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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

PT The "Darth Sidious is really Palpatine" Surprise

Discussion in 'Prequel Trilogy' started by enigmaticjedi, Feb 6, 2015.

  1. Sepra

    Sepra Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 14, 2016
    I disagree slightly with this. I think the "I am your father reveal" is still good, just different. When you've seen the PT first, you're squirming a bit wondering if Vader is going to figure it out in ANH, and then in ESB, how it's going to go down with Luke and Leia. And then it does at least with Luke to a terrifying effect.

    And there were people who saw the OT that didn't know Palpatine was Sidious until the third movie, because it was hotly debated on these forums at the time the movies were coming out.
     
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  2. ConservativeJedi321

    ConservativeJedi321 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Mar 19, 2016
    Well, I'm of the prequel generation (Though I saw it in a completely random order) And I never saw the palpatine=sidious surprise coming, not until like the tenth time I watched it.:p
    What can I say, I was a kid.
     
  3. Negotiator1138

    Negotiator1138 Jedi Padawan star 1

    Registered:
    Mar 23, 2016
    I was also a kid when I saw Phantom in theaters. I was only five. I had seen all the originals, but even as a five year-old I seemed to know the whole time that Palpatine was Sidious. If that surprise couldn't even fool a five-year old then I don't think it was meant to be a surprise.

    I mean, yes, I had seen the originals, but I was five.
     
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  4. bobmoonface

    bobmoonface Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Aug 26, 2015
    I saw the OT again and again as a kid, was 18 when I watched TPM in the cinema and knew who Ian McDiarmid was, so it was never a surprise at all. My recollection is that TPM is not subtle at all in revealing what is going on. "We'll watch your career with great interest" or whatever he says to Anakin. The pan at Qui Gon's funeral. Even the fact that you can clearly see the chin and the voice is not that different. And certainly by the end of AOTC it is blatantly obvious that Palpatine is profiting from Sidious' manoeuvring. But then it's all about perspective isn't it? Once you know, you can never go back to not knowing (profound).
     
  5. Nanaki

    Nanaki Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 5, 2016
    I'm in the minority here...

    I had never gotten into either the Novelizations or the EU materials, and I never got TPM on VHS either, so I literally had no clue that The Emperor's name was Palpatine, and I initially thought Darth Sidious was the Emperor and not Palpatine. It wasn't until I visited starwars.com about 2 weeks before ROTS was released and read Palpatine's article (which confirmed him to be The Emperor while Sidious had a separate and more vague article at the time) that I finally figured it out on my own, based on my initial belief that "Sidious is the Emperor". Now, I feel naive for missing some obvious clues even when I was in my teens.

    Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I547 using Tapatalk
     
  6. Talos of Atmora

    Talos of Atmora Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 3, 2016
    If only I was there during those days. Must have been a turbulent and hilarious time.
     
  7. DarthTalgus

    DarthTalgus Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 3, 2012
    (Sitting at home watching ROTS on VHS for the first time, 7 years old, don't know english, can't even read the swedish subtitles, it's basically like watching a silent movie :p )

    Opera House Scene
    ''The Chancellor is acting kinda odd''

    Sith Reveal Scene
    ''So he's the cloaked evil guy that Grievous was talking to? cool''

    Palpatine gets scarred and puts on his cloak
    ''OH HE'S THE EMPEROR !? :eek: ''
     
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  8. TCF-1138

    TCF-1138 Anthology/Fan Films/NSA Mod & Ewok Enthusiast star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Sep 20, 2002
    ROTS came out on VHS in Sweden? Are you sure? I never saw a VHS of ROTS.
     
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  9. DarthTalgus

    DarthTalgus Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 3, 2012
    [​IMG]
     
  10. TCF-1138

    TCF-1138 Anthology/Fan Films/NSA Mod & Ewok Enthusiast star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Sep 20, 2002
    Huh! What do you know!

    Never saw one! I guess Norrland was left out of the VHS market by then :p
     
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  11. elfdart

    elfdart Jedi Grand Master star 3

    Registered:
    Apr 1, 2001
    I never thought it was a surprise since they had the same voice, just like Verbal Kint/Kaiser Soze in The Usual Suspects.
     
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  12. Huttese 101

    Huttese 101 Sam Witwer Enthusiast star 7

    Registered:
    Jan 19, 2016
    Yep I can corroborate both of these. I saw the OT and TPM at about the same time, and I'd seen all of them several times, but I didn't realize Palpatine was the future Emperor until sometime after AotC came out on DVD. But I was only a kid then too. Funny enough, I remember knowing Darth Sidious was definitely going to be the Emperor, because, after all, they sounded and looked the same and they were both the ultimate bad guys. What fooled me was that Chancellor Palpatine and Darth Sidious were the same. I didn't realize the Chancellor was the future Emperor too, and that Sidious was his alter ego all along. And the best part is I didn't make the connection until my mom told me. I argued with her (I was maybe 8) and I was in denial for a day, but then I decide it just made too much sense. In my defense, at the time I'd seen the OT several times, but the name "Palpatine" never occurred in it, only in the Expanded Universe.

    Yes, to an adult, especially one with any familiarity with the EU at the time, even just the Thrawn Trilogy, it would've been obvious that Palpatine=the (future) Emperor. It was pretty well established at the time TPM came out that Palpatine was the Emperor's public name. But the thing is, people even still didn't know exactly which way the prequels were headed at that point. I read some old theories (which were way before my time because I was kid when they were popular) that the Palpatine in TPM is not actually the same as Palpatine the Galactic Emperor, because, among other reasons, he is a lot younger in TPM and he's friendlier, more gregarious etc. I've heard there was an idea TPM Palpatine was really some kind of clone of the "real" Palpatine who would later become Emperor (summary: the EU had a lot of Palpatine clones).

    So I think it is surely possible that the Emperor's/Sidious'/Chancellor Palpatine's identity could've been a surprise, or a sort of surprise, to a lot of people back then. Kind of a "hidden in plain sight" thing. I'm not totally sure it was intentional though, as someone above said, it seems to me Lucas intended Palp's identity as dramatic irony; that is, the audience was supposed to know but the characters couldn't have.
     
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  13. CaptainSuchandSuch

    CaptainSuchandSuch Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Dec 8, 2015
    I knew Palpatine was Sidious because someone who saw the movie with me later pointed out that Palpatine's profile at the end of the funeral scene was the same as Sidious's. Later merchandise I picked up further confirmed they were the same. So I had always taken as much for granted for the next 6 years.

    It wasn't until recently that I learned that there was a big debate among the fandom.
     
  14. CIS Droid

    CIS Droid AOTC 20th Anniversary Banner Winner star 5 VIP - Game Winner

    Registered:
    Oct 21, 2015
    Well, i dont remember if i ever was surprised by the twist, but my parents when finishing the Prequel trilogy for the first time a couple days ago, did not see it coming

    What? I owned episode 1 and 2, but could never find episode 3 on VHS, the covers are really nostalgic.

    Nice to find another swedish user on this forum :)
     
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  15. Darth Mikey

    Darth Mikey Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Sep 7, 2015

    Growing up in the 70's and 80's, I knew it going into TPM. But I thought it was hysterical when I was reading an Episode I magazine / making of book back in 1999, and they had a picture of the scene on the Trade Federation Command Ship of Sidious conferring with Gunray and Haako (the scene where he's a hologram sitting in a chair and Maul walks into frame), and it had a caption that said something like " The Neimodian conspirators confer with Darth Sidious (Ian McDiarmid). " ... I was like, well, that confirms he's the Emperor! LOL!
     
  16. Dark Ferus

    Dark Ferus Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Jul 29, 2016
    It was definitely not anothe "I am your father", I took it as dramatic irony, similar to in Oedipus the King. We're supposed to be rooting for the Jedi and Anakin to figure it out, but it's too late when they do.
     
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  17. SithLord28273

    SithLord28273 Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Sep 22, 2016
    I had a good feeling that Darth Sidious was really Senator Palpatine. I always have a keen sense about reading others and my gut told me not to trust Palpatine. It was a shock for some but not for me.
     
  18. Colwyn Ren

    Colwyn Ren Jedi Knight star 1

    Registered:
    Sep 16, 2015
    From 1995, for god's sake. http://www.prestoimages.net/store30/rd10459/10459_pd2681493_2_sw_palpatine_2.jpg
    Ian McDiarmid wearing a black robe. It wasn't a mystery. Plus there were detailed spoilers about the emperor's name and the fact that he was senator in the Wars novelization in 1976, and in the Jedi Novelization, on the trading cards, in the Marvel Super Special comic book adaptation, in all of the Starlogs, and in the promotional one-off magazines back in 1983. Just stop.
     
  19. Dark Ferus

    Dark Ferus Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Jul 29, 2016
    Okay, like I said, we were supposed to know, but the Jedi didn't.
     
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