Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker leaves fans with some lingering questions, including a few that can only be answered if you pick up the recently released Visual Dictionary. But when it comes to one of the movie’s biggest mysteries – how Emperor Palpatine survived the events of Return of the Jedi – the answer is locked away in deleted footage.
In an interview with HuffPost (via CBR), editor Maryanne Brandon reveals Episode IX was originally supposed to have shed more light on Palpatine’s return. But ultimately, the scenes dealing with the hows and whys of Palpatine’s return were trimmed in order to prevent fans from being bombarded with exposition.
Source: IGN.com The Rise of Skywalker Has Deleted Scenes Explaining How Palpatine Survived