Just curious, are we supposed to know Palpatine is the emperor when we are first introduced to him, or are we supposed to be shocked at his transformation and manipulation by the third film?
shareI think we are supposed to know. Though not mentioned in the originals, the merchandising clearly stated the Emperor's name is Palpatine...
shareI remembering knowing he was the Emperor when TPM came out and while I like Star Wars I never read any EU so I didnt get that information from books/comics
shareThere is no way we are not supposed to know that Palpatine was the Emperor. They all but vocally confirmed it in countless ways from the beginning.
shareMaybe a better question would be, if someone who had never seen Star Wars went to watch it in the "Lucas-approved" order (I-VI), do you think it would be obvious that Palpatine is Sidious? Do you think Lucas wanted it to be *objectively* clear? As opposed to knowing the story, where yes we are supposed to know that's Palpatine because its explicit
shareI think it is fair to say that you are supposed to know that Senator Palpatine is indeed Darth Sidious. Though it would be hard, but even if you didn't watch the originals trilogy thee were enough blatant parts that would make them aware. You see, initially I think when people watched the prequels, it was so blatantly obvious that people were expecting some sort of bait and switch, but unfortunately the obvious was just that. If Lucas thought or intended for the viewers to not know regardless if you watched the originals, then that is an insult to peoples intelligence.If you missed all the signs throughout TPM, It basically was told to you at the end when Yoda queried about who was killed, the master or apprentice and the screen panned to Palpatine. However, there are some really stupid people out there.
sharein this racist movie
by DoctorShemp
Maybe a better question would be, if someone who had never seen Star Wars went to watch it in the "Lucas-approved" order (I-VI), do you think it would be obvious that Palpatine is Sidious?
The whole scenario back in '99 was rather curious...
My brother and I only learned of The Emperor's name once Kenner released the "Power of the Force"' action figure line two years prior.
Up until that point the Emperor was always billed simply as "The Emperor", despite Lucas having had a name for him as early as the novelization of "Star Wars" (A New Hope).
So when the action figures for The Phantom Menace were released we saw one for "Senator Palpatine" and one for a wholly new character called "Darth Sidious".
My brother and I (13 and 10 respectively) just put it together before the movie came out; so the Senator is the wolf in sheep's clothing, and Sidious is the wolf himself.
As far as the script and the film itself, I think Lucas expected most of us to just know, while newcomers might actually be shocked if they were watching "in order".
Up until that point the Emperor was always billed simply as "The Emperor", despite Lucas having had a name for him as early as the novelization of "Star Wars" (A New Hope).He was known as Emperor Palpatine long before the "Power of the Force" toy line. share
The novelization of Star Wars that was published in 1977 said that the ambitious senator Palpatine founded the Galactic Empire. It also mentioned "the later corrupt emperors" so I figured that the emperor in Star Wars was the third or a later emperor.
When I saw The Empire Strikes Back I was surprised that the then emperor was a force using sorcerer.
And when I read the novelization to The Return of the Jedi I was shocked to read the Emperor in ROTJ named Palpatine, the same name as the first Emperor. That contradicted the novelization of Star Wars which clearly stated that there were later emperors after Palpatine.
And since no emperor or emperors were named in any of the Original Trilogy movies I was rather skeptical about the possible name(s) of the emperor(s), and thought that Palpatine might not be the official name of the first emperor, the last emperor, or any other emperor.
So as soon as "Senator Palpatine" was mentioned in The Phantom Menace I was pretty certain he would become the first emperor, and maybe also the last emperor (the one in ROTJ). And the Sith Lord Darth (in)Sideous seemed like an obvious candidate for the force using emperor in TESB and ROTJ. And it seemed probable, but not certain, that Darth Sideous was also Senator Palpatine. And I watched for evidence for the identity of Palpatine and Darth Sideous.
Interesting.
I don't remember that later emperors bit. Just that it specifically painted him as just a normal human and said that he was without real power and being manipulated by bureaucrats or something think that.
It's funny because before watching this movie I always watched the Original Trilogy countless of times since I've always been a big Star Wars fan, and yet... I never noticed first that Palpatine was meant to be Darth Sidious.´
At least I only realized that quickly in the third prequel.
Ian McDiarmid played Palpatine in this and was listed as playing the Emperor in ROTJ, which came out many years before.
You'd need to have pretty strong special abilities to have been shocked by this.
Hmm....this is not an easy question to answer, because to be fair, if nobody had ever seen any Star Wars films before Episode I came out, we were not supposed to know that Senator Palpatine was also Darth Sidious. The only hint they give is the voice, because you don't see Darth Sidious's entire face exposed until Revenge of the Sith
The problem is, the Original Trilogy had already come out, so we all knew who he was from the start, it's just that there was no Empire yet, and he was not an Emperor at all; just a powerful Sith Lord working from the shadows and pretending to be an intergalactic Senator by day.
In fact, one benefit we had from this trilogy was seeing [sort of] how he started out, how he rose to power, and how he established the evil empire to begin with.