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.
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.
Here's an interesting dichotomy...
It is possible that it is only obvious to people who have seen the OT already, because Palpatine looks so much like the emperor. So this would support George's contention that you should see the PT first - so that you don't get the palpatine reveal.
But if you see the PT first, you get the "Vader is Luke's father" reveal. So you should see the OT first so it doesn't spoil the dramatic revelation.
In this respect, the PT spoils the OT, and the OT spoils the PT, so there is no suitable order to watch the entire saga. Best to avoid the PT altogether :)
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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.
My brother didn't realize the emperor's name was Palpatine. He thinks I spoiled Revenge for him because of it.
Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:
Here's an interesting dichotomy...
It is possible that it is only obvious to people who have seen the OT already, because Palpatine looks so much like the emperor. So this would support George's contention that you should see the PT first - so that you don't get the palpatine reveal.
But if you see the PT first, you get the "Vader is Luke's father" reveal. So you should see the OT first so it doesn't spoil the dramatic revelation.
In this respect, the PT spoils the OT, and the OT spoils the PT, so there is no suitable order to watch the entire saga. Best to avoid the PT altogether :)
Only issue with this is that Palpatine's identity is obvious even if you haven't seen the OT.
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.
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...
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!"
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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.
doubleofive said:
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!"
Agreed.
Even watching the PT first, you're plainly meant to realize it, at least by the end of TPM.
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!
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Wait? Palpatine is Sidious? That's even more absurd than the rumor about Clark Kent being Superman!
Wait, someone else already did a better Clark Kent joke in this thread...
xhonzi said:
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!
a good performance can only take a dumb script so far... ;)
Palpatine was one of the only characters who was consistently interesting to see on screen in the PT imo, even if he did get downright goofy at times, especially in episode III.
Quackula said:
xhonzi said:
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!
a good performance can only take a dumb script so far... ;)
Palpatine was one of the only characters who was consistently interesting to see on screen in the PT imo, even if he did get downright goofy at times, especially in episode III.
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
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.
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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.
Battle droids the robotic incarnations of Jar Jar Binks.
From what I got, everyone kinda suspected it (because of the actor, and, well, there was certainly something wrong with Palpatine - his pedosmile at Coruscant, him orgasming at getting elected etc.), but people thought that maybe it would turn out somehow... different. It didn't.
I think that's called an "untwist".
McDiarmid himself, on the bonus DVD, says so himself: "You'd indeed be a very strange person if you didn't know that." Adding that technically, he was forbidden to admit to that in public... lol.
That reminds me of something. Although I doubt it would interest anyone here, I've followed "The Matrix Online" when it was around (that multiplayer game they made as a "continuation" to the Matrix films), and, freak of the week plots aside, it started out with a myth arc about a mysterious "General" who kept perpetrating false flag attacks on the various factions to apparently saw distrust; later, he appeared in person with a bunch of soldier mooks offering his helps to the different factions and again, apparently "secretly" pushing for a war.
The execution was HYSTERICAL (just as the whole story was basically kinda cheap fanfic) - everyone had figured out he was the guy between the initial false flag attacks the moment he appeared on screen, yet the story "officially" defnied it. After a while, everyone started suspecting he and his mooks were Machine sentinels pissed at having to stop the war in the movie, thus trying to restart a war. It went on for a while, and then the big reveal came... guess what it was :D
If you want an example of how writers try to retcon their mystery into something else after the audience has figured it out, look no further than Lost :DD
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.
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Unfuckingbelievable. TFN = theforce.net?
At any rate, you could've created another account from some other computer :D Not that it matters...
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.
Bingowings said:
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.
That would have been SOOOOOOO cool.