Did Palpatine go to the Jedi Temple?

In ROTS Obi-Wan views a holorecording of Darth Vader kneeing before the Emperor. Wookipedia claims that he was kneeing before a holographic image of Darth Sidious while Matthew Stover's novelization indicates that Palpatine visited the temple in person. The film itself is even more vague.

Is anyone aware of other literature or references that settle this issue once and for all?

 

Those are the only sources that I know of, but it seems pretty likely that Palpatine would go to the Temple to soak in its destruction. Taking a victory lap, as it were.

 

The key phrase is that the security recordings Kenobi and Yoda were looking at were of events going on inside the Jedi Temple training hall. The book Star Wars Chronicles: The Prequels states outright that these recordings were in part used to help in lightsaber training (and remember that much of the recording was of Anakin killing the lightsaber trainer Cin Drallig and his students), and the Casualty Report: Order 66 article in Star Wars Insider #87 a few years back also stated outright that the actions were recorded on Jedi Temple holocamera TR4-121. For these reasons alone, it stands to reason that the camera continued to record Anakin after he finished killing Drallig and the trainees, and then Sidious steps into view and gives him the old "You have done well" routine.

 

Whaa? I had always thought Obi-Wan and Yoda were simply seeing a feed from the Chancellor's office. It seems sort of odd that Palpatine went to the temple after Anakin and the 501st sacked it. I mean, why would he bother?

 

Makes sense I suppose. But I wonder what a holorecording of a holorecording looks like? Just another holorecording? So if Palpatine WASN'T there in person, the recording wouldn't be able to split the real-life form the holographic - would it? While it makes sense for Palpatine to go to the temple in person to gloat he could have done that anytime. And remember, he's just been attacked in his office by a group of Jedi. How would this look if the first place he visits is not the hospital, or even the senate, but the temple? Wouldn't he be terrified of the Jedi now? Wouldn't it be the last place a injured Chancellor would be found?

 

No, its clearly a recording from the temple. You can tell because you see Vader cutting down padawans and Cin Dralling in it: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/File:CinDrallig.jpg

 

He's a Sith. They've spent the past 1000 years hating every second of the Jedi's rise to power and influence. The Jedi Temple stood as a monument to everything the Sith opposed. Palpatine had spent his entire adult life working towards that moment. Of course he would want to see it first hand. To view the shattered structure, smell the burning and death in the air.

Not to get all Godwin's Law, but consider this picture.

No reason for him to personally visit the city, but Hitler had spent his entire adult life professionally hating the French. So, when he won, he was going to enjoy that victory.

Same thing as Palpatine slowly electrocuting Luke on the Death Star. There were dozens of faster ways to kill him, but this would be the last time Palpatine ever got to kill a Jedi, so he was going to savor the moment.

 

I don't know why but somehow I thought Sidious too cool to even bother with the temple after he dispatched Vader.

 

Well in the EU Palpatine considers the Jedi beneath his attention. Vader is constantly trying to gain his permission to hunt down the surviving Jedi of Order 66 - often without success. Years later the Jedi Temple still stands because Sidious couldn't be bothered to knock it down.

 

One would think if the Jedi Temple had a security holo feed into Palpatine's office, Mace would have been considerably less surprised about Palpatine being the Sith Lord, given that the Jedi would have seen his entire confession to Anakin.

 

He's not the only one to think that way. The Plinkett review of Episode III proceeded from the same assumption, that those holocamers were recording what was going on in Palpatine's office. The only reason this can happen is that scene itself wasn't written clearly enough to begin with; there needn't have been this confusion.

 

Then why the little saber duel we see immediately beforehand? Seriously, does it make any sense at all for Palpatine to allow anybody to have a security camera in his office? Obviously a lot of stuff there he doesn't want anyone to see.

Its a bad assumption and one I've never even considered. Obi-Wan says he is going to look at the security holos. There's no reason he means something besides the Temple ones and the initial footage makes it clear that is what he's looking at, given that he does absolutely nothing to indicate that he changed the feed to Palpatine's office. And the footage we see in the holo is also completely different to what we see take place in Palpatine's office, so where exactly are people getting this assumption from?

 

Yeah, but the holofeed clearly shows Vader fighting Jedi. And we know from the movie that Vader went to the temple to kill Jedi...
Pretty obvious to me. What is less obvious is whether Vader was talking to a hologram or Sidious in person...

 

But does it? In the movies, it is super easy to establish a holonet connection with Darth Sidious. We never even see the tech. Look at TPM when a life-sized image of Sidious is talking to Gunray on the bride of the Trade Federation battle cruiser for example...

http://dmeb.net/speb/foryoureyes/dsc-04.jpg

 

The special effects people at ILM asked Lucas specifically if one can see a hologram inside a hologram, and it was decided not to do that - in other words, you would probably not see a hologram of someone [Anakin] talking to another hologram [Palpatine].

Here's how I know this: remember the scene in which Palpatine and Cody talk to each other? Palpatine is in his private office talking to a hologram of Cody, who is himself looking at a small hologram of Palpatine on far-off Utapau, but when ILM asked if they should include the hologram of Palpatine that Cody's looking at inside the image of Cody that Palpatine's looking at, ILM and G-Walt together decided that it wouldn't work to have a full-size Palpatine talking to a half-size Cody, in turn talking to a cute little tiny hologram of Palpatine inside the hologram. So they decided that a holo-image can't be re-transmitted across a second hologram. Just listen to the DVD audio commentary for that scene and you'll see what I mean.

Now, should that rule universally apply to all holo-transmitters and holo-cameras? Maybe, maybe not. If there's a sufficient story reason to have it, they'd probably do it and come up with a tech retcon later if they had to. But that's not happened, and until it does, we have no choice but to go along with what Lucas said, and assume that what we're looking at is not a scene of Vader talking to Sidious via hologram, because a holo of Sidious would not be picked up on the camera, so that leaves us with little choice but to assume that Palpatine was not there via hologram, but in person.

 

The way I see it is Palpatine is something of a negative energy vampire, the way he seemed to feed on and bask in Anakin's anger and in Luke's anger.... seems to me he'd go to the Jedi Temple and watch the slaying of the Jedi Order by their greatest hero himself, even if he's watching from the shadows and more over... he'd spend some time there just soaking it all in. It makes him stronger somehow.

He's not just there to witness the culmination of the Sith's plots and plans and his personal handiwork... he's there to literally empower himself.