Is the name Palpatine an homage to ?Taxi Driver??

This has been bothering me for years, and I'm sure someone out there has an answer.

Is the handle "Palpatine" modeled on Palantine, the senator whom Travis Bickle targets for assassination? Taxi Driver was released a year prior to the original film, and I just gotta know.

 

Well, that's a movie directed by Marty Scorsese, good friend of Lucas. So maybe. But the name "Palantine" is also taken from Ancient Rome, so maybe they're both just making the same senatorial reference.

 

IIRC, Palpatine is first mentioned in TESB, not on ANH film or novel. I could be mistaken, though.

 

Unfortunately, or fortunately, I think you'll find that pinning down any one source with 100% certainty is an impossibility. The subjective nature of art -- and the quixotic temperament of the creative spirit -- mandates that absolute truth remain forever out-of-reach. Nevertheless...

It is, quite possibly, taken from "Taxi Driver"; or, rather, Lucas may at least have been thinking about Scorsese's movie when he decided upon it. Scorsese, let's remember, is one of Lucas' contemporaries, and he and Lucas, along with Francis Ford Coppola, Brian DePalma, John Milius, et al. were all friends in the 1970s (and, of course, Lucas and Coppola started the original "American Zoetrope"; in some ways, the forerunner of Lucasfilm and Skywalker Ranch). It's rather conspicuous that Palantine is a senator in Marty's film and we see Palpatine as a senator in TPM.

Jedi_Ford_Prefect's post -- as usual -- is relatively succinct on this matter. He mentioned Lucas and Scorsese being friends, so I thought I'd just expand on that slightly. He also mentioned "Palantine" being taken from Ancient Rome, which it more or less appears to be. One subtle difference is the lack of the first "n" in the word connecting it to Ancient Rome: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/palatine Interestingly, the word "paladin" also seems to be derived from the same Latin word, which subtly shades the ROTS opening crawl statement, "There are heroes on both sides" (as well as Anakin's generally laudatory repose around and about Palpatine in AOTC and ROTS).

In addition, Lucas -- consciously or no -- appears to have combined this historical reference with the Latin word "palpare", meaning "to stroke/touch" (e.g., the English word "palpable" is derived from it). This, to me, fits the character of Palpatine down to the ground. Throughout the PT, we see him using clever innuendo and flattery to influence the beliefs and actions of others, in order to effect his plans. Ian McDiarmid also plays his doppelganger with a soft, honey-toned voice, amusingly complemented with lascivious hints of the wayward Sidious inside. Finally, we have that striking medium-wide image of Palpatine reaching across the void and making a connection with his young protege in ROTS, as he rises from his chair and embraces Anakin on the shoulder before revealing his status as Sith Extraordinaire (a visual counterpoint to a shot of Anakin and Obi-Wan taken from a similar distance when the matter of Anakin spying on Palpatine is raised, with them standing adrift against a towering window; which also rhymes with a similar scene in TPM, where the father figure and mentor, Qui-Gon, like Palpatine, does take his apprentice, flawed master to Anakin that Palpatine usurps, across the shoulder).

A central irony to the character's name is, as the physical manifestation of the Dark Side, more or less, the character should be palpable to the Jedi, of all people, but he isn't. The palpableness of this character who has palpableness in his very name draws a blank throughout the vaulted halls and implacable meditation chambers of the Jedi Order. These Force-sensitives, trained from birth, supposedly attuned to disturbances in the Force that would make a Geiger counter in a nuclear bunker green with envy, can't sniff out this mortal enemy who has infiltrated the highest levels of the Republic and orchestrated planetary invasions and illegal clone armies, all on their watch. There's a sick, twisted genius to that.

So much for George Lucas scriba terribilis. And yet everyone thinks this man can't write for all the tea in China. I love democracy. I love the Republic.

 

"You talking to me?"

Yeah, I always though Lucas choosing the name "Palpatine" was a slight nod to his buddy Scorsese. Also in ROTS, there's a reference to Taxi Driver when Sidious draws his saber from his wrist like Travis Bickle when Mace and company come to arrest him. Pretty cool.

 

Palpatine was mentioned in the ANH novel.

 

I've often wondered the same thing, but just like the word 'Sith', you can't read too much into the deeper origins of any of the names - Lucas tended to pick them on the effectiveness of their immediate sound, regardless of where he may have discovered them & the following implications. I'd say that both 'Palpatine' & 'Palantine' originated from 'Palatine', but independently from each other. GL probably came up with Palpatine's name before he'd read Paul Schrader's script for Taxi Driver or saw the film.

 

The name Palpatine? I didn't know that. I always thought it was the Emperor.

 

Palpatine seems to be from "palatine" (as iin the Palatine Hill, indicating imperial arrogance) and "palpate" (a reference to his having his fingers in everything).

 

It's in the prologue. It doesn't appear in any of the actual script drafts of SW, however, so it's hard to pinpoint just when GL came up with the name. In the first rough draft the Emperor's name is Cos Da****, in the revised first draft he's called Son Hhat (but not actually referred to as the Emperor). From draft two onwards, he's only ever called 'The Emperor'. The name 'Palpatine' doesn't actually appear in any SW scripts until TPM. For all we know, Alan Dean Foster may have come up with it for the novelisation.

 

Y'know, good point. That's entirely possible. Lucas may not have thought it up himself. On the other hand, he would still have had to approve it.

 

Son Hhat? Seriously? C'mon, Lucas, you can't slap together two random English words to make a name and hope people will accept it. It only works when they're in German.

Is that name a reference to Tan Son Nhat airport?

 

The name "Palpatine" does appear in the ROTJ credits.

 

I don't think it's there in the OOT, sounds like an SE change. They did a few small changes to the credits for the SE's, the main one being the addition of James Earl Jones to ANH.

The name was used repeatedly in the ROTJ novelisation, so it was still around, but doesn't appear at all in any of the available scripts for Revenge/Return of the Jedi.

 

I had always assumed it was derived from the centremost hill of Rome; Palatine Hill.

 

[image=http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z274/EyeBashBadWriting/Bravo.gif]

 

Was that directed at me

 

No.


TB is clapping furiously cuz he's happy to be relevant again.
If only for a day or so.