This week, we learned that we came shockingly close to the return of Adam Driver to Star Wars in a project called The Hunt for Ben Solo, which would’ve seen the actor (working with director Steven Soderbergh) revive Ben Solo after the events of Rise of Skywalker and navigate his redemptive arc. That is, until apparently Disney head honcho Bob Iger poo-pooed the idea after an eager Lucasfilm presented it to him, with a simple retort: he and other Disney executives just couldn’t possibly understand how a Star Wars character could come back from the dead.

Here’s how, Bob. And anyone else curious!

12) Essence Transfer

Ah, a classic. Somehow, Palpatine Returned, and the somehow is this! A staple of Sith techniques, Essence Transfer, occasionally simply referred to as “Transference,” has been a staple of Star Wars for generations in the Expanded Universe and current continuities, with people either taking over host bodies created for the exact purpose or hoping to possess other living beings to harness their power and vitality. Of course, Palpatine famously did this in both contemporary canon and very early on in the old EU in Dark Empire—speaking of which…

11) Cloning

This one and Essence Transfer go hand in hand—Star Wars has definitely played up retroactively laying the path to Palpatine’s resurrection with a series of specially created clones stored for the express purpose of his revival upon death, as he did in Dark Empire as well. Might be a bit harder in the case of Ben, given his body has already entirely dissipated, but there’s got to be some genetic material lying around that could be recovered.

10) The Rings of Vaale

Let’s go for one that’s not necessarily Force-connected: the Darth Aphra comics introduced two dangerous rings, the Ring of Immortality and the Ring of Fortune, but there was a catch: the first ring would grant you immortal life but drive you mad. The second ring could counteract that downside if also worn, and on its own could grant great fortune at the cost of quickening your death. Just think of the lucrative tie-in jewelry range you could make.

9) Life Force Transfusion

Either willingly—as we saw with Ahsoka Tano and the Daughter on Mortis in The Clone Wars, or, literally, Ben with Rey in Rise of Skywalker!—or through violence—Sith Emperor Vitiate in The Old Republic when he sucked the juice out of the planetary population of Ziost, or Darth Nihilus’ eternal hunger in Knights of the Old Republic II—draining the life force of one being has been shown to have the capacity to not just sustain a living being for inordinate amounts of time but bring them back from the dead (albeit at the expense of another person’s life).

8) Midi-chlorian Manipulation

Okay, this one is more about creating life—and in ways the manifestation of life from the Living Force as a response to that manipulation—but someone should at least inform Disney executives about the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise. It’s not a story the Jedi would tell you, but at least several Lucasfilm executives could.

7) Conscience Preservation

A method of choice for the Sith, who have managed multiple times to do the whole “turn into some kind of spirit entity upon death” thing, but not the “be a chillaxed translucent blue person about it” bit. The Sith Lord Momin from the Darth Vader comics famously stored his spirit inside his mask in order to possess anyone who wore it, using it to resurrect his original form on Mustafar, for example, and the Sith temple on Malachor in Rebels also housed an ancient holocron where an unknown female Sith had stored some sliver of her presence in it for generations.

And it’s not like Ben Solo has a history with one very specific artifact near and dear to some aspect of his persona or anything…

6) Being Really, Really Mad

If you can come back okay—well, “okay” is maybe pushing it—from being chopped in half just because of the sheer hatred you have for the target of your would-be-enemies-to-lovers desires, then you can do anything.

5) The World Between Worlds

Sure, we can get a bit Doctor Who and argue about what’s a fixed point in time or not, but we very specifically saw the World Between Worlds used as a concept for both a way to save someone from the moment of their seeming death (as with Ahsoka in Rebels) and a kind of spiritual purgatory that someone can come back rebirthed from (again, with Ahsoka in Ahsoka. Unless we’re just going to decide that whole concept is off-limits to anyone but one specific Togruta).

4) Using the Force Really, Really Hard

This is probably more helpful for beings who are still alive, but in the old EU, the Jedi Master Fay apparently had developed her connection to the Force with such intensity that it prolonged her life for centuries—and if she had not sacrificed her life force on the planet Queyta to save Obi-Wan Kenobi, rather than recover from the mortal lightsaber wound she suffered from an attack from Asajj Ventress—she could’ve lived and healed herself potentially forever. Sometimes you just have to be built different.

3) Turning Into Either a) an Animal or b) a Gross Monster Thing

There are ways you can transfer a will to another sentient creature, but it gets complicated. In Rebels, for example, it’s heavily implied that Kanan Jarrus’ will was perceived through the giant Loth-Wolf Dume (sharing Kanan’s birth name, to boot), but that was not necessarily Kanan being reincarnated as the wolf.

But the fable anthology Dark Legends also gave us the story of Darth Sanguis and Darth Noctyss, two ancient Sith who visited Exegol and thought they discovered a ritual to grant them immortality—instead, the ritual, which required killing a living being, transformed them into emaciated, deformed creatures, with Noctyss not realizing that the being she killed for her own ritual was in fact the husk of the former Sanguis. Grim!

2) Just Hanging Around as a Force Ghost

We know that Force Ghosts can, with time, have an ability to manifest significantly enough that they can appear almost physical and interact with tangible objects. And that’s close enough, if we want it to be!

Plus, I mean, right now you have Hayden Christensen in Ahsoka season two just chilling in a nice shade of blue. Rise of Skywalker had enough blue tones all over those Exegol scenes that we know Driver can look good in that lighting. So what’s the issue, Bob?

1) Magickal Zombification

Okay, maybe don’t tell Iger about this one. No one wants a gaunt Adam Driver wandering around the galaxy.

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