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Thread I saw on IMDb: When did you realize Palpatine's true identity? (in the PT) — Page 2

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Naw, it probably means he was a kid.  Of course no offense to FML, I could see myself figuring it out that way if I hadn't read the vhs jacket so many years ago.

Hehe, FML.

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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C3PX said:
Mielr said:

I always knew Padme was Queen Amidala, too. If either of those were intended to be plot twists, then they didn't work.

 

The problem was everyone knew Portman was playing the role of the queen before even going to see the movie, then sudden she is introduced to us as the queen's hand maiden. So that was another one that wasn't too hard to figure out.

So true... I even laughed the first time I saw the reaction of Obiwan and Anakin. (Quigon stays a bit cold to the "news", even smile a bit, but to me he did not know either.)

It's a shame  that almost the entire theater audience guessed something the main Jedi characters did not.

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The other problem is everybody knows that Anakin is going to have to get it on with a queen sooner or later, in order to create a princess.

Which brings me to another poorly thought out point. Obviously princess Leia was a princess in the first movie, to add that kind of fairy tale or fantasy charm to space in the first Star Wars movie. I think it worked, even more so since the princess turns out to be a bossy pain in through much of her time with the heroes.

Now her is the messed up bit that I rarely here mentioned (here's one for you Gaffer), it is common knowledge she is a princess. Luke knew about her judging by his reaction, "The PRINCESS? She is HERE?" So she is a public figure in the galaxy, and it is common knowledge she is a princess... but why?

Seems like the fine citizens of the galaxy would be asking, "Ehem, what exactly makes her a princess again?"

And the response? "Oh, well, you see, her mother was at one point a queen of the planet Naboo, she died and a friend of hers, the Senator of Naboo and his wife, decided to adopt her... but just make sure you don't tell the Emporer, something about his right hand man being the father and would want to turn any children he might discover he had to the darkside."

Kind of funny Vader would never ask, "Hmm, this Senator Organa, who is always giving me trouble, and who used to serve in the Senate with my wife, has an adopted daughter who is a princess. Not too many planets have monarchies these days, I wonder where she is from... Interestingly enough, Padme was a queen, had she not died while nine months pregnant, which I assume without any questions asked, means the nine month old unborn child inside her perished as well, our baby would have been about that age..."

Seriously, this is every bit as bad as hiding Luke but leaving him with his real surname.

Kind of makes you ask the question, why did George even make Amidala a queen in the first place? Seems his original intention was that Leia was the real flesh and blood daughter of a Senator, which in his world, made her a princess. Honestly, this works for me no problem. Why didn't he just go with this for the PT? In trying to add more sense to it and make her a princess because her mom was a queen, he has really made things worse.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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C3PX,

technically in the moves when Luke and Leia were born, Padme was also a senator and no longer a Queen.

So I don't think she was called a princess because Padme used to be a Queen, rather because - as you said - according to the logic of Alderaan the daughter of a Senator was a princess. So the title was passed on to Leia by her adoptive parents, not by her real mother.

If Lucas had intended otherwise, this would create another plothole: why the hell isn't Luke a prince???

But since most of what Lucas came up with was really an afterthought (Luke and Leia - brother and sister; Vader as Luke's father, then as Leia's father too...) it's not much of a surprise that some things just don't make... sense.

About the "what makes you a queen" thing: what about the hair :p?

~~ Plagueis

 

Who's the more foolish... the fool who makes or the fool who buys this crap?

   - George Lucas on the 2004 SE DVD's

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I remember seeing a picture of Darth Sidious in a break down of the TPM trailer in a magazine and thought that was brave and that Lucas must have some clever twist up his sleeve to get around the fact he looks so exactly like Palpatine.

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Yeah DP, you're right. George's original intention in making Amidala a queen was to rationalize the princess bit. But then he dropped it in the next movie by saying that she was elected queen, and was now just a senator.

Unrelated, I also find it funny that she uses decoys her whole life, even as a senator, then when her decoy (who now looks nothing like her) gets killed at the beginning of AOTC, she suddenly stops using decoys.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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Really?  I thought Corde from AOTC looked much more like her than the Kiera Knightly decoy in the first film.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Heh. Mine was a little different. TPM came out when I was 12. My parents didn't care for ESB or ROTJ, so I'd only seen them sparingly, since I wasn't a lucky kid with his own TV, so if they parents didn't want to see them, I had no control over the situation, so as a kid, I didn't get to see ESB or ROTJ much!

So I was unfamiliar with the Emperor's surname. All I remembered of him was his title of "Emperor." So when it came to TPM, I recognized Darth Sideous as the eventual Emperor.... but not that Palpatine was Sideous. Had I been familiar with the character's name of "Palpatine" from ROTJ, I would have made the connection right away, but I was just unobservant enough to be fooled by a cloak over the top half of his face and a voice change!

I can live with 80% of the SE additions. I even like the PT (overall). But not releasing the OOT in respectable condition? That's unacceptable.

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"Palpatine" is never mentioned in the OT, even in ROTJ.  It was common knowledge through EU and the Emperor action figure in the mid-nineties, but (like Sith) never stated in the films at all.  He was simply "The Emperor."

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 Palpatine was used in the original novelization. And every fan of reading age probably had a copy of that back in 1977. ;)

Where were you in '77?

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DarthPlagueis said:

...most of what Lucas came up with was really an afterthought (Luke and Leia - brother and sister; Vader as Luke's father, then as Leia's father too...) it's not much of a surprise that some things just don't make... sense.

That's really the heart of all the problems with the plot holes and continuity errors.  Lucas didn't have a master plan\story back in the 70s, he wasn't a terribly gifted writer, and he just made up stuff on the fly whenever he reached an impasse. It's no wonder the story makes no sense, no matter how many times he tries to fix it or explain it. 

After Empire, it's just poorly written. In fact, there is a Lucas interview posted on here somewhere where he mentions writing in the Yoda line "no, there is another" because he was stuck, didn't know what else to do, and figured he's just think up something later when they were filming the next one. He was already in trouble on the second film. There was no master story.

To me, what seems sad & humorous at the same time are all the TFN gushers and apologists going over plot details and minutia trying desperately to make sense of all the plot holes & inconsistencies - while thinking they can reconcile the six films into a solid, continuous story.  Even more hilarious is when they have to redo their work every few years after Lucas makes yet another change to the story. 

They give him much more credit as a gifted writer & story teller than he deserves.  What seems lost on them is the fact that if the story's creator can't make sense of the story, then there's no way they can.

 

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I saw TPM in movie theaters when I was 20. I knew it when he came on screen. I'm 30 now and I don't care much for Star Wars anymore. Got series burnout.

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The making of Empire book alludes to the fact that Lucas was trying to deal with both  the possibility of Harrison not coming back for another film, (so Han gets frozen and taken away to Jabba) and the possible mortality of his other star, hence the "no, there is another" line as a way out.

Remember, Mark Hamill had a near fatal car crash between SW and Empire. One alleged reason the Wampa bloodies Luke up is to explain away why he might look different after the real life injuries Hamill endured.

I don't believe the "other" was intended to be Leia at the time though, in spite of the fact she sensed Luke's cry for help. Because if Lucas really had that in mind, it makes that kiss earlier in the film really really icky! ;)

 

Where were you in '77?

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bkev said:

Well... the queen was was kind of a bit sudden, but it worked. 

Worked? We saw two different queens and they looked nothing alike while supposedly being the same person and meanwhile there's a handmaiden who looks totally like the original queen. Surely anybody would know something was up. Contrary to myth, Portman and Keira Knightley do not look alike.

 

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Like most of you OT fans who say TPM, I knew that Darth Sidious and Chancellor Palpatine were one in the same the second he appeared on the screen and we heard the eerie "Emperor's Theme."  I didn't really feel any surprise or disappointment by it.  After all, if we've seen the OT before the NT, then we know that little Anakin Skywalker grows up to become Darth Vader.

It was just like when you make a movie about Palm Harbor, Titanic or September 11, 2001 (BTW, I mean no disrespect to anyone).  If you've researched the history before you see the movie, then you pretty much know what to expect.

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Oh you mean the ship sinks in Titanic? I didn't know that. ;) I bet some people went into the movie not knowing, actually.

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Vaderisnothayden said:

Oh you mean the ship sinks in Titanic? I didn't know that. ;) I bet some people went into the movie not knowing, actually.

 

What is smart in Titanic is that the people who search for the Titanic on present day show the sinking of the ship to old Rose with a nice CG animation. So everyone not only knows that the ship will sink (even people who may have never heard about the Titanic) but we see exactely where the water goes, how the ship breaks etc. 

That is smart because it adds a sens of danger by the end of the movie. The audience knows exately what will happen, unlike the characters. It is the definition od suspens by Hitchcock. (the famous: If you know the bomb will explode it's suspens, otherwise it's just suprise.)

But what worked in Titanic did not for the PT because Lucas did not take advantage of that "suspens factor".

GL did not take advantage of what the audience already know. In a way it makes sens since it is called EPISODE 1, but by doing this he did not allowed himself to make interesting two layers movies. Movies that could be fun for the young fans who did not see the old trilogy AND also fun for the old fans.

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George missed a golden opportunity in Ep 1.  We filmed an extension to the Qui-Gon funeral scene.  Just as the camera panned over to Palpatine, I jumped out from behind Jar-Jar and said, "Palpatine is Sidious!"

Would have won an academy award, George.  Running time, my ass.

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I've never understood the confusion about whether Palpatine was the Sith Lord or not.  I guess it's because I read the original novelisations, and the Emperor is referred to as Palpatine on numerous occasions.  I sort of enjoyed seeing the characters fumbling about not knowing their trusted ally was actually setting them all up, and Palpatine's carefully hidden satisfaction at manipulating them so thoroughly.  It's one of the few good things about the prequel movies to me.

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Don't feel old. I was older. Even when I saw the SE in 97 I was older than that. And I do feel old. 

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TMBTM said:
Vaderisnothayden said:

Oh you mean the ship sinks in Titanic? I didn't know that. ;) I bet some people went into the movie not knowing, actually.

 

What is smart in Titanic is that the people who search for the Titanic on present day show the sinking of the ship to old Rose with a nice CG animation. So everyone not only knows that the ship will sink (even people who may have never heard about the Titanic) but we see exactely where the water goes, how the ship breaks etc. 

That is smart because it adds a sens of danger by the end of the movie. The audience knows exately what will happen, unlike the characters. It is the definition od suspens by Hitchcock. (the famous: If you know the bomb will explode it's suspens, otherwise it's just suprise.)

But what worked in Titanic did not for the PT because Lucas did not take advantage of that "suspens factor".

GL did not take advantage of what the audience already know. In a way it makes sens since it is called EPISODE 1, but by doing this he did not allowed himself to make interesting two layers movies. Movies that could be fun for the young fans who did not see the old trilogy AND also fun for the old fans.

I've been thinking about The Titanic recently, because of Avatar. I was really pissed off about the Oscar success of that film way back and about the whole "I'm the king of the world" thing, and that's come to mind now that Cameron's pissing me off again with this bloody Avatar thing pushing the gimmicky 3d fad.

 

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I wonder if cameron can pull off a wonderful action spectacle/sci romance, he has more of chance doing so than other directors that shall remain nameless.

As for Titanic the acting by winslet and dicaprio in that film were decent/togood, as a historical piece it was not accurate but it was accurate to conveying the emotions of the characters and jack was obviously the avatar for the males in the audience, as rose was for the female audience.

But i think a lot of that films feeling, haunting quality comes form the music.  Horner won an oscar after all.

Star Wars fans will never forgive titanic for dethroning star wars, but if not for titanic then it would have been dark knight, so who cares.

The thing that put star wars into the number one spot again anyways was the illegitimate 1997 release with the added cartoon cgi.  And the damn thing had been re-released so many times you think Lucas money bin must have been getting empty,lol.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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I wouldn't describe DiCaprio's acting in that film as decent. The filmed was a dumbed-down cheapening of a serious historical event. And it won all these bloody oscars.

My issues with it have nothing to do with comparing its success with that of Star Wars.