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star wars - Is Palpatine's identity a spoiler?



The Episode IV-VI movies never mention the Emperor's name. In Episodes I-III, we can guess that Darth Sidious will be the emperor, but what about Chancellor Palpatine? If the audience didn't know that he was Sidious, the impact of the reveal would be far different than if they did.


But I did. In all the novels and comics that came out after "Return of the Jedi", the Emperor's name was stated plainly: Palpatine.


So when I saw the prologue movies, for the life of me I couldn't figure out: was I supposed to know that Palpatine was the villain?


Maybe the filmmakers figured that most of the moviegoing public never got into the Expanded Universe. But they had to know that the hardcore fans would know. Or maybe when you watched the movie, even if you hadn't heard of Palpatine, it was supposed to be obvious?


What was the intent?




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