As the final Star Wars episode, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker ultimately creates several new plot holes. By now, it's clear that Lucasfilm had absolutely no overarching plan in mind when they launched the sequel trilogy with 2015's Star Wars: The Force Awakens. As a result, it should hardly come as a surprise that the final installment of the Skywalker saga has an unusual number of plot holes.

The problem seems to be that Lucasfilm pivoted too many times during production. It's not hard to understand why they did so, given the fanbase divided catastrophically after the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Worse still, whatever their original plans were for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, they featured Carrie Fisher's Leia Organa in a major role; and then, tragically, she passed away in December 2016. Colin Trevorrow stepped down as director of Star Wars: Episode IX, amid reports Lucasfilm was unhappy with his script, and he was replaced with J.J. Abrams, who Lucasfilm saw a safe pair of hands.

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The reasons may be understandable, but the result has been a film that's packed with plot holes, and doesn't even answer some of the most basic questions about its narrative. So here's our guide to all the strange and bizarre Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker plot holes.

How Did Palpatine Survive His Death In Return Of The Jedi?

Star Wars Palpatine Death

Let's start with the most obvious question of all; how did Palpatine survive his death in Return of the Jedi? The film itself provides no answer, barring a single line of dialogue from the Emperor that alludes to the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise. "The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural," the Emperor observes to Kylo Ren. It's possible to come up with theories based on Chuck Wendig's Aftermath trilogy, novels set after the events of Return of the Jedi, which featured a Sith cultist who believed the Emperor would be "enfleshed" again. But the mysterious rituals conducted by the cultist are ill-defined, and are never even completed. All in all, it's quite remarkable that Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is essentially silent on this question.

Why Was Palpatine Still Growing Snokes?

Split image of Snoke and Palpatine from Star Wars

Supreme Leader Kylo Ren learned that Palpatine was the one responsible for the creation of Snoke, his predecessor and mentor, and that the Emperor had been manipulating him all along. The evidence was indisputable, because Snoke was either a clone or a genetically engineered creature; at least two more Snokes were being created in tanks on Exegol. But that in itself is strange; Palpatine claimed this was his "Final Order," so why was he growing more Snokes? Of course, out-of-universe, the reason was to provide evidence to viewers that Snoke's origin had finally been revealed. There must, however, be an in-universe reason of some kind.

How Did Poe "Lightspeed Skip" In The Falcon?

Millennium Falcon Fast Warp Drive

An early scene sees Poe Dameron prove his piloting skills by performing what's described as a "lightspeed skip" from planet to planet. The fundamental problem, however, is that this contradicts all established Star Wars canon. Ships shouldn't be able to jump to hyperspace if they are too close to a gravity well such as a planet; that's why the Rebel fleet had to flee into space before escaping Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes BackStar Wars: The Force Awakens did confirm that it's possible to use a gravity mass to pull you out of hyperspace, with Han cleverly piloting his way inside Starkiller Base's protective shields, but that was supposed to be impossible. Now Poe is jumping from world to world without a by-your-leave, defying the pseudo-scientific laws that underpin Star Wars.

How Did The TIE Fighters Chase The Falcon Through Hyperspace?

Star Wars TIE Fighter

The "lightspeed skip" scene raises another problem, because the TIE Fighters successfully pursue the Falcon through multiple hyperspace jumps. The problem is that this directly contradicts one of the main problems in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which established that nobody had ever been able to track ships through hyperspace before now. What's more, the technology was supposed to be so new that it was only installed on the Supremacy. Now it seems the First Order have miniaturized it, and installed it on everything down to TIE Fighters. All in the space of a year.

How Has Luke's Lightsaber Been Repaired?

Rey Lightsaber in Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker

Rey is shown training in the Force, and she's back to using Luke Skywalker's old lightsaber. Unfortunately, that lightsaber was destroyed in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, when Rey and Kylo Ren tore it apart in a game of Force tug of war. It was so badly damaged that Rey would have had to pretty much rebuild it from scratch, but there's no sign of damage, and the very end of the film suggests she's not yet built her own lightsaber; that's the mark of her becoming a Jedi Knight. The only explanation, from an out-of-universe perspective, is that J.J. Abrams just decided to ignore this issue.

Poe Dameron's New Backstory Just Doesn't Work

Poe Finn Chewbacca Star Wars 9

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker reveals that Poe Dameron used to be a spice runner, meaning he used to ship illegal drugs across the galaxy for criminal cartels. This was presumably added to Poe's backstory in order to make him more of a scoundrel, filling the void left by Han Solo's death in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The problem is that there's never been a hint of this before. Previously, he'd been the son of two Resistance fighters, and he became a pilot after his mother's death. He joined the New Republic Defense Fleet, and then jumped to the Resistance early on. He was never intended to be a scoundrel, and it probably wasn't wise to try to turn him into one.

The Sith Dagger Makes Absolutely No Sense

Star Wars 9 Threepio Red Eyes

The entire Sith dagger arc makes no sense at all. Rey appears to sense that the knife has a long history, and yet it must be just a couple of decades old at most, given it was designed to point the way to a chunk of the Death Star that was destroyed in Return of the Jedi. The dagger also only works if you're stood in a very specific spot, and if you assume that the powerful waves of Kef Bir are unable to erode metal as time passes.

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Why Did Threepio Know The Language Of The Sith?

Threepio Hacked Star Wars 9

Threepio is able to recognize the language of the Sith as soon as he sees it, but his core programming means he's unable to translate the text. This leads the Resistance to head to the planet Kijimi, in order to find a droidsmith to hack into him and remove that core programming. Threepio claims the Old Republic had passed legislation that forced protocol droids to be programmed not to translate Sith, but why would they do that when they believed the Sith were extinct since the time of Darth Bane?

How Many Stormtroopers Are In The First Order?

Star Wars First Order Troopers

When Rey and her friends arrive on Kijimi, they learn that the First Order are there in force - and, in fact, that they're already going door-to-door looking for Rey. It's strongly implied that the First Order are doing this literally everywhere across the galaxy, but that naturally raises the question of just how many Stormtroopers and troop ships the First Order have. They have an entire galaxy to cover, after all.

How Many Stormtroopers DEFECT From The First Order?

Star Wars Rise of Skywalker Finn character poste

When Finn defected from the First Order in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it seemed like a big deal, as though nobody ever defected before. But in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Finn learns that entire platoons of Stormtroopers have quit in the past, courtesy of Jannah. It raises the interesting question of just how efficient the First Order's brainwashing process really is, and how many ex-Stormtroopers are wandering the galaxy. The First Order would probably have been better off going for clones.

How Did Kylo Ren Get Off Kef Bir?

Rey and Kylo Ren in Death Star 2 in Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker

Kylo Ren continues to track Rey, following her to the oceanic moon of Kef Bir, and they duel among the wreckage of the Second Death Star. In the end, Rey escapes Kylo Ren by fleeing in his TIE Whisper, leaving him stranded there. Jannah and the other former Stormtroopers who were living on Kef Bir join Finn and Poe in order to leave the planet and help the Resistance. That means the only vessels left on Kef Bir should have been a few wrecked TIE Fighters, and even if one could be repaired, these were Imperial-era vehicles - meaning they weren't equipped with hyperdrives.

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How Does Luke Repair His X-Wing?

Rey X-Wing

Convinced she's destined to fall to the dark side, Rey flees to the planet Ahch-To, site of the first Jedi Temple. She goes so far as destroying the TIE Whisper she stole from Kylo Ren, figuring to strand herself there. Fortunately, the Force Ghost of Luke Skywalker has other ideas, and he gives Rey an essential pep talk before pulling his old X-Wing out from the waters of Ahch-To. The problem is - how is that X-Wing still working? When last seen in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, it was clearly aged and rusting. In fact, according to the Star Wars: The Last Jedi Visual Dictionary, Luke wrecked the craft before dropping it beneath the waves. That X-Wing really shouldn't be able to fly at all.

What's The Deal With Palpatine's Secret Fleet?

Star Wars 9 Star Destroyer Fleet Emperor Palpatine Sidious

The Emperor has a hidden fleet of Death Star Destroyers buried beneath the ice on the Sith planet of Exegol, which in itself seems to be something of a strange decision. A tactical genius, Palpatine has chosen to hide his fleet on a planet so inaccessible that they cannot escape without a single transmission guiding them out, which hardly seems like a wise strategy. Meanwhile, it's unclear whether the Death Star Destroyers were constructed out on Exegol, or whether they flew out there; given there are only supposed to be two Wayfinders to guide people to Exegol, either option seems unfeasible, considering the sheer number of ships.

The miniaturized Death Star technology seems bizarre, simply because no explanation is ever provided for its miniaturization. According to James Luceno's tie-in novel Catalyst, Kyber is phenomenally unstable when subjected to these processes, which accounts for the size of the Death Star reactors. Making matters worse, the two Death Stars consumed most of the Kyber in the known galaxy - so where did the Emperor get all the necessary Kyber Crystals ready to power the superlasers? Absolutely nothing about Palpatine's secret fleet makes any sense at all.

How Did Babu Frik And Zorii Bliss Survive?

Keri Russell as Zorii Bliss in Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker

Palpatine sends a Death Star Destroyer to demonstrate his power, and it destroys the planet Kijimi. It doesn't really have much emotional impact in the film, simply because viewers only knew two people who were there, meaning there was no real connection with the ice-world. But it's made even less effective when Babu Frik and Zorii Bliss join the battle against the Death Star Destroyer fleet, proving they'd somehow gotten off the planet before it was destroyed. This is pretty impressive, given Zorii was supposed to have given Poe Dameron her one potential ticket off world.

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Why Didn't Palpatine Know About The Force Dyad?

Star Wars Darth Sidious Palpatine

Palpatine has always liked to pretend that everything is happening as he has foreseen, but frankly his plans are often so complex that it looks as though his greatest skill is his adaptability. There's a particularly odd example in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, where the Emperor pivots from planning on possessing his granddaughter to instead draining the power of the Force Dyad shared by Rey and Kylo Ren. The strange thing about this is that he seems to have had no idea about the strength of the bond until now, in spite of the fact he's claimed that Snoke was really his puppet all along. Snoke was well aware of the mystical connection between the two, and even strengthened it in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. It really does look as though Palpatine didn't have his eye on the ball.

How Did The Other Jedi Manifest In The Force?

Rey seems to be on the verge of defeat when she is given unexpected encouragement by the Jedi of ages past. The problem is that Qui-Gon Jinn was supposed to be the first Jedi in generations to learn how to retain his consciousness in the Force after death, and it took him time to figure out how to manifest and train others. That means many of the Jedi who speak in this scene died before Qui-Gon had begun mentoring people on how to live on after death. The scene is stunning and effective, but it appears to contradict all previous Star Wars canon, and will probably need to be resolved sometime down the line.

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