I recently saw the newest Star Wars movie, Rise of Skywalker and I loved it. I loved it because it did what it was supposed to, entertain the audience. I enjoyed the previous title, The Last Jedi, but I felt it was more obsessed with being wacky and taking the series in a new and interesting direction than focusing on its true objective, entertaining the audience.

Regardless of your opinion on the latest movie I think everyone can agree that it was much darker and had more horror than previous titles. The other movies had their moments with the genocide of entire planets, Kylo killing his father, Luke considering killing Kylo, Anakin slaughtering Tusken Raiders, Anakin slaughtering the younglings, and so on.

But this movie outdid them all in my mind and it also introduced one of the greatest villains in the series, a resurrected Darth Sidious.

Exegol was a dark place, a true homeworld for the Sith and a fountain of the dark side of the force. I loved how it was a barren planet void of life and populated only by caves and the creations of man. It makes you wonder how it was discovered in the first place, was the original Sith Lord drawn there by the dark side and used his strong connection with the force to navigate the hostility of space to reach it? Or did they send acolyte after acolyte into the void to try and find a path forward, building a road map with each acolyte that survived just a little longer than the previous?

I think the latter makes more sense and in line with the Sith’s nature. It would take great sacrifices and the death of many to reach the planet with the greatest concentration of the dark side.

It was also their most secretive base, one that no historian knew about and only the Sith had knowledge of or a way to access. It was a black site of sorts, known only to the high ranking and the most devout. A place where the Sith could rebuild and emerge from the shadows stronger than ever.

It was a mirror in ways to Darth Sidious (Emperor Palpatine). This was a man who possessed the deepest darkest secrets of the Sith, a man who could cheat death. My guess as to how he did this was through a cloning process, but the clones are imperfect and unstable. The thousands of Sith Lords inhabiting the body and the dark force energy need a genuine natural born body and not a copy, as a result he was decrepit and required a machine to live. It was only by siphoning the life force of two strong force wielders that a true body could be created.

Or it was a twisted manifestation of life, something like Voldemort in the Harry Potter series before the ritual that resurrected him, just a little larger and more grownup instead of a creepy fetus.

This was a man who had contingencies on top of contingencies. Who through his followers was able to rebuild his empire from the shadows and create a force stronger than the Empire he’d built before.

A true villain with enough ambition and power to cheat death, build three empires (Empire, First Order, Final Order) and had the potential to conquer the galaxy twice over.

The horror of this show was more subtle, not visually of course, but in the implications and questions it created.

How did Palpatine come back? Was it through cloning, resurrection, escaping death, or something else entirely?

How many acolytes did he have throughout the galaxy that operated in the shadows, avoiding detection at the height of his empire and at its fall when their leader died? Staying patient and loyally carrying out the contingencies for that exact scenario? Are there still acolytes even now? Yet another contingency in case his Final Order failed?

What happens to the Sith Lords that were inside Palpatine’s body? Are they vanquished forever? Have they transferred to a new host? Are they waiting somewhere, biding their time before possessing a new body?

If the Siths are truly vanquished and there are no contingencies left what new force will rise up to take their place? The Rebellion proved incapable of filling the power vacuum following the fall of the Empire allowing the First Order to rise up after all, so what will be the new threat?

There must always be a balance and the galaxy is now filled with light, what darkness will come to replace it? The Sith reborn? Something worse than the Sith? Something older and darker? Or something entirely new and unpredictable?

Given that Disney is at the wheel they’ll likely endlessly cycle through side stories, prequels, remakes, and spinoffs without ever moving beyond the ending of Rise Of Skywalker. And also because it’s Disney I don’t expect them to dive further into the horrific potential that lies within the Star Wars universe. Where the dark force combines with mad science to lead to unspeakable horrors, twisted evils, and writhing monstrosities.

I’m going to predict that the Rise of Skywalker is the darkest the Star Wars movie/tv franchise will ever get, the most horror we’ll ever see on the big screen.

Thankfully there’s a whole host of books that aren’t afraid to dive into the darkness. Sure they’ve all become non-canonical and retconned into oblivion, but it’s a great and wonderful playground for horror fans to explore the potential of the dark side and worse in the Star Wars franchise.

I’d love to see a book describing Palpatine’s efforts in the shadows after his death. The secret workings of his acolytes to create the First Order so the Final Order could be built.

Let’s hope the literary universe goes wild and brings us that wonderful Star Wars horror.