Could have been a twist on Luke, I Am Your Father proportions.
While we're on the subject, an interesting bit of trivia: according to supplementary materials, Mace Windu's guess for who Sidious was? Mas Amedda
.
Palpatine never flashed Mace this smile.
◊ It would have been obvious, then.
One thing's for sure, it certainly looked like Palpatine had tons of fun manipulating everyone around him - mostly because it looked like Ian Mc Diarmid was having tons of fun playing Palpatine manipulating everyone around him.
McDiarmid and Lee seemed to really get into their characters. Originally, for instance, Dooku had Famous Last Words where he begged Palpatine for his life, but Lee insisted this was out of character and Lucas ultimately agreed with him.
Ian McDiarmid definatley had a lot of fun in this series. It really shines through in the OT as well and I think that helped the character stand out so much and for so long despite only being in, what, three scenes originally? The arrival on the Death Star, telling Vader to take the fleet to the far side of Endor and the final duel.
And let us pray that come it may (As come it will for a' that)"Everything is proceeding as I have forseen." (Amused evil smirk).
Mc Diarmid killed the smirk after that line. That smirk and that line are practically a Character Establishing Moment for me.
Interestingly enough, Lucas originally intended Palpatine to be an Anti-Climax Boss, presumably to make him more like a Real Life dictator (who for all their brutality and charismatic sociopathy are rarely very imposing people). That... might've been interesting, but I for one think that the Magnificent Bastard that we got is in every way the better character. An intriguing fact is that this detail was change so late in the universe's concept that it made it into the ANH novelization.
edited 22nd Feb '12 4:20:08 PM by HamburgerTime
Love this scene. The Imperial March is of course badass, the introduction of the Executor is badass and Darth Vader is all badass. Evil has never been so badass.
And the way Vader just swings his face into General Veers is honestly pretty funny when you really look at it.
edited 24th Feb '12 3:10:36 AM by TheBatPencil
And let us pray that come it may (As come it will for a' that)
Was it ever the same jedi that ended up in both situations? If not then I'd just chock it up to different skill levels...
On the other hand, sometimes Jedi just get hosed, I guess. Could you give examples?
I remember reading a story about Obi-Wan (it involved him helping a leader of the rebellion, I think it was near the beginning of the Rebel Alliances' formation; he also learned that Anakin was still alive in the story) where halfway through the story, he was completely at the mercy of Boba Fett (who, if I recall correctly, wasn't much older than maybe 15 or 16 in the story). I don't remember how he escaped...
edited 24th Feb '12 7:08:45 AM by NULLcHiLD27
I guess. Another example would be Star Wars Clone Wars compared to the movies and pretty much everything else.
edited 24th Feb '12 9:06:41 AM by pyr0h1tman8
In our heart, Mr. Ando will always be a penguin.Clone Wars runs entirely on Rule of Cool. A single Jedi can wipe out countless bad guys who aren't Dirge, Asajj Ventress, or Grievous. Same goes for the main bad guys, who regularly take out the clones like they were toys until a Jedi comes along.
Not all Jedi are warriors like the main characters, quite a few are librarians, scholars, diplomats, etc. The average one is probably handy with a lightsaber but it has been stated that Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan were one of the most dangerous Master/Padawan duos in the Order, which is what really established Darth Mauls' legacy.
The Jedi Massacre at Geonosis wasn't just Conservation of Ninjutsu, it's that not all of them are at the same level. Even in the movie canon, if all the Jedi were Mace Windu level awesome the battle probably would have gone differently.
Apparently, that Clone Wars CGI series' (which I haven't been following) will bring Darth Maul back
, courtesy of his brother, Savage Oppress (because Hitler McBabyKiller was too subtle).
edited 25th Feb '12 8:31:23 AM by ThatOneGuyNamedX

@Bat Pencil: No. That would not only have been a Shocking Swerve, but it would have left us with another villain to deal with (since obviously our hypothetical NotPalpatine!Sidious can't be around during the time of the OT), and, given the ways Dooku, Grievous, and Boba were dealt with that we've been discussing, it would've probably been pretty anticlimactic.