Why was Palpatine really being Darth Sidious kept a mystery until ROTS?

It doesnt make much sense to me, Emperor Palpatine from ROTJ looks and talks like Senator Palpatine does except for the scarred face and has that exact same big nose, also Darth Sidious talks just like Palpatine does only he sounds much more ruthless and evil and Darth Sidious also walks the same way that Palpatine always does with his hands out in from of him (which is basically a Force Lightning ready position to attack anyone who threatens him at all times) lastly anyone who saw the Original Trilogy of Star Wars movies knows that Emperor Palpatine is the same man Senator Palpatine is and would easily figure out that Darth Sidious is also Palpatine because he has the exact same robes and voice.

The thing that George Lucas cut that removed the connection until ROTS was in TPM where Palpatine tells Queen Amidala "Please you majesty, stay here where its safe." and then after her reply of "It is clear to me now that the Republic no longer functions, I pray that you will bring sanity and compassion back to the Senate." Senator Palpatine just smiles as she leaves the room indicating that he has manipulated her into returning to serve his own ends, as well as using her to become Supreme Chancellor, in retrospect Palpatine shouldnt have been secretly Darth Sidous to the audience, only to the galaxy and to the jedi themselves, Lucas tried to hard to keep the established fact a mystery.


DJK edit: This can be discussed in the existing thread.

 

I've wondered about that myself a few times, and the best answer I can come up with is that it was done because of the new viewers who never saw the OT.

 

I agree with the above... I think he did it to keep some mystery for the non-hardcore fans that knew all along. I also think it was cooler to see it played out on screen like this vs. actually seeing him shift from one identity to the next, i.e. it might have been less interesting to see him go from being Palpatine to changing clothes and becoming Sidious. Seeing him just smile faintly or to have the camera zoom in when Mace asks "who is that Master and who is the apprentice" was more sinister.

My only real let-down with the way he did Palp was done was that I always imagined that he looked the way he did in ROTS b/c the dark side rots you from within. So to see that he actually turned that way from the force lightening was disappointing. I also thought they made him look really pudgy (around the neck) with the make-up in ROTS and then used that same look for the cut-in shots in ESB where he's talking to Vader. To me it's a dramatically different look than what we see in ROTJ.

 

I think Lucas assumed everyone in the audience knew that Senator Palpatine would become the OT Emperor. Palpatine is never mentioned in the OT but pretty much any casual fan knew who Palpatine was long before 1999. My mom and dad were huge OT fans but didn't know who he was by the end of TPM, they just thought the "we will watch your career with great interest" line was just kind of a passing joke. But by AOTC, they saw it coming after his "you don't need guidance" speech to Anakin, the way he manipulated the war, and his convenient meeting with Tyranus on Coruscant after the war begins.

ROTS gave us the "do it!" line, and the opera scene absolutely spelled it out. But I do wish I could wipe my mental harddrive, go back and watch them 1-6, and see how long it takes me to figure out that Palpatine is the same character as the Sidious puppetmaster. I don't think it was ever supposed to be a big reveal to the audience, but many people hadn't figured it out in TPM.