Originally only hostage in Star Wars was the palpatine emperor

By Chris Snellgrove
| Announce 19 seconds ago

In Star Wars, the palpatine emperor serves as the Big Bad Scay Big in a distant, far away galaxy, with its malignant influence spreading across three different trilogies. Because of this and because of the ongoing myth that George Lucas designs every character and story is beaten well in advance, most fans assume that palpatine is always supposed to be the ultimate enemy for our heroes to face . However, the official novelist of the first Star Wars film confirms that the emperor, in the beginning, is more of a figure head puppet controlled by other people.

The original emperor

The Star Wars Prequels did a great job of portraying the emperor Palpatine as a chief fanipulator who managed to set the two halves of the galaxy against each other in a successful attempt to control the old Republic. However, a long time, long before the Prequel trilogy came out, Alan Dean Foster’s noveliad of the first Star Wars Gave us a very different description of this man. According to that book, palpatine was “actually controlled by the exact help and boot lickers he had appointed to High Office.”

That book describes the very different emperor of palpatine, one that was more in line with George Lucas’ original vision. In the early draft of 1974 from Star WarsThe emperor was a young man called Cos Dashit. Was actually just the latest in a long line of emperors in this draft and had no power powers, which made it easier to Darth Vader to try to bully him and otherwise undermine his legal authority.

By the time Star Wars He came out in 1977, Vader was written as more Flunkie. Not only does Grand Moff Tarkin successfully boss him around, but other imperialist officials were not afraid to ridicule Sith Lord’s religious beliefs during work meetings (let’s hope that the death star has a resource department that is not so human) . Still, Tarkin and the other officials seem to be properly defensive to the emperor in this film as they discuss palpatine quietly dissolve Parliament. Interestingly this short scene New hope Paints a very different picture than the concept of the novel of palpatine as a weak-will sycophant.

It is unclear when George Lucas decided to make the Palpatine Emperor a daunting threat on his own terms, but the director was more prominent in the Big Bad’s The empire is hitting back and firmly established that Darth Vader – the most terrifying guy in the Galaxy – is afraid of his boss. By the time Return the Jedi Having come out, Lucas had decided to make palpatine a powerful dark side force user, and everything of his ability to defeat Luke Skywalker His ability to intimidate everyone on the Death Star confirmed his supreme authority. The figure head had disappeared forever, replaced by evil that our heroes had to defeat.

The story of the palpatine emperor going from a low-level flunkie of his own empire to be a big most influential sci-fi franchise shows how much Star Wars has evolved over time. No matter what he might have said or suggested in previous interviews, George Lucas never had the clairvoyance to see the future of his franchise perfectly. Instead found what Yach Later learns Luke Skywalker: that the future is always moving, and even the smallest decisions can have great implications for this dear fictional world.