Even a blind man would realize Sidious = Palpatine. I don't see how Lucas could have thought anyone would believe otherwise - if that was his intention, that is.

More importantly even Nute Gunray etc would be able to tell.

It's all very Penelope Pitstop.

Imagine a world where Luke has photos of his dad and Vader is just a bloke wearing glasses.

I believe, yes we are. They have the same face and voice, and are credited as the same actor. The dead giveaway for anyone with doubts is the end of TPM, where Mace asks "but who was destroyed? The master, or the apprentice" and the camera pans to Palpatine.

And the whole cheesy "we will watch your career with great interest!"

Ghostbusters said:

Well, his name was Emperor Palpatine in ROTJ. I was always hoping George Lucas would pull a fast one and trick us into thinking that, but it turns out not to be true, but that didn't happen.

The Emperor's name is not given in the film so you'd have to be a follower of the deeper strata of canon to pick up on that.

Everything else though is so blatant many people expected a plot twist to come out of it.

Quackula said:

Maybe it's because Ian McDiarmid is one of the few exceptional actors in those films, and his performance sticks out like a sore thumb...

REAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLL ULLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLTTTTTTTTTTTIIIIIIIMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTE PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRR!

Anyone else have Pope Benedict XVI instantly come to mind when they saw McDiarmid in that atrocious post-transformation makeup?

Nope.

Quackula said:

I know this is about the prequels, and in a way trying to make sense of some of the aspects of those films is futile, but...

Is Palpatine's true identity supposed to be that obvious? I honestly can't tell...

Sorry if this has been asked before.

I didn't think it was obvious either.

I thought that Palpatine was a clone of The Emperor and when the time came he was going to replace him. The clone was evil and doing the bidding of the Emperor. That way the Jedi couldn't sense Palpatine as a Sith Lord. Because in the original trilogy there was a lot of sensing going on. Darth Vader sensed Obi-Wan and in the trench run knew Luke was strong in the force.

It stood to reason that if Palpatine was the Emperor he would be picked out by the Jedi pretty quickly.

Appropriately Yoda has to explain to the audience that the Dark side clouds everything. Fixed the problem there with that one line.

After watching The Phantom Menace I thought that the Clone Wars was referring to the fact that Palpatine was a clone and he starts a war. Only after watching Attack of The Clones (or hearing the title) that I realised this was wrong as well.

haljordan28 said:

I couldn't  agree more.  Episodes 1 and 2 already belittled the emperor character but in episode  3  he is made out to be  ridicules  and is ruined forever.  I once though of the emperor  as one bad azz Mother F*&&&^  vut  by the end of episode  3  we  see him cackling like an idiot.  when yoda first trys  to fight him  palpatine tries to run and hide like some scared bitch. he is shown to be one of the biggest morons in history. He force fries his own  face into a crisp and why is still  anyones guess.  mace is clearly  blocking the lighting and it is frying  palpatine so why  doesnt he just STOP  shooting the lighting  instead if  crying  like a baby  about not being able to hold on

I think he let himself get deformed so he could show everyone what the Jedi have done to him and to gain more sympathy from the senate if someone questions him about why attack the Jedi?

Still sounds like a mish mash of different scripts thrown together at once.

It seemed pretty obvious to me, but a huge number of TFNers were absolutely convinced that Sidious would turn out not to be Palpy. This bold and provocative twist was supposed to be the capstone of "George's genius," and make all of us "bashers" realize what ignorant philistines we'd been not to have realized the unprecedented artistic merits of the PT and the underlying cinematic genius of its creator. This hypothesis was preached incessantly and regarded by its adherents as not merely speculative conjecture about an upcoming film, but as an inevitability as reliable as the sun's rising. It was as though they had received this information in a prophetic dream from the mouth of God Himself. They placed no less confidence in their assertions to this effect than our dear friend kenkraly places in his assertions that the blurays will have "fixed colars."

I kinda wish I'd stuck around to see how much humble pie was ingested after the release of the ROTS theatrical trailer, but by that time I'd been banned from TFN for being a "basher." It probably wasn't very entertaining though; more than likely they all just decided to forget the hypothesis had ever existed, and never spoke of the matter again. No doubt the fact that palpy did turn out to be Sidious is now regarded as the capstone of George's "creative genius," where before it was considered to be too obvious and anticlimactic a plot device for a screenwriter of such depth and sophistication.

twooffour said:

TFN = theforce.net?

Your insight serves you well.

I'm still waiting to find out the Christopher Ecclestone was really the Master driven differently insane by the Time War and traveling around in Paul McGann's stolen Tardis deluding himself that he is the Doctor.

Those were the days.