I thought it was the only scene in the film that made any sense being there.

Silly name and all but why couldn't we have had a film about Palpatine and his master instead of Palpatine and Maul, Dooku, Grievous, Annie Skywalker and Vader etc, etc.

Surely the key to a prequel series is showing us stuff we don't know about?

We know about Vader, we know Palpatine takes over with his help but how did he get there to do all this?

There are about three scenes in the whole trilogy which deal with that and they are all boring.

Imagine a PT about a the rise to power of the Emperor instead of the fall from grace of an already rather unlikable git who only really becomes interesting and fun in the three films that pre-existed it.

Don't know anything about the book mind.