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Keep Palpatine's death by Vader a surprise until the ending of ROTJ

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What if, as the PT fades into the OT, the audience does NOT suspect that Vader might think of killing Palpatine. That would make the series feel much more whole, and provide a surprising yet impactful sense of closure.

This would almost certainly involve excising the Rule of Two from the canon.

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Frey said:

This would almost certainly involve excising the Rule of Two from the canon.

Needless to say, I'd have no problem with that. 

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Frey said:

What if, as the PT fades into the OT, the audience does NOT suspect that Vader might think of killing Palpatine.

 We suspect that? Or do we only suspect it because we already know that it will happen? And how is this connected to the rule of two?

You'd need to twist around a lot more things to make the prequels even work in a numerical order, there are a lot more obvious spoilers for the OT that need to be taken care of.

Ceci n’est pas une signature.

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I can't tell if trolling...but I will assume not...

Like Frank his Majesty says, we don't suspect that.

Frank, I think the Rule of Two comes into play because every apprentice potentially has designs on killing his Master. It's one of the dumbest creations in Star Wars and should be excised in any event.

The blue elephant in the room.

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Ok, now I see it. By the rule of two, either Vader or the Emperor has to die for Luke to become a sith. They wouldn't want to let each other know that they are planning to replace them with Luke, so they wouldn't work together.

Still, in Empire, Vader wants to persuade Luke to rule with him as father and son, which implies that he wants to get rid of the Emperor. If you'd want to change the prequels so that Vader's turn against the Emperor is not hinted at, you'd have to change Empire, too.

Ceci n’est pas une signature.

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Frank your Majesty said:

Ok, now I see it. By the rule of two, either Vader or the Emperor has to die for Luke to become a sith. They wouldn't want to let each other know that they are planning to replace them with Luke, so they wouldn't work together.

Still, in Empire, Vader wants to persuade Luke to rule with him as father and son, which implies that he wants to get rid of the Emperor. If you'd want to change the prequels so that Vader's turn against the Emperor is not hinted at, you'd have to change Empire, too.

Good point, I'd also forgotten that.

The blue elephant in the room.

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Frank your Majesty said:

Still, in Empire, Vader wants to persuade Luke to rule with him as father and son, which implies that he wants to get rid of the Emperor. If you’d want to change the prequels so that Vader’s turn against the Emperor is not hinted at, you’d have to change Empire, too.

What you could still do is keep Vader’s ambitions a surprise until the end of Empire. Before the prequels, I didn’t think that Sith plotting against each other was the norm, but rather an anomaly resulting from the personalities of Vader and the Emperor.

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I thought the same too. Rule of two makes it less impressive since it implies it’s some key thing every Sith has to do and it’s expected. Being an anomaly as darklordoftech mentioned is far more interesting and there’s more impact to what Vader says. As if Vader has been loathing his master for a long time but had no means to overthrow him. Then comes his son and Vader has a “Ah yes, there’s finally hope in the galaxy after all!” moment. His aim was to restore order to the galaxy rather than have an apprentice for the sake of having one. I like that concept better imo.

The Rise of Failures

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TavorX said:

I thought the same too. Rule of two makes it less impressive since it implies it’s some key thing every Sith has to do and it’s expected. Being an anomaly as darklordoftech mentioned is far more interesting and there’s more impact to what Vader says. As if Vader has been loathing his master for a long time but had no means to overthrow him. Then comes his son and Vader has a “Ah yes, there’s finally hope in the galaxy after all!” moment. His aim was to restore order to the galaxy rather than have an apprentice for the sake of having one. I like that concept better imo.

This is exactly what I was going for. Vader longs to be free from Palpatine’s cruelty and oppression and sees Luke as an oppertunity to make that hapoen.

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My PT wouldn’t reference the Sith existing before Palpatine. If Palpatine himself is the oldest source of evil to be mentioned, all the characters and events would seem more important and unique and the possibilities for what will happen would seem greater.