3157: Emperor Palpatine

Emperor Palpatine

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Title text: Many things about Star Wars were not well planned out, but having a 37-year-old in old-age makeup play the Emperor in Return of the Jedi was such an incredible call.

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Explanation

This is one of 54 incomplete explanations: What happened when Palpatine was young? This page was created by A BOT OF UNCERTAIN AGE. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

This comic about extrapolation tracks the age of the Star Wars character Palpatine against the age of the actor who played him.

The primary film series of the Star Wars franchise consists of three trilogies: the original trilogy (1977-1983, portraying the immediate lead up to the Battle of Yavin until 4 ABY), the prequel trilogy (1999-2005, portraying 32 BBY to 19 BBY), and the sequel trilogy (2015-2019, during 34-35 ABY). Palpatine is played by Ian McDiarmid in at least one film from each trilogy (and all three films of the prequel trilogy).

The character of Emperor Palpatine was briefly mentioned in the first Star Wars movie and appears briefly in The Empire Strikes Back (see the Trivia section below), but doesn't have significant screen time until Return of the Jedi in 1983, which is when McDiarmid took on the role. He was presented as an elderly, withered, and physically decaying man, despite being played by an actor in his 30s. The character is killed near the end of the film.

The prequels portray Palpatine's rise from Senator to Chancellor to Emperor. He was 55 when the first of the prequels was made, and used no obvious aging (or de-aging) makeup or other effects, implying that the Palpatine of this era was approximately the same age as the actor (which fits nicely with the timeline of the universe).

The Rise of Skywalker was the third film of the sequel trilogy. Infamously, this film reveals that "somehow, Palpatine returned". This is somewhat vaguely explained by references to "dark signs, cloning, secrets only the Sith knew". McDiarmid, now in his 70s, played the role once again. While he appears at least as aged as the actor (and far more physically corrupted) the joke is that, if he was cloned, his new body had an "undefined age", but was presumably younger than Palpatine would have been had he survived beyond his previous appearances.

The title text suggests that the makers of Star Wars had planned this out from the beginning, and so deliberately chose a 37-year-old actor to play an elderly character, specifically so that he could continue to play the part throughout the entire film series. In fact, the long-term direction of the films were never well-planned, and the notion that the films would be made over the course of more than 4 decades was probably not ever predicted. The idea that casting was made on that assumption is unlikely in the extreme. The fact that the same actor was able to reprise his role over such a long period of time was almost certainly just a matter of luck.

Putting all this together, Randall comes up with chart comparing the actor's age to that of the character, and concludes that they have an inverse relationship. Extrapolating this forward, he proposes that McDiarmid (81 years old, as of the publication of this strip) be brought back to play the Emperor as a toddler.

The joke, of course, is that this kind of extrapolation is ridiculous. In addition to the silliness of the subject matter, the data isn't used properly. Considering that there are only four good data points (plus a fifth where one of the dimensions is unclear, so should be excluded), there is not really sufficient data to make a proper extrapolation from here. Furthermore, three of the data points are clustered closely together, reducing their usefulness as independent markers.

This comic continues a long theme of applying graphing and extrapolation poorly, and in situations where they're not appropriate, to show the kinds of ridiculous conclusions it can lead to. See here for other examples

Transcript

This is one of 29 incomplete transcripts: Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

[:A scatter chart with the y scale from 0 to 120 and x scale from 30 to 90]

[:X axis is labeled "Emperor Palpatine character age" and Y axis is labeled "Ian McDiarmid age during filming"]

[:Point labeled "Return of the Jedi"] x value = ~39, y value = ~87

[:Point labeled "The Phantom Menace"] x value = ~50, y value = ~52

[:Point labeled "Attack of the Clones"] x value = ~52, y value = 61

[:Point labeled "Revenge of the Sith"] x value = ~60, y value = ~62

[:Hollow circle with a dashed outline labeled "Now"] x value = ~81, y value = ~4

[:Vertical Line with gradient labeled "The Rise of Skywalker (cloned body, undefined age)". The gradient is darkest around the y values from 40 to 50, and becomes lighter towards either extreme of the y axis.] x value = ~75

[:A thick black arrow trending downwards from the "Return of the Jedi" point to "The Phantom Menace" and nearby points]

[:Another thick black arrow trending downwards from "The Phantom Menace" and nearby points to the "Now" circle]

[:caption beneath panel]

To continue the trend, they should make a star wars movie where 81-year-old Ian Mcdiarmid plays the emperor as a toddler.

Trivia

Not depicted upon the graph are Palpatine's prior actors from the original release of Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, when Palpatine would have been 88. Marjorie Eaton (79) visually played the character (although some sources disagree, and have Elaine Baker, at the time 27 and married to the film's makeup designer, in the role), with similarly heavy prosthetics to McDiarmid, whilst Clive Revill (50) provided the voice. For the 2004 DVD release, the scene was reshot with McDiarmid, who was 60 at the time.

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Discussion

What happens when he is five years old in canon Star Wars Mathmaster (talk)

As a Youngling, he would obviously get a funny hat and a 'not quite so dangerous' training-lightsaber. At least for Jedi training, can't speak for Sith training, which probably goes with the exact opposite (funny shoes and a lightsaber that has no hilt?)... ;) 22:13, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

I don't think the title text is sarcastic. Making Palpatine look older in Return of the Jedi allowed the actor's age to be very precise for the character in the 3 subsequent movies (while allowing the same actor playing the character). --181.236.188.58 22:22, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

My first thought when reading the alt-text was of the reincarnated leader of the History Monks in the Discworld, analogous to the Dalai Lama. The memories and personallity of an old man, in the body of a toddler. The wise old man is normally in control, but sometimes the toddler takes over, leading to him wanting a biccie. 92.239.132.210 (talk) 15:34, 21 October 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

If he actually included a data point at Ian=74, Emperor=119 for Rise of Skywalker instead of just claiming "undefined", the trendline would have a positive slope...regardless of whether or not 119 is accurate, he clearly appears older than he does in Return of the Jedi, and even adding a point at (74, 89) would still result in a positive slope. However, I can get behind the idea of pretending Rise of Skywalker doesn't exist. 136.226.154.60 16:24, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

Just by film chronology (because the EU and extended-EU already dealt with it, but has been largely decanonised since then), the true age of any particular Palpatine clone (there still may have been other extant ones, as well as such dead failures as might remain) is probably not much older than Jango's initial contribution to the Clone Trooper project, the same process being used (though not also on Kamino), and so roughly as old as Bobba Fett would be at that point (if surviving the Sarlak, etc), having had little to no 'aging up' treatment. Though with the aging up, effective developmental age is accelerated, and with both the hit'n'miss nature of the emperor-cloning process and the need of Exegol's caretakers to always try to keep a not-too-decrepit clone at hand to become a ready vessel for Sheev's spirit to occupy, his body's true age is probably quite young even if his apparent age is far older. And, in terms of psychological age, he's probably exactly as old as if he had not jumped-bodies, or maybe that minus any 'gap time' that his Sithish force-ghost might have had to have spent in some form of stasis as the transplantation process was being put into effect. 82.132.236.174 21:39, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

The current explanation reads like an AI response. Xseo (talk) 07:22, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

Or maybe it's just that AI responses tend to read like a collaborative edit by various people each with their own particular obsession to obscure details...?

I'm not saying you're wrong to (presumedly) dislike the style and content, even the bits that I thought were both informative and interesting, but I don't actually know what bit(s) you might want to be different. You're welcome to make your own edits to your own satisfaction, however, in turn to be edited by those who come after you (or return) with their own stylistic/informational needs to fulfil. 82.132.244.183 09:10, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

Couldn't the toddler stuff in the caption be accomplished using motion capture instead of prosthetics? Think of Benjamin Buttons. Barmar (talk) 15:59, 22 October 2025 (UTC)
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