The story shared by u/roelgj:
It was 2005, and I was just eleven years old. My dad and I were looking for a movie to watch on TV when we saw The Phantom Menace was playing. We had never seen Star Wars before, but we were up for something new, so we decided to give it a shot.
From the moment Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan pulled out their lightsabers to battle the droids, I was hooked. The visuals, the action, the sound design—it was all mesmerizing. And don’t even get me started on the lore. The scale of the galaxy they created was mind-blowing to me at that age. From that day, I was a Star Wars fan for life. The very next weekend, Attack of the Clones was on TV, and of course, I was glued to the screen. The arena scene, the start of the Clone Wars, and Yoda wielding a lightsaber for the first time—it was epic.
Then came the news that Revenge of the Sith was about to hit theaters. Since my dad and I had enjoyed the first two movies so much, we didn’t hesitate—we went to see it on the big screen.
Now, keep in mind, I was still just 11, and all I really knew was that this was the movie where Anakin becomes Darth Vader. That was it. My family didn’t have any deep Star Wars roots, and growing up in the Netherlands, Star Wars wasn’t as big a thing among kids as it was in the U.S. So, I went in fresh, without any background knowledge or spoilers.
Watching the movie, I started noticing that Chancellor Palpatine had a much more prominent role. He seemed like the same gentle, fatherly figure from the previous films, so it didn’t even cross my mind that he could be hiding something sinister. And then it hit—the reveal that he was the Sith Lord. I couldn’t believe it. I remember sitting in the theater thinking, “No way. That can’t be right.”
Then came the arrest scene, and everything just escalated. Suddenly, he pulls out a red lightsaber and slices through three Jedi without breaking a sweat. My jaw hit the floor. But the most shocking part? Watching him kill Mace Windu and then name Anakin Darth Vader. His transformation—his voice, his appearance, his entire personality—became something purely evil.
I was young, and it completely caught me off guard. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that the kindly old politician had been the hooded figure from the holograms all along. And since English wasn’t my first language, I had relied on the subtitles, so I didn’t even notice the vocal similarities.
Looking back, I love that George Lucas kept Palpatine’s true identity vague throughout the prequels. It was a masterstroke, especially for those of us who started with the prequels as kids. It’s one of those twists that works so well if you’re experiencing the saga for the first time in chronological order. And let’s not forget Ian McDiarmid’s incredible performance in Revenge of the Sith. Playing two totally different sides of the same character—the gentle, fatherly politician and the terrifying, malevolent Sith Lord—must’ve been a huge challenge. But he absolutely nailed it.