Saga Why did everyone believe Palpatine?

I would have liked to have seen a scene on Coruscant during the OT. Do you remember the rumors of the added scene of the dissolution of the imperial senate in ANH and the one of Sheev in the destroyed Jedi Temple in ESB back before the DVD Editions were released? Alas we didn't get them. These scenes were far more interesting and sensible than what Lucas added or changed for the SE and the later editions imo!

 

Lincoln?

 

Exactly!

 

It's interesting how the people of the galaxy love Palpatine and Anakin in the PT but hate Palpatine and Vader in the OT.

 

Palpatine's regime didn't become oppressive to the average citizen of the galaxy until after the Clone Wars. Before he declared himself Emperor, people still viewed Palpatine as the humble man he portrayed himself as Senator and during the early days of his Chancellorship who just wanted the best for the Republic. Even by the end of the Clone Wars, some Senators were starting to question his intentions and turn against him, but at that point where wasn't anything that could be done.

 

Indeed. Without the Senate being an obstacle, where they could vote him out with a Vote of No Confidence, there was nothing to stop Palpatine from doing whatever he wanted. By the time of the declaration of the Empire, the Senate was a useless figurehead organization kept around for efficiency purposes. Palpatine had direct military, judicial, executive, and legislative control over the Galaxy. That's why the Death Star was constructed. Palpatine could have direct authority over the Galaxy without any bureaucratic middlemen getting in the way.

 

Exactly. They understood how much power he had attained, and they thought he would favor them if they kissed his feet. Plus, he was just giving a speech about how he had defeated the Jedi...defeated the Jedi. There was a ton of hate for the Jedi, but also fear. Anyone who was very capable of gunning down thousands of Jedi would be taken very seriously and feared in turn. They wouldn't care what Palpatine said or what he was wearing. They would obey him. I mentioned his clothes because he alludes to his "religious" beliefs in the ROTS novelization, and he basically says it does not matter what he believes, as though being a Sith is some safe thing. Lol.

 

off topic: Have you seen TFA by now? How do you like it?

 

Why do people support Donald Trump?

I think it's less that they believed Sheev and more that they were willing to hand over power to someone willing to "fix the problem".

"So that's how democracy dies. To thunderous applause."

 

I agree. They pretty much wanted to believe him. Sure it might seem comical to us that everyone suddenly supports a guy that completely looks and acts like the epitome of the quintessential evil villain, but it didn't look that way to them. To them it looked like the Jedi had attacked poor sheev and turned him into a grotesque burn victim.

Also, that quote from Padme is one of the more powerful ones in the whole PT.

 

Palpatine was the man. Never a greater villain in the Star Wars Universe.

 

Palpatine did not preface every statement with "I say, I say, I say-"

Unlike Kryten in Red Dwarf, the Supreme Chancellor never monotoned, "Engage lie mode" at the beginning of one of his fibs.

More importantly, according to the 1977 Star Wars novel, powerful people saw Senator Palpatine as a weak individual that they could control, so elevating him to the position of Supreme Chancellor would be in their interests, although admittedly, back then, it was indicated that the he declared himself Emperor almost immediately after being elected to Supreme Chancellor, while in the Prequels, a number of years went by first.

 

It's pretty straightforward, people believed him because he successfully brought these people safety and security and they were willing to trust him in exchange. Not too far off from what you say with today's rules and people's attitudes towards them (at least here in the US).

 

The galaxy had just seen three years of unbelievably devastating warfare, which had been preceded by an unknown period of massive amounts of corruption of governmental inefficiency. By the end of the Clone Wars, most people just wanted peace and a secure government; Palpatine had "saved" the galaxy from the Jedi and had "won" the war, so most thought he was the best man for the job. Also, in the extended version of his coronation speech, he explicitly stated that he would be sharing power with the Senate, so I don't think any expected the moff-ridden tyranny that the Empire later became.

 

Except in the original SW timeline the Sith had been the cause of pretty much every galactic war. For people not to know who they were or assume that the Sith and Jedi were the same thing is...dumb.

 

it said "once he was secure in office," which could be interpreted as "after getting lots of emergency powers and the execution of Order 66."

 

Because he was incredibly believable. cut out all the scenes of him as a bad guy, and just view him as a politician. He is better than any real life politician I have seen. He is Frank Underwood in space, with a more sympathetic voice.