By George Bate
Exegol made its debut in 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, where the planet was revealed to be the hiding place of Emperor Palpatine after his death in Return of the Jedi. In the film, Exegol is described as “the hidden world of the Sith”, and Kylo Ren’s entrance to the outer-rim world revealed even more connections to the dark side.
As Kylo approached Palpatine, he walked through the dead planet, where there appeared to be no natural life of any sort beyond the Sith Lord and his followers, Sith statues were seen and presumably constructed to honor previous evil dark side Force users. Later on in the film, Rey met Palpatine in a different location on Exegol, where there was a vast arena of sorts filled with Sith followers and members of the cult, alongside an updated version of the Emperor’s loyal guards that were first seen in Episode VII.
With Palpatine’s return solidifying him as the main villain of all nine Skywalker saga films, despite not appearing in every outing, Exegol’s place in Star Wars canon seems even more important. Given this, Exegol is a planet that can be explored more, whether that be in love action or novels or comic books, to give more backstory to the mysterious world and its inhabitants. Exegol has begun to be explored more recently, with Luke having a vision of standing on the planet’s surface in an upcoming novel.
Darth Vader also visited in the planet in Star Wars comics, and given that Coruscant was left a semi-deserted world and shadow of its formal glory, it seems highly likely that Exegol was Palpatine’s base after Revenge of the Sith. This makes the planet even more intriguing as the likelihood is very high that Vader traveled to the unknown regions to meet Palpatine here, perhaps even during the events of the original trilogy, and any conversation between the two is bound to be tense and a must watch. This is one area of Exegol that could be explored in the future.
Exegol’s statues of Sith Lords past also indicate the presence of previous dark side Force users on the planet, and C-3PO’s description of Exegol in Episode IX teases that Palpatine is not the first to use the planet as his base. If the time before The Phantom Menace is ever explored in great detail, as many expect it will be, Exegol is surely to be an important location for any title set during this period. This would also be an opportunity to explore an earlier version of the world and change the visuals slightly, just as is the case with a few different planets in the franchise.
Exegol was one of the most intriguing aspects of The Rise of Skywalker, and the mysteriousness of the world lends itself to further exploration.