PT Prequels and the Star Wars novelization prologue

Don't know if this has been brought up here before, but one of the reasons the Prequel Trilogy worked for me was because it basically completely outlined in the few pages of the Star Wars novelization prologue. It's right there: Palpatine's rise to power, the extermination of the Jedi, all summed up decades before it would finally materialize on film. Bail Organa is also mentioned in the novelization too, if I remember--it's been literally decades since I've read my beat up old copy.

But one thing I've always been convinced of: Alan Dean Foster may have written the novel itself, but I'd be willing to bet George Lucas himself wrote the prologue. The style has an old fashioned kind've feel and doesn't really gel with Foster's (I've read many of the latter's Commonwealth novels as well).

 

It's a possibility. Wether he did write it himself or not, the content itself comes from him. In a way, it's similar to TPM novel, where the backstory of the Sith (which was established in and was exclusive to that work) came from Lucas.

 

With that book printed in 1976 already, I'm surprised not everyone knew Palpatine was the future Emperor in TPM. I had assumed all the SW fans back in the early days had also read the novelization, because back then there was hardly any secondary material available, and the EU as such didn't exist yet, maybe apart from a few comics. Apparently I was wrong. Still, wouldn't that "secret" have gotten out long before TPM due to forums, fan clubs, EU material etc.? I really thought it was clear to everyone who Palpatine was.
Especially for those who grew up with ANH, hard to imagine how anyone could have missed such a basic plot element.

 

You would be surprised. From 1999 all the way through 2005 (yes, really), you would hear all sorts of theories. That Palpatine was a clone of Sidious, a twin brother, an illusion, a changeling, a secret apprentice, etc...

 

More than surprised, in fact I'm shocked
Did really THAT few SW fans read the ANH novelization?

 

It's not just the ANH novelization. TPM itself made it pretty clear. BTS interviews too. But there were always people in denial. I used to be on the StarWars.com forums back then, and that was always a topic of debate. And even though I was only a lurker here (I've only decided to actually register years later, after the official forums started to die down), the same subject was argued over and over too. You can probably still find threads that prove it, if you search for them.

 

Even the VHS box for The Phantom Menace revealed that Palpatine would become the Emperor (image of the back of the box). But there was definitely debate as to whether the Emperor/Palpatine was the same person as Darth Sidious. Although, in hindsight, it should've been pretty obvious since Sidious had the same mannerism of talking that the Emperor did.

 

Yea for a brief time after seeing TPM I thought Sidious was a different character as well. I knew Palp was the emperor since they had the same name, but had no clue he was also sidious. I just assumed Sidious would take palp as his apprentice in ep2, then at some point he would die so palp could become the master/emperor and take Anakin/vader as his apprentice.

I think it was partly because his face was obscured just enough, partly because of the different voices, and partly because darth sidious was a name never used before TPM so you almost instinctively think it's a new character.

Once I read online they were the same person it made sense, I was never one of the people who thought they were clones of each other or some of the other weird theories.