captainwalrus said:
I disregarded the prequel trilogy when I wrote that. As bad as the prequels were, they at least gave Palpatine some sort of goal. It was a confusing and muddled goal, but nonetheless tangible and understandable (destroying the Jedi and returning the Sith to power). Taking the original trilogy solely by its own merits, The Emperor was a terrible antagonist. In the end, all we know about him is that he wanted to dump Vader and turn Luke into his new apprentice. Why does he need a new apprentice? Just cuz apparently.
Part of the problem with The Emperor is that he's inconsistent in all three of the original films. In
ANH, he's presumedly a weak figurehead that is controlled by a cabal of moffs, of which Tarkin was one.
This changes in
ESB, when it's clear that the Emperor is strong, a force user (if not a Jedi or Sith), and Vader is his *****. Palpatine sends Vader to snuff out Luke, not necessarily aware of the paternal relationship (which was Vader's ace; his plan to overthrow the Emperor and rule father and son was a genuine offer).
In
RotJ, the Emperor is a powerful force-wielding sorceror [footnote]The lightning thing when it first appeared in RotJ was clearly
The Emperor's power, essentially revealing that Palpatine was beyond petty lightsaber tricks and knew
the real magic of The Force. So it was severely cheapened in
AotC when Dooku started tossing bolts of lighting around as if it came standard issue with the red saber, and cheapened further when lightning could be deflected at all.
Bogus.[/footnote] (perhaps even beyond designations such as
Sith or
Jedi). To the best of his (flawed) prophetic ability, he designed this master plan to trap and demolish the Rebel fleet, yet didn't forsee intervention of the ewoks. He expected to have Vader hack Luke's limbs off, put him in a vader suit, and he'd have two!
Two Vaders! (ah. ah. ah.) I suspect the
finish him and join me with flawless-victory offer was off the cuff, Palpatine playing a situation that he hadn't expected to turn sour.
This was, of course, retconned to match the prequels, when
I am your father was about as much of a surprise as
Rosebud being a sled. At that point, the
have the apprentices fight it out deal became his regular routine. Which is, I agree, lame.
There is no mention of the Sith in the original trilogy
Y'know, I think you're right. I do know that Darth Vader was a
Dark Lord of the Sith (full title, including the
dark part), which emerged in the other Star Wars apocrypha (which also included Luke's friendship with Biggs and Wedge, and Darth Vader's rescue from lava, when Kenobi dispatched him the first time. It might be in the original Star Wars novel, that Lucas wrote about the same time. It wasn't in the movies, but the public was aware of the existance of the Sith as early as 1977, during the original release of Star Wars. But remember that in the
ANH the Jedi were so long dispatched that they were forgotten, and The Force was not strongly believed outside religious circles unless the Vade was in your face giving you the chokey-chokey from across the room.
...And the Emperor never really seems that interested in being an emperor or crushing the rebellion...
One thing I will credit Emperor Palpatine in doing is
actually running the empire. Between Vader grovelings, he had guys handing him crap that needed authorization, and he was there rubber-stamping it through. Contrast most would-be rulers of the world such as General Zod[footnote]Superman II [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_II] if it wasn't obvious.[/footnote] who just hung out at the White House believing he was king until Lex Luthor showed up. He didn't even bother to ask maintenance to take all that rubble and make him a nice Zod statue.
By RotJ, my impression was that Palpatine had become
annoyed with the rebellion at worst, since they already blew up his big Death Star project and all. Until then rebel activity sounded very much like pirate activity. It was mere civil unrest and it indicated a lack of discipline in the ranks that he had to personally intervene to resolve this
rebellion business once and for all.
And I guess this is also a criticism of the entire film series. Lucas never really figured out how how "falling to the dark side" is supposed to work. Anakin suddenly goes from being a troubled teen to killing toddlers and committing genocide. And by the Emperor's cartoon logic, Luke is supposed to go from reviling the Empire to become the Emperor's loyal apprentice all through the act of killing his father.
I would agree with you that Anakin's transition to Vader sucked. But Anakin really did become George Lucas' Mary Sue [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue], and he really did need someone to work his scripts over a few times.
Lucas actually implies that it's not that clean a threshold. One can meander into darkside territory and come back if one is careful. However the whole
once you start down the dark path slippery slope
is a part of the Jedi teachings. It's Yoda who brings it up. In the prequels, Mace Windu is a total darkside walker. The only reason the Jedi Order tolerates him is because he allies with them. Id est, he chokes only bad guys.
238U.
