting”, which along with the above reasoning of the clone body not being able to contain his power, makes more sense.
However, there are other possible behind-the-scenes reasons that could have affected the final look of Palpatine in The Rise of Skywalker. The film went through a lot of issues and rewrites, and none of the previous versions included the return of the Emperor, so it could have been a somewhat rushed decision with an equally rushed design that the novelization did its best to explain (along with other things). All things considered, the final design of the Emperor in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is easier to explain through Legends and the novelization than if the production crew had gone with the original plan of a dismembered clone body.