Nanner Split said:When I saw the title of this thread I was rather puzzled. I thought it was completely obvious as soon as he came on screen in TPM.
It was to me also.
I wasn't vested in anything post-77 at that point, but it certainly seemed obvious to me. Plus, Lucas had already shown that his style of storytelling was to just shrink the universe into a smaller & smaller cast of characters who took on new & second identities whenever he had writer's block or had painted himself in a corner. As soon as Palpatine was on screen, I knew we were seeing the early days of the emperor. It reeked of Lucas' style.