Sith Fleet Plot Hole in The Rise of Skywalker:
It is now a fact that like The Last Jedi, The Rise of Skywalker was also a highly polarizing movie for Star Wars fans. There were a lot of illogical plot points and plot holes that seriously confused the viewers and were so glaring even a child could spot them. One of the biggest plot holes was the origin of the Sith Fleet by Palpatine. The entire story of how it came into being was not at all sitting well with the audience who found the story laughable. Star Wars did a really terrible job of explaining the Sith Fleet and its existence. But thanks to an anonymous fan, a theory has actually given us plausible grounds to satisfy ourselves with the official origin of the Sith fleet.
Palpatine claimed he secretly helped build the Sith Fleet, a massive armada of planetary destroyers, under the Planet Exegol, a huge planetoid. The Fleet was pivotal in driving the climax of the Rise of Skywalker movie. Emperor Palpatine called the Sith Fleet the Final Order. The fans were left scratching their heads. How can such a massive fleet that would require a solar system worth of manpower be made under such secrecy without anyone realizing what’s going on?
Making such a fleet would require not only gargantuan human resources but also a lot of natural resources that have to be shipped into Exegol for manufacturing the weapons and the facilities to build it. The planetoid itself has not enough of that to support those operations. So Emperor Palpatine’s claims fall flat regarding the Sith Fleet, at least to the fans anyways.
And the theory is pretty simple. The reason the Sith Fleet was not able to make as much a dent on the enemy was that it was not there at all! That’s right. The Fleet of Sith Destroyers was just a force projection that cast a massive celestial level illusion that there was this huge armada of thousands of ships under Palpatine’s control that formed his Final Order. The same Force Projection technique was used by Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi. Since it is Emperor Palpatine we are talking about, he could have just reinforced a few real Sith Destroyers with an army of illusions to make him-self look invincible.
There are counterclaims to that argument as well. Since it is a force projection, there was no way that the ships would still be there if Palpatine meets his end. That did not happen. When Emperor Palpatine dies in The Rise of Skywalker, the Sith Fleet does not disappear. Besides, Palpatine is not someone who would use such cheap tactics to getaway. When he made a claim, he always ensured that he had the guts to back it up if the history of any indication. So we suggest you take this theory with a pinch of salt.
The Skywalker saga had a very limited runtime so it was not possible to address all the plot holes with a detailed explanation. There were bound to be some plot holes that would be left to the viewers’ imagination. But the Sith fleet Plot Hole is so big that even a Star Destroyer could easily pass through it. Star Wars has a history of clarifying doubts through other sources like comic books and visual dictionaries. Even the Rise of Skywalker has one and that too has evidence that somewhat disproves this theory. For now, this theory is the best explanation we got to explain the plot hole regarding the Sith Fleet. We will keep you guys posted on further updates on The Rise of Skywalker.
Directed and co-written by J.J. Abrams, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was released on the 20th of December, 2019. The official film synopsis for the movie reads:
When it’s discovered that the evil Emperor Palpatine did not die at the hands of Darth Vader, the rebels must race against the clock to find out his whereabouts. Finn and Poe lead the Resistance to put a stop to the First Order’s plans to form a new Empire, while Rey anticipates her inevitable confrontation with Kylo Ren.
