Star Wars fans praise inspired Emperor Palpatine recast

Emperor Palpatine has actually been portrayed by two different actors. Well, three if we’re being technical.

That’s no secret but it’s often something that’s overlooked due to George Lucas’ revisions made to the original Star Wars trilogy.

Many of us will likely have only seen the revised and re-released versions of that original trilogy, consisting of A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.

In fact, you might not even realise that’s the case - especially if you’re a new or casual fan.

When the prequel trilogy dropped in the early 2000s, Lucas went back and made a few changes to the original films.

I’d argue that all of those changes were wholly unnecessary, but they happened nonetheless.

For example, Lucas edited the Han and Greedo scene so that Greedo shoots a few frames faster, while Sebastian Shaw’s force ghost version of Anakin was removed from the end of Return of the Jedi and replaced with a new Hayden Christensen version.

Jabba The Hutt was given a CGI overhaul, and Boba Fett’s original voice (Jason Wingreen) was dubbed over by Temuera Morrison.

That’s just to name a few of the many edits.

With regards to Palpatine, the character was originally portrayed in Episode V and VI by Marjorie Eaton with voice work by Clive Revill.

Marjorie wore a special mask as the character, with chimpanzee eyes superimposed over her own.

In the re-released versions, Marjorie and Clive’s work was cut, with prequel actor Ian McDiarmid reshooting footage which was added in instead.

A few new lines of dialogue were added, but the scene largely remained the same.

Personally, I think audiences are mature enough that they wouldn’t have questioned Palpatine being portrayed by a different actor in the OG trilogy, especially when the glimpse of the character is so brief and cloaked.

But the vast majority of the Star Wars fandom is on board with the edit, relishing in McDiarmid's iconic performance.

“Ian McDiarmid is scarier, more iconic. More sinister voice and performance too. The swollen eyes of the first doesn’t do it for me,” said Reddit user Hassan_H_Syed.

“By far the one that actually matches the emperor in every other bit of media and I think he just carries a better gravitas,” added NerdHistorian.

The original portrayal did receive plenty of praise too. It’s fun to compare both versions though so I do urge you to seek out the original if you can.