Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker Book Confirms The Surprising Truth About Emperor Palpatine

A new Star Wars novelization confirms a key detail about Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Of course, this is a spoiler, so beware of that if you choose to read on.

SPOILERS FOLLOW BELOW

The official novelization of The Rise of Skywalker is scheduled to release on March 17, but passages from it have begun to emerge online. ScreenRant reports that one of the big reveals from Rae Carson's book is that Palpatine is, in fact, a clone.

This clears up one of the lingering questions that Star Wars fans had about how Palpatine was able to return in The Rise of Skywalker following his death in Return of the Jedi. According to the report, the book confirms that the spirit of Palpatine was transferred into a clone host.

Here is the specific passage from the book where it is revealed:

"All the vials were empty of liquid save one, which was nearly depleted. Kylo peered closer. He'd seen this apparatus before, too, when he'd studied the Clone Wars as a boy. The liquid flowing into the living nightmare before him was fighting a losing battle to sustain the Emperor's putrid flesh.

"What could you give me?" Kylo asked. Emperor Palpatine lived, after a fashion, and Kylo could feel in his very bones that this clone body sheltered the Emperor's actual spirit. It was an imperfect vessel, though, unable to contain his immense power. It couldn't last much longer."

It won't be long until we learn even more about The Rise of Skywalker. The movie comes to digital stores on March 17, with a Blu-ray/DVD release to follow on March 31. The home video release comes with numerous extras, including a movie-length documentary that will shed new light on how Lucasfilm made the movie.

The Rise of Skywalker made more than $1 billion at the global box office, finishing the year as just one of nine movies to make $1 billion or more worldwide. Of the top 10 highest-grossing movies of 2019, Disney produced seven of them.