It’s been 5 years since Palpatine was talking nonsense on the radio in Fortnite

Five years ago, the dead spoke last weekend. Not included in A star wars Film, mind, or at least, for the first time there. Not even among the accessories star wars Related material, such as a comic book or novel. Instead, the long-awaited return of the Skywalker Saga Big bad Sheev Palpatine It came as part of a fortnite Special event, and star wars Legality has never extended to its strangest point since.

There’s definitely a lot of wild stuff going on there star wars Continuity – either its current approximation or Previous Expanded Universe– But most of them are anomalies that occur within the texts themselves. Outside of the confines of that ever-evolving continuity, there’s a lot of weirdness too, just from the sheer scope of star wars“The impact on our culture. Separately – the idea of ​​Palpatine declaring his grand resurrection in the galaxy as the ultimate revenge of the Sith, that quote unquote ‘final’ star wars The film will market itself through someone The biggest video games on the planet– These things aren’t completely ridiculous in a confrontation star wars It has become so over the past nearly 50 years.

However, the veil was at its weakest on December 14, 2019, and visibility was at the core of these two ideas. The Rise of Skywalker‘s fortnite Special event. If you can Get it to workyou can watch (or aimlessly try to beat) a digital recreation of JJ Abrams talking to him Sonic the HedgehogBen Schwartz and Jeff Keighley from The Game Awards to present a clip from the film. You can also see what remains, somehow half a decade later, which is one of the only two canonical sources for Palpatine’s return to the galactic stage.

There is nothing necessarily wrong with the message itself. that it very Sheev Palpatine to announce that you have cheated death with a large fleet of star destroyers and by sending… “You lived, bitch.” Across the galaxy. A man is nothing if not a person A flair for the dramatic! But the absurdity remains five years later – in a franchise, that is He loves He endlessly contextualized himself – this event, and mentioned it in a novel The Rise of Skywalkerare the only two references to such an essential piece of worldbuilding.

It’s already weird enough that he’s not in the movie, but, inevitably funny memes in the years that follow, the true absurdity of Palpatine fortnite Broadcasting is just kind of lost in history. It’s strange to say this about something that just turned five years old, but it’s true: You can’t play this game fortnite Anymore, it is only archived in player recordings. The text of the broadcast itself can be found at least within a novel The Rise of Skywalker– Which, according to Author Ray Carson At the time, it was supplied by Lucasfilm, and was not made specifically for either fortnite Or her book, at least, but it’s not the same. piece of star wars History (ironic as it is!) exists in this strange limbo between them star wars As a continuous text and star wars As a brand entity, it also falls into a similarly strange state of existence. The dead speak, but they also don’t.

However, this is perhaps the best example, among many in the years that followed star wars Canon has been fixed, and is probably the lead Fallacy exposed That was it star warsThe “everything matters” approach to continuity over the past decade. It was always kind of a lie from the beginning, despite what Lucasfilm said star wars It will continue to grow and develop with the same weight given to any book or comic release as a TV show or movie. We have not quite returned to the fractured levels of reconfiguration and recontextualization of the old EU, but we have had plenty of moments of modernity. star wars She couldn’t keep up with herself for the past ten years. Oh hell, we’re in the middle of a Palpatine-like situation right now with Marvel Battle of Jakku Caricatures themselves Embellishing a story that was previously canonized Previously canon video game parts that can no longer be played, with history preserved even when overwritten.

nothing truly It matters star wars It is outside canon of the moment when this should happen, beyond what has now been established in the core nine-film series (Palpatine’s proxy speech is included). However, in this sense, everything actually matters: a fortnite The event you can’t play anymore is as important to the climax of the Skywalker Saga as the movie tells us the climax is, especially considering the lengths star wars The media has been gone in the five years since Justified retrospectively. This may be an important message to tell star wars Fans, obsessed The facts of her universe As is often the case, as is the news that Palpatine has returned somehow.

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