ST Palpatine "Gran Palpa" Discussion Thread

Of course it is.

At the end of the day, if LFL/D had a great idea for a billion dollar movie, but that idea also retro'd some comic out there, that - let's be real here - only a fraction of the movie going audience would ever have heard of in the first place - they will make that movie in a heartbeat. Star Wars comic from 2016, issue whatever, page whatever, be damned.

And that's the way it's always been.

 

Well really there is no reason for the actors to know these answers. Usually they just go by whats in the script. Its like Hamill asking george how Leia and Luke could be twins or brother and sister when they are from very different backgrounds. There is a big gaping hole of info missing that im not even sure George would have a big explanation over.

 

Exactly, if you ever meet Harrison Ford...go on and ask him what a Force ghost is. Then, get back to us about "disparity between what the actor knows and the 'canon'.." is worth as a metric.

As I said, some fans put a lot of stock into Mark Hamill's thoughts about Luke in TLJ. Yet, we are not supposed to put the similar credence into what Ian McDiarmid thinks of Palpatine in the ST?

 

I’m not saying that an actor is always an authority when it comes to the story. But in many cases, a thoughtful response from an actor can tell you at least what was in the script, what the director told them about their character or scenes, etc. Which, for TROS, is actually quite valuable, since we have relatively little behind-the-scenes info about its making, not even a script.

Also, McDiarmid is not Ford by any means. He tends to engage more with the material, to the point where he actually seemed to have read at least some of the Darth Plagueis novel years ago even though he had no ongoing SW projects at the time. More recently he was also the first reliable source to confirm that Palpatine in TROS was a clone, even before the novelization came out, because this was mentioned in a scene that he shot but that was cut from the final film.

Of course his comments aren’t always wholly serious or meant to be treated as statements of canon. But they can tell us something about the process by which these movies were made. And I definitely would not be surprised if, for example, the movie’s intention for Palpatine’s son was that he was a natural-born son and not a strandcast. That kind of extra specific detail just screams retcon to me. Which is fine, that’s what the company chooses to do with the story it owns. But it’s also not necessarily the actual intention of the filmmakers. And I personally value that distinction.

 

Did they work out his son was a clone before making the film? probably not. Could Lucasfilms idea be don't worry about it as we will work that out later? Most likely.

But then it could be argued alot of details in the OT were also don't worry about it as i will work it out later. And then we got the PT.

 

I don’t disagree with that. But it’s not just one story, at least not to me. There’s the story Lucasfilm tells through movies, TV series, and expanded media. That’s what we know as canon. And then there’s the story each creator tells when they make their piece, their particular vision of SW and especially of their contribution to it. And of course, you can go back further and you have a similar situation with the old EU, its writers, and especially the originator of the whole thing, George Lucas.

Although at various times the company has tried to safeguard a single continuity, in fact it has always been many different continuities. Lucas certainly saw it this way, not worrying much about what other creators were doing. Nowadays, the movie directors are in a similar spot. Some of them care more about the company’s official continuity, like Rian Johnson or Tony Gilroy. Others don’t really care too much, such as JJ Abrams.

There’s no right way or wrong way for them to do things. But I personally tend to enjoy each individual work more when I see it as a product of a particular creator. I spent many years seeing the older Star Wars movies in the context of the EU. There was value in it, but in the last decade or so I’ve tried to separate the expanded material from my engagement with the movies, and boy do they become something much more vital and powerful than they were before. To a certain extent, the same is true of the sequels. While their creators may not be Lucases, they are still artists and I do enjoy their individual works more when I see them in the context of their particular vision of SW.

So that’s why I value these glimpses at the making of their movies, even if they don’t quite fit with the company line. It may not mean much for the canon, but it’s not useless information either. And personally it helps me enjoy their movies more because I have more awareness of what went into them. It helps me see each movie more for what it is on its own than for its placement within a franchise. And I love that.

 

I have a similar disposition, but from the point of view of seeing everything from the EU to the new canon as part of one continuity seen through different lenses, either that or some days I ignore everything but the six Lucas films

 

To a point i think Lucasfilm has been more interested in telling stories than filling in gaps. But at the same time they don't want to overwrite anything so aspects appear here and there but never really take main focus.

For example, the transition from the Clones to Stormtroopers. Many believed for a while that the Clones became the stormtroopers and that is what the PT set up. But that was clearly never meant to be the case. So for a REALLY long time there was very little to explain the Clones away so the stormtroopers could take over. And then we got Bad Batch that explained it using the Bad Batch characters to do so. But i will say i always felt this should have been a live action explanation for those who likely don't watch the Bad Batch. In a way it feels like a middle portion thats missing from the transition from PT to OT.

Another example. Maul from Solo. There were many who actually thought Solo was set before episode 1 because no one knew how Maul was still alive. And why would they? they just threw Maul in there and let it be that. Not done anything with it since, but its there.

 

Well the transition from clones to stormtroopers is background information that’s not important to the story of the films. So it makes perfect sense to tell that story in an animated television show.

Darth Maul’s incongruous inclusion in Solo was dumb. But not because the audience may not have seen TCW, if he was properly put in context and not just a cameo viewers would be less confused even if they’re learning he survived for the first time. But anyone who knows Darth Maul died in episode I but doesn’t realize Solo is set during the reign of the Empire was just blind

 

I think its important because you don't know what happened to the Clones. you just see them in the PT and then next its storm troopers. And filling that out in animation is fine, but you know not as many people will watch that as they did say the PT and OT.

 

Well. Luke asks Obi-wan if he fought in the Clone Wars.

Fought. Past tense.

So the clone wars and the clones themselves are a thing of the past. I think its pretty clear in ANH that the stormtroopers running around are not clones. Even if you watched the PT and then started up EP 4, Luke and Obi-wan's conversation update the audience with enough information.

 

On the subject of clone troopers and stormtroopers, I read recently that Lucas didn’t really decide to make them two separate groups of soldiers until he was developing his unmade live-action series, Underworld. In the audio commentary for AOTC, he gives the impression that he is providing an explanation for where the stormtroopers came from. So I think that by the time the prequels ended, there was no explanation needed because the answer was that the stormtroopers were a later generation of clones.

Going back to Palpatine, we know that Abrams likes leaving gaps in his storytelling for the sake of mystery. For all the criticism he gets for this, which is fair in many cases, I do see a virtue to stories leaving some things open ended. It allows viewers to fill in the blanks. There might be hints, but no definite answer that closes off the questions. This was why Abrams cut McDiarmid’s line where he specifically said he was a clone. (Well, technically he says, “More than a clone. Less than a man.”)

It’s also why there are some things shown or introduced in TROS about Palpatine that create more questions, such as his repeated statements that all the Sith live on in him. The canon so far has downplayed this particular subject, for example. But the more I watch the movie, the more I get the sense that Abrams really was hinting at this being potentially literally true.

 

Watching the OT back in the 80s and 90s, i never thought that the stormtroopers were clones. In fact, I don't think we ever knew what the Clone Wars were in fact, or at least weren't sure that they involved Clone troopers/fighters. The clones in the Clone Wars could have been anything.

And I thought I read years ago, even pre PT, that the stormtroopers in the OT were mercs. Hired/paid soldiers. Or conscripted of some kind.

My post PT internal head cannon was that the clones aged more quickly, and just weren't around 20 years after ROTS. And that it was just far far cheaper to employ real human soldiers than buying clones from Kamino.

 

I always thought the stormtroopers were robots when I first saw the OT. I was a very troubled kid.

 

The stormtroopers were officially clones very early on. That obviously changed at some point, considering certain Legends characters, but the idea was there from the beginning. At least some of them were thought of as clones.

...but since it was never mentioned in the movies, those of us who weren't exposed to additional info had no reason to assume that they were.

 

Well lucas made no effort to change the Storm troopers voice to temuera’s in the special editions, so that says he didn’t really see the storm troopers as clones.

He certainly did with Boba so it would be something Lucas would do if he felt the storm troopers were meant to be the Clones.

 

For the record, I was talking about when Episodes IV-VI were released.

GL did mention in his AOTC commentary that he had Jango bang his head while entering Slave I to connect him to the stormtrooper who banged his head in the doorway on the Death Star, though. That specific stormtrooper is one of his clones.

Since many of the clones seen in AOTC are still in the fetal stage, it makes sense that some of them would be Imperial stormtroopers 22 years later. The Empire may not produce new clone troopers, but the ones who already exist might as well be put to work.

 

At the time, Star Wars Insider quoted Lucas as saying that the Stormtroopers are clones of other people.

 

Glad everything is simplified now

 

It would be just as simple to have them be clones of different people, if you ask me. But that's not the case now, so it's a moot point.

 

In Lucas’s sequel treatment, he had a system of stormtroopers who turned into a kind of rebel force against the Republic because war was all they had known. I wonder if Lucas would’ve kept them as clones, whether Fett clones or clones of other donors. If so, he would’ve been recycling ideas for Lando’s backstory from early the drafts for TESB, where Lando came from a world of clones who had survived the Clone Wars.

 

Lol. Can’t help but imagine Palpatine with a bullet-pointed Google doc called “Plan Bs,” which includes “What to do in preparation for the possibility that Vader picks me up and throws me into this inconveniently-located and seemingly endless shaft in my Death Star throne room.”

 

Palpatine knew well in advance that his clone-daughter would defeat him using the Double Bladed Lightning Block maneuver, and so created a back up plan during the clone wars to have a second even more secret family of clones and its this Palpatine who has been waiting to retake control of his fallen Empire. Which he lost on purpose because Lose Empire was actually Back Up Plan 93, and retake Empire w second secret family is back up plan 123.

 

Wasn't that Legends with the multiple clones thing? The young clone bodies that were not on life support or blind, or limbless? who knows. Could still happen

Although Palpatines Plan B would always be about what happens if he is assassinated or killed? well he doesn't want to die, so he needs a project that can bring him back and keep him going. Legends was better for him, TROS was life support.

 

You are talking about the Dark Empire comics. Yes Palpy had a lot of vats with young adult clones of himself ready for use when needed so they were in stasis until he needed one of them then he did the transfer, thing was they did not last long.

Ps. Fun fact, It was George Lucas who suggested to bring Palpatine back in Dark Empire. The writer of DE wanted to do something with Vader after ROTJ (we don't know what it was, like if it was a ghost thing or resurection or cloning). Lucas told him "No, but why don't you bring back the emperor?"