By your logic, same with the Death Star in ANH’s crawl (not considering the prequels or Rogue One). And “I am your father” was just dropped on the audience as well.
The Death Star is a completely different beast. It’s the opening crawl for the first ever movie in the saga, where audience has not previous conceptions about the lore or the story. Of course you’d need to establish the crucial foundations to ANH’s plot: there’s a cruel Empire, they have a planet-killing Death Star, and there is a rebellion seeking a way to destroy it.
Now imagine if the crawl for Empire stated that Darth Vader wanted to find Luke suspecting that he’s his son.
Way for that point to go over your head. I’m saying that set-up doesn’t matter. AT ALL. The lack of a set-up makes the actual reveal more surprising and impactful (+ Palpatine being established as a mastermind and having an interest in immortality and willing to do whatever it takes to take over the galaxy). Palps’ return is SUPPOSED to be a surprise.
and the rushed pacing of TROS doesn’t make matters better.
I’ve watched TRoS TWICE, and I never understood how the pacing is rushed, exactly.
Just compare the opening fifteen minutes to the prologue of any other Star Wars movie. TROS crammed three complete different scenes, each with its own significant contribution to the plot, in a time span equivalent to the entire opening of TFA on Jakku. There’s barely any room for scenes to breathe until, like, the beginning of the second act.
Except there ARE.
Kylo Ren invades Mustafar and finds a Wayfinder. He uses it to lead him to Exegol, intending to destroy the source of the broadcast as it is a threat to his power. He finds Palpatine, who reveals himself as the mastermind and offers him his fleet, in return for killing Rey.
Poe, Finn and Chewie head to the iceberg and get information from a Resistance spy, plugging it into R2-D2. They’re chased by First Order TIE fighters, and Poe lightspeed skips - reinforcing his recklessness.
Rey is trying to speak with the Jedi of the past, but fails. She has her interaction with Leia (“Nothing’s impossible…”) and goes off to her training course. She and Kylo Ren receive visions - for herself, she envisions herself as a Sith. She accidentally damages BB-8. She returns to the base and gives Leia the saber, feeling unworthy of it.
The Falcon returns and Rey argues with Poe for damaging the Falcon and BB-8, respectively. At the base, Poe confirms that Palpatine is alive and has the Final Order, the Resistance wonders about it. Rey has her discussion with Leia about the Sith Wayfinder. The heroes have a few small goodbyes and leave for Pasaana.
I perfectly understood as to what was going on. You just didn’t pay attention to the movie.
Except the characters DO react to Palpatine’s return. “The message CONFIRMS the worst.” Implying the Resistance DIDN’T believe Palpatine was alive at first. Then they’re surprised, afterwards asking all sorts of questions.
Also, Kylo Ren wanting to kill Palpatine IS his reaction. He is a threat to Ren’s power, and he’ll (referring to Ren) do whatever it takes to take over the galaxy for himself.
Yes they were skeptical, but the actual transmission from Palpatine (which itself is a questionable plot element but that’s for another debate) was received offscreen. It’s like if Luke found out about his parentage in the meantime between Empire and Return of the Jedi, with this revelation stated in the ROTJ crawl, and we only see Luke’s reaction to Yoda confirming that he is Vader’s son.
Same with Rebel spies in ANH, the First Order taking over the galaxy in TLJ, the First Order rising from the ashes in TFA, and the Empire kicking the Rebels out of their Yavin IV base in ESB.
THEY. AREN’T. IMPORTANT. TO. THE. STORY. OR. CHARACTERS. Same with the broadcast.