ST Palpatine "Gran Palpa" Discussion Thread

I think the way Palpatine is depicted in the PT and OT, specifically, broadly aligns to the lore under Lucas. It's not that Palpatine is just using the Sith to gain power, it's that the Sith doctrine and the 'Rule of Two', by virtue, results in the most powerful and power lusting Sith Lord ending up at the top of the food chain. Palpatine is the end result of the Banite creed. He's the one who has the combined skill, knowledge and power to bring down the Jedi. And once the Jedi were defeated, that the top Sith (Palps) would ultimately seek to hold onto power, rather than having a succession plan, is the natural outcome. There *could* have been some interesting elements of the ST *if* it had focused on how Palpatine aimed to progress the Banite Sith... or indeed, if he wanted the Sith to go in an entirely new direction. However, with that in mind, that's why Plageuis could/would have been a more interesting villain for the ST IMO. He could have had a profound differences with Palpatine over how the Sith were evolving/ruling the galaxy. It could have taken the villains in a new direction.

 

I see it as, Palpatine just wants power. Being a politician brings him power. Being a Sith brings him power.

If being King of the Droids brought him power, he'd be dressing up as one sure enough.

I don't think Palpatine was really into the Sith for the lore, or because he was devoted to some ancient cause. I don't even really think he cared about the revenge aspect. He wanted the Jedi gone because they had power, and had to be removed so that he could be in power. The dark side made him powerful. The Sith were the most powerful dark siders in the galaxy. He adhered to the rule, not out of some sense of devotion to Bain, but because he's a selfish being and that's just his nature. The rule of two is almost a natural law, besides being a prescribed one. He doesn't want to share his power. So he's always looking for one more better apprentice. One who can do his bidding but won't kill him either.

When he speaks about the Legend of Darth Plagueis the wise, he's not doing so out of some love of the ancient Sith history. He's trying to seduce Anakin with a cool story about power, and showing off that he's the one who did the killing.

Even in the OT, he's referred to as The Emperor. That's a political title. We knew him as Emperor Palpatine. He was never referred to as a Sith, or a Darth, and I don't think anyone in the GFFA, besides Vader, Yoda, OWK, and Luke, even knew the truth. Some clearly did not even care, as some thought that Darth was a Jedi and the last of his religion. A few loyal servants in his circle may have, but he certainly wasn't implementing long abandoned Sith Holidays all throughout the galaxy. Bane Day. Apprentice Day.

Palpatine could have easily ruled as a Sith Lord. He could have easily told everyone to bow before the might of Darth Sidious, just as other Sith Emperors had done in the past. He did not. He kept his public name. He kept his public office title. The private Sith name and title was private and unknown. It really didn't serve a public function because he had amassed the power he sought.

I'm not trying to say being a Sith was totally unimportant. I just see it as a tool for him to gain power. And not a religious matter. If Sith didn't bring him the power he craved, he would not be a Sith.

 

He may not have been in it for the lore, but knowledge is power, so he would have known it.

 

It's an interesting one, and we may get some sort of insight into how the Sith think, and their doctrine, when The Acolyte comes out. The Banite Sith being into it for the power was kind of coded into their DNA... the one to win out was always likely not to want to relinquish their power. There isn't actually that much difference between what Bane and Palpatine are trying to achieve, and their means to achieve that. Indeed, it seems like it's Plagueis who is probably the most out of kilter with what Bane set out, and it's something that they both seem to disagree on re. the 'grand plan'. Obviously the Plagueis novel is now certified legends, but it's still probably the best insight into what they were trying to do.

 

Abrams is said to have consulted with George Lucas when coming up with an answer for how Palpatine could be back in TROS. Lucas never intended for Palpatine to return, but he was aware of the stories that had done this before. Is it possible this is where Abrams got the idea to use cloning to bring Palpatine back? He certainly touches on the idea lightly enough that it seems to come from a source outside him.

I’m not suggesting all the details of Palpatine’s return came from Lucas or that they’re his idea per se. The way I see this happening is that Abrams asked Lucas how he could bring Palpatine back. Lucas may have said something about that not being his plan, and then he would have told Abrams that the EU did it, that they cloned him, and that he could do that too.

When Dark Empire was being developed, they wanted to clone Vader and make him the enemy, but Lucas vetoed that idea and told them they could just bring the Emperor back instead. But that’s not so much him wanting them to do that as offering something in place of what he strictly forbade.

What’s also interesting is that we know Lucas viewed cloning science more realistically than EU writers did. Clones are born as children and develop as any other living being does outside the womb. He also doesn’t believe in the transfer of spirits from one body to another. So his idea of what a clone of Palpatine would be is probably totally different from what Dark Empire or TROS ended up doing. But Lucas being Lucas, he may have had something weirder in mind.

A fan on Twitter pointed out that the 1974 draft of Star Wars mentions an original concept called Bloodory’s Distillation. It’s a scientific process by which the contents of a human brain are compressed into a small vial of liquid. The liquid can then be injected into cloned versions of the scientists, “structural duplicates” who are raised as children, in a series of injections so that by the time they’re ten years old they have the thoughts and memories of those scientists. “An old mind in a young body.”

That same fan mentioned that Lucas may have intended something similar in THX 1138, where children are shown being educated by having a mysterious liquid injected into them via IV. And some part of this concept survived into TCW via the biochip implanted in clones that overrides their minds to some extent to ensure they carry out Order-66.

So perhaps when Lucas suggested cloning Palpatine, he meant doing so more along the lines of this, with a child clone being injected with the memories of the Emperor rather than having his spirit itself survive death and transfer via undefined methods more akin to magic. That is certainly a weird but very Lucas way of going about this.

 

Abrams didn't consult George Lucas as far as I'm aware... but no doubt Lucas had lots of ideas/concepts involving clones and the cloning technology generally.

 

According to Abrams, he met with him before writing the script for TROS. We don’t know the details, so it may have been a more general discussion than anything. But this meeting would’ve included talking about Palpatine’s return.

 

Now that could have been a cool way to revive Palpatine.

Palpatine is very much dead. He's not on a hook in the SIth Basement. The Sith Cult however, has his memories or whatever, on file or in liquid vile form, and they planned to inject them into a force cloned being they created specifically for this goal, so that the wealth of dark side power isn't lost forever.

However, the clone is kidnapped and taken away could before the experiment could begin. This clone then doesn't have the memories she were supposed to have received and thus doesn't even really remember who she even is. Or ... what her last name is. Because she never had one. The only thing she remembers is being dumped on Jakku, by two people who she then assumes or "remembers" as her parents. Because she's desperate for someone to rescue her. And then spends the rest of her days counting down when they will return for her.

Hell, you could even do a weird mirroring of Finn's naming story, where Rey's name isn't really even Rey, but some sort of Imperial code name for the project, like Clone Re-Y. She just heard her 'parents' call her that, and took the name Rey. And much like Finn who takes on a new name, Rey does as well, when she later takes on the name Skywalker.

And then on the flip side, you could have had Kylo wanting that knowledge for himself, to become more powerful. He doesn't want Palpatine living inside of him, he just wants all that dark side knowledge. But the Sith Cult don't want him to have it. They want their clone back.

 

Do we hear Rey’s parents say her name in flashback? Then again those flash backs are visions and could be incorrect.

I ask because the Rebel pilot helmet Rey wears for fun on Jakku has Rey written on the side. She could have named herself after it.

It that was alway her name and I suppose she’d be more likely to keep a helmet if her name was on it,

 

They say her name in the flashback.

 

Lucas has no power play in Star Wars now. But then i also think Lucas himself is more open to allowing certain changes than what people would like to believe he was.

I mean when people say Lucas wouldn't bring back Palpatine... yes he would. George Lucas didn't go through several decades of fan criticism because he was so loyal to his own concepts, vision and ideas.

 

Who decides these things?

 

Well Lucas at one time. Now Disney.

Lucas made many a decision that pissed fans off because they felt he just didn't get it! He lost his way. Although fans now look at Lucas more in that sacred way where he would never have touched his original lore. Except he would change the OT multiple times and introduce new elements that were hated for years until people just got over it.

So would or could have Lucas brought back Palpatine? Probably.

 

I don't necessarily think that's true. Lucas is revered for 'creating' the franchise. He's brought many great and important ideas, themes, and characters to the table, and hired many a creative genius to help him flesh out his galaxy. He also became controlling over the story, script, and direction in the PT era. For which he's most often criticized.

But even given his weaknesses in that area, he had great and original ideas. His PT is its own era. Each of his movies are different. Even when they rhyme lol. I don't think he would have brought back Palpatine in the same desperate way JJ had. If he wanted Palps in, it would have been part of the entire story and not just dumped into the narrative in the final 3 hours.

 

And this is the exact same? Even though Lucas' were choices made with creativity and character and the other were choices made with regurgitation and lack of actual character?

Why does any of this equal what he would have done?

 

I mean, he brought back the Death Star.

 

the people who see Lucas’s lore as entirely consistent never hated the things that other fans did

 

Would George have moved the goalposts to redo "Freedom fighters topple an evil regime"? Absolutely not. He wanted to show us what happened after the fall of the totalitarian state.
Was there a place for a returning Palpatine in that scenario?

Possibly, I guess. If he'd REALLY wanted to bring the character back in some form, he may have had a bunch of Sith devotees try to revive him through dark side magic, to challenge Maul or something.

But there would've had to be a real point to it. He wouldn't do something that major just because it'd be cool. And the thing is that he wanted to bring Maul back. Maul was his answer to the problem of the Sith now being gone. That alone should tell you that no, Sidious would not have returned in GL's trilogy.

There could have been a Sith holocron containing a Sidious AI, though. And other kinds of holo recordings. Playing around with that sort of thing is more of a Lucas thing to do.

 

Yeah. But the PT demonstrates quite clearly that George didn’t give a flying fig about consistency. For him, the story he was telling at the moment was always the most important, even if it created continuity problems with the OT.

 

Lucas also looked at it in a different way than Star Wars fans. It was frozen in stone for Lucas. And we see how his ideas constantly changed while at the same time never completely ditched early ideas which didn’t make into the movies.

Lucas has less orthodox more malleable and alive version of what is Star Wars than most fans do.

Also Lucas was less beholden to what what was already done than most fans.

 

Remember it was georges idea to bring Maul back from his fairly fatal sliced in half death. He just left it to filoni to figure out how to do it.

 

Ans that completely set up
Palpatine’s return. If maul survives being cut in two a fall isn’t going to be the end of Palpatine

 

Maul is a different type of character, with a different type of meaning to his death. I think him being revealed to have not died carries a different meaning than Palpatine.

He doesn't just fall. He explodes in energy. I think he even falls into a reactor shaft of sorts, but I may be wrong. Maul surviving and Palpatine are different things.

 

It was never as issue if Palpatine came back in the ST. It was an issue of HOW that story was told.

In the ST, Palpatine was desperately conceived and dumped into the story at the last minute by JJ. I seriously doubt Lucas would have done the same (and that's even with him changing his story, retconning narratives, or making Leia the 'other Skywalker")

 

I agree. Lucas would be capable of bringing Palpatine back, but only if it served the story. And how he brought him back would likely be very different. As I posted earlier in this thread (maybe in this same page), his view of cloning is completely different from Abrams’s or even that of EU writers and other creators. And I’m also not sure how well “essence transfer” (as the EU called it) would fit into the details of the Force that Lucas had developed.

At the very least, we would’ve gotten a younger clone. Weren’t there some rumors that Matt Smith would be playing a Knight of Ren who turned out to be a clone of Palpatine? (Or did the rumors only say he would’ve been possessed by Palpatine?)