8 Times Dead Star Wars Characters Somehow Returned
The Dead Don’t Die (2019) is the title of Jim Jarmusch’s offbeat zombie apocalypse parody, but it could just as easily have been the title of a Star Wars parody. The franchise has gained a reputation for bringing back characters despite their apparent deaths. It’s a trend that seems destined to continue, as Giancarlo Esposito teased to JustWatch that fans may not have seen the last of his villain, Moff Gideon, despite his alleged death in The Mandalorian (2019).
Moff Gideon’s potential return isn’t so far-fetched in the face of the franchise’s even bolder character resurrections. Use our guide to find eight Star Wars characters who somehow managed to return to the screen after meeting their end.
Boba Fett
Before Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) entered the MandoVerse and got his own series, The Book of Boba Fett (2021), fans believed him long dead in the franchise. In Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1893), Boba Fett (Jeremy Bulloch) tries to apprehend Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and his crew. During the ensuing fight, though, Solo inadvertently sends Fett flying over a Sarlacc pit, where he’s subsequently eaten alive.
For years, he remained seemingly dead until The Mandalorian revealed his survival. Boba Fett managed to survive the Sarlacc due to his armor and used hand grenades to blow a hole through the beast to escape. His resurrection is actually one of the most plausible since Sarlaccs have slow digestive systems, and Fett was armed to the teeth with an incredibly durable material. However, his lengthy absence from the franchise still made his return quite surprising.
Sheev Palpatine
Sheev Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) is the main antagonist of the original Star Wars trilogy. He meets his end in Return of the Jedi, when his apprentice, Darth Vader (James Earl Jones), turns on him. Darth Vader throws him down a shaft, killing him shortly before the Death Star explodes. It’s a death that has a note of finality. There’s no armor, cauterization, or second stomach to save him. However, Star Wars still found a way to bring him back.
Palpatine returns in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019), where he reveals how he cheated death. Using a Sith technique for transferring one’s consciousness, as his physical body died, he transferred his consciousness into a prepared clone on Exegol. It’s definitely one of the more feeble explanations for miraculous survival, and the idea that anyone in Star Wars can just come back as a clone after death truly opens the door for just about any character resurrection.
Darth Maul
Darth Maul (Ray Park) is one of Star Wars’ most popular villains. However, he initially died in his debut film, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999). In the film, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) kills Maul, slicing him in half with his lightsaber before throwing him down a shaft. Given that we watched him literally be cut in two, it seemed to spell the end for Maul, unless the franchise went back to before the prequel series.
However, Maul shockingly returns in Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008), wearing mechanical prosthetic legs in place of his lower body. There’s no real explanation for how Maul survived, except that Obi-Wan Kenobi miraculously missed any vital organs while slicing him at the waist, and the lightsaber cauterized the wound. Perhaps his pure hatred and thirst for revenge helped him overcome the seemingly deadliest wounds to make his return to the Star Wars franchise.
Echo
Echo (Dee Bradley Baker) makes his first appearance in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. He’s a Clone Trooper who rose quickly through the military ranks for his service to the Grand Army of the Republic during the Clone War. Unfortunately, in Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 3, Episode 20, “Counterattack,” he seemingly perishes in a fiery explosion when a commando droid strikes his ship.
For the next three seasons, fans believed Echo to be dead until Season 7’s premiere hinted at his return. It turns out, he survived the explosion and was captured by the Separatists, who turned him into a cyborg and living computer. His return is quite harrowing, reflecting the damage he suffered in the explosion and the torture during his days in captivity. However, his survival and alterations prevent him from carrying out Order 66 and lead him to rebel against the Empire in The Bad Batch (2021).
Ahsoka
Ahsoka Tano (Ashley Eckstein) has actually “died” twice in the Star Wars franchise. In Star Wars: The Clone Wars, she, Obi-Wan Kenobi (James Arnold Taylor), and Anakin (Matt Lanter) became stranded on Mortis, where they met three powerful Force entities: The Son, The Daughter, and The Father. Although the Son kills Ahsoka after possessing her with the dark side, the Daughter’s life force resurrects her.
Ahsoka seemingly dies again in Star Wars Rebels (2014) when she confronts her former master, Darth Vader, in a lightsaber duel. While the outcome of the duel is ambiguous, the show insinuates that Darth Vader kills her. In Season 4, though, Ezra Bridger (Taylor Gray) manages to change the outcome of the battle by pulling Ahsoka into the World Between Worlds. Her multiple survivals and their ties to the metaphysical side of Star Wars have given her almost a spiritual aura.
The Grand Inquisitor
The Grand Inquisitor (Jason Isaacs) plays a big role in Star Wars Rebels Seasons 1 and 2. A former Jedi who turned to the dark side, he relentlessly hunts Order 66 survivors Kanan Jarrus (Freddie Prinze, Jr.) and Ezra. However, fans watching Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022), which takes place before Star Wars Rebels, were likely surprised by his apparent death in the miniseries.
In Obi-Wan Kenobi, Inquisitor Reva (Moses Ingram) turns on the Grand Inquisitor (Rupert Friend), running him through the stomach with a lightsaber. It seems to be the kind of injury one wouldn’t return from, but as Star Wars Rebels fans already knew, he found a way. The show doesn’t explain his miraculous recovery. Still, Friend explained to Jimmy Kimmel that the Grand Inquisitor’s species, the Pau’an, has two stomachs, meaning he could survive with one even if Reva damaged the other.
Fennec Shand
Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) makes her Star Wars debut in The Mandalorian Season 1, Episode 5, “The Gunslinger.” The elite mercenary and assassin becomes the target of bounty hunters Toro Calican (Jake Cannavale) and Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal). However, things go awry during the attempt to capture Shand, leading Calican to fatally shoot her, leaving her for dead in the deserts of Tatooine.
While it was a devastating wound to come back from, The Mandalorian teased her return from the onset with a shot of an unseen, mysterious figure approaching her body. Sure enough, Shand returns in The Mandalorian Season 2, which reveals Boba Fett found her body and revived her by turning her into a cyborg. To repay him, she becomes his right-hand man. Shand certainly appeared dead, but her return is somewhat plausible and adds an interesting layer of depth to her connection with Boba.
Reva
The Grand Inquisitor isn’t the only Star Wars character to survive a lightsaber through the stomach. Obi-Wan Kenobi reveals that before Reva became an Inquisitor, she was among the younglings training at the Jedi Temple during Order 66. Flashbacks reveal that Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) stabbed her in the stomach with his lightsaber, but she survived the wound and played dead before making her escape.
As if her survival as a child wasn’t miraculous enough, she survived a second stab wound to the stomach from Darth Vader after betraying him. Although she’s left for dead, she ultimately survives and escapes. The best explanation for her survival comes from the Grand Inquisitor, who remarked, “Revenge does wonders for the will to live.” So, perhaps Star Wars characters can survive anything if they get heated enough.
