Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker saw the return of Ian McDiarmid's Emperor Palpatine, but the Star Wars franchise is now close to retconing how this was achieved. Although the movie didn't go into detail on how Palpatine managed to survive his death in Return of the Jedi, the characters did provide a brief explanation for how he could've come back. However, thanks to the Star Wars TV shows, most notably The Mandalorian, it's clear that Star Wars is setting up a massive retcon for how Palpatine returned in The Rise of Skywalker. This will tie various Star Wars projects together and improve The Rise of Skywalker's Palpatine explanation, too.
Cloning has been a prominent plot point throughout Star Wars' history and has continued to play an important role in the recent TV shows on Disney+. The Rise of Skywalker implied that cloning was part of how Palpatine survived, and the Legends story Dark Empire by Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy went into greater detail on how this was done. As limited as The Rise of Skywalker's explanation was by comparison, one detail doesn't line up as well with what the Star Wars franchise is now setting up. Even so, this new retcon may prove to be a more logical explanation for Emperor Palpatine's return in The Rise of Skywalker.
