It’s Been 5 Years Since Palpatine Was Talking Shit on the Radio in Fortnite

Five years ago, the dormant spoke this past weekend. Not wrong a Star Wars movie, mind, oregon astatine least, for the archetypal clip there. Not adjacent wrong ancillary Star Wars tie-in material, similar a comic publication oregon a novel. Instead, the long-awaited instrumentality of the Skywalker Saga’s grand villain Sheev Palpatine came arsenic portion of a Fortnite peculiar event, and Star Wars canonicity has ne'er been stretched to its weirdest constituent since.

There’s decidedly a batch of chaotic things that hap in Star Wars continuity—either the existent approximation of it oregon the former Expanded Universe—but they are, for the astir part, oddities that hap wrong the texts themselves. Beyond the confines of that ever-evolving continuity, there’s a batch of weirdness too, conscionable from the sheer scope of Star Wars‘ interaction connected our culture. Taken separately—the thought of Palpatine announcing his expansive resurrection to the postulation arsenic the eventual revenge of the Sith, that the punctuation unquote “final” Star Wars movie would marketplace itself done 1 of the biggest video games connected the planet—these things aren’t precisely absurd successful the look of what Star Wars has go implicit the past astir 50 years.

And yet the veil was astatine its thinnest connected December 14, 2019, and emerging astatine the crux of those 2 ideas was The Rise of Skywalker‘s Fortnite peculiar event. If you could get it to work, you could ticker (or aimlessly effort to bushed up) a integer recreation of J.J. Abrams talking to Sonic the Hedgehog‘s Ben Schwartz and the Game Awards’ Geoff Keighley to present a clip from the film. You could besides spot what remains, someway this half-decade later, 1 of lone 2 canonical sources for Palpatine’s instrumentality to the galactic stage.

There’s thing needfully incorrect with the connection itself. It’s very Sheev Palpatine to denote that you’ve cheated decease with a large fleet of Star Destroyers and by fundamentally sending the “I lived, bitch” meme crossed the galaxy. The antheral is thing if not idiosyncratic with a flair for the dramatic! But the absurdity remains that, 5 years later—in a franchise that loves endlessly contextualizing itself—this event, and its notation wrong the novelization of The Rise of Skywalker, are the lone 2 references for specified a cardinal portion of worldbuilding.

It’s already weird capable that it’s not successful the movie, but, inevitably comic memes successful the years since aside, the existent absurdity of Palpatine’s Fortnite broadcast is that it’s conscionable benignant of mislaid to history. That’s a weird happening to accidental astir thing that lone conscionable turned five, but it’s true: you can’t play this Fortnite lawsuit immoderate more, it’s lone archived successful subordinate recordings. The substance of the broadcast itself tin astatine slightest beryllium recovered wrong the novelization of Rise of Skywalker—which, according to author Rae Carson astatine the time, was provided by Lucasfilm, not made specifically for either Fortnite oregon her book—at the least, but it’s not the same. A portion of Star Wars past (derided arsenic it is!) existing successful this weird limbo between Star Wars arsenic a continuous substance and Star Wars arsenic a marque entity, likewise sits successful a likewise weird authorities of existence. The dormant speak, but besides they bash not.

And yet possibly it’s for the champion that this 1 example, among galore successful the years since Star Wars canon was overhauled, is possibly the standout exposure of the fallacy that has been Star Wars‘ “it each matters” attack to continuity implicit the past decade. It’s ever benignant of been a prevarication from the beginning, contempt what Lucasfilm said, that Star Wars would proceed to turn and make with the nonstop aforesaid value fixed to immoderate fixed publication oregon contented of a comic arsenic a TV amusement oregon movie would be. We’re not rather backmost astatine the levels of fractured retcons and recontextualizations arsenic the aged EU was, but we’ve had plentifulness of moments wherever modern Star Wars can’t enactment up with itself implicit the past 10 years. Hell, we’re successful the mediate of a akin concern to Palpatine’s broadcast close present with Marvel’s Battle of Jakku comics, themselves embellishing a formerly canonized story retired of the parts of a formerly canon video crippled that is nary longer accessible to play, maintaining past adjacent arsenic it overwrites it.

Nothing really matters to Star Wars canon extracurricular of the infinitesimal it has to, beyond what is present established successful the superior bid of 9 films (Palpatine’s code included by proxy). And yet successful that sense, everything truthful really does matter: a Fortnite lawsuit you can’t play immoderate much is arsenic dramatically important to the climax of the Skywalker Saga arsenic the the movie that tells that climax is, particularly fixed the lengths Star Wars media has gone successful the 5 years since to retroactively warrant it. And possibly that’s arsenic important a connection to archer Star Wars fans, obsessed with the truths of its universe arsenic they truthful often are, arsenic getting the connection retired that somehow, Palpatine returned is.

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