Palpatine Star Wars: Who He Is, Who Plays Him and What Happens to Him

Palpatine is the Republic politician who becomes Chancellor, the hidden Sith Lord Darth Sidious and finally Emperor of the Galactic Empire, played by Ian McDiarmid. Ian Abercrombie voices the character in the animated feature Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008), directed by Dave Filoni.

The credits change with his position, which is the first thing to know if you are searching for him. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999), directed by George Lucas, credits him as Senator Palpatine. Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) credits Chancellor Palpatine, and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) credits Chancellor Palpatine / Darth Sidious. Return of the Jedi (1983), directed by Richard Marquand, credits The Emperor, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019), directed by J.J. Abrams, credits Emperor Palpatine. Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) lists Chancellor Palpatine / Darth Sidious (voice).

Ian McDiarmid played Palpatine, also credited as The Emperor, in all five live action films. He is billed fifth in The Phantom Menace, seventh in Attack of the Clones, fourth in Revenge of the Sith, eighth in Return of the Jedi and fifteenth in The Rise of Skywalker. That spread is a fair picture of the character, who sits at the edge of the story in one film and at the center of it in another.

For where he sits among the other Sith and Jedi, see Star Wars Jedi and Sith, and the Star Wars timeline shows where each appearance falls.

The films never show Palpatine turning evil, because he is already the Sith Lord Darth Sidious when The Phantom Menace begins. The Trade Federation blockades Naboo as part of a hidden scheme run by Sidious, while Senator Palpatine is shown rising as a likely new Chancellor in the Senate. Palpatine is made Chancellor at the end of the film.

That double life is the key to reading the prequels in order. In The Phantom Menace the Senate stalls while the Federation holds Naboo, and the same stalling is what carries Palpatine toward the Chancellor's office. The visible politician and the hidden Sith Lord benefit from one event, and the film leaves the audience to notice it.

Attack of the Clones credits him as Chancellor Palpatine while the Republic is shaken by a separatist movement led by Count Dooku. The war ends the film with the Jedi leading a clone army as generals. Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) continues the same stretch of the timeline, with Ian Abercrombie voicing Chancellor Palpatine / Darth Sidious as Anakin Skywalker and his new apprentice Ahsoka Tano work to win the Hutts over to the Republic.

Revenge of the Sith is where the arc turns. General Grievous kidnaps Palpatine, and Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin rescue him. He urges Anakin to kill Count Dooku, and the Jedi Council then asks Anakin to spy on him. Palpatine tells Anakin the dark side can give him the power to save Padmé. Anakin learns that Palpatine is Darth Sidious and tells Mace Windu. Windu goes to arrest Palpatine, but Anakin intervenes, and Windu is killed.

Anakin kneels to Palpatine and is renamed Darth Vader. Palpatine issues Order 66, and clone troopers turn on and kill most of the Jedi. He declares himself Emperor and turns the Republic into the Empire. Yoda fights him but has to retreat. Palpatine rescues the burned Anakin and, at the end of the film, he and Vader watch the early construction of the Death Star.

In Return of the Jedi he is the Emperor, and the second Death Star is under construction near Endor. Vader brings Luke to him, and he tries to push Luke to the dark side. In The Rise of Skywalker the resurrected Emperor Palpatine broadcasts a message promising revenge on the galaxy. Kylo Ren finds a Sith wayfinder that points to the hidden world of Exegol, where Palpatine offers him a huge fleet if he will kill Rey. How he returned after Return of the Jedi is not established in the plot of The Rise of Skywalker.

On the timeline, then, his arc runs in a different order from release. The Phantom Menace (1999) to Revenge of the Sith (2005) fill in the rise that Return of the Jedi (1983) only implied, and The Rise of Skywalker (2019) comes last in both release and story order. Revenge of the Sith lands the Empire's founding on screen, which Return of the Jedi had treated as settled history.

Palpatine's most important relationship is with Anakin Skywalker, whom he turns into Darth Vader. In Revenge of the Sith he positions himself as a mentor, gives Anakin a place on the Chancellor's staff and offers the power to save Padmé Amidala. In Return of the Jedi, Anakin Skywalker, who becomes Darth Vader, is his apprentice, and in that film Darth Vader kills him.

The method matters as much as the bond. The Jedi Council grants Anakin a seat as the Chancellor's representative but refuses him the rank of Master, and then asks him to spy on Palpatine. Palpatine offers what the Council withholds: trust, and a way to save Padmé. Compare the two Skywalkers he approaches. Anakin, haunted by visions of Padmé's death, is drawn in. In Return of the Jedi, Luke is brought before the Emperor and refuses.

No, the films do not make Palpatine Anakin's father. The Phantom Menace introduces Anakin as an enslaved boy on Tatooine whose mother is Shmi Skywalker. Palpatine is not given a child or a family in the films.

Among the Jedi, Mace Windu is the one who tries to arrest him and dies for it. Yoda fights him at the end of Revenge of the Sith and has to retreat, and Obi-Wan Kenobi is one of the Jedi who rescue him from General Grievous. Padmé Amidala shares the Senate with him and is the person he uses to tempt Anakin. In Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008), Ziro the Hutt works with Count Dooku on a plot to turn the Hutts against the Republic, which runs through the same period.

The next generation meets him as an enemy. Luke Skywalker is brought before the Emperor and refuses him. In The Rise of Skywalker the Emperor offers Kylo Ren a fleet if he will kill Rey, and Rey is the one who defeats him. TMDB credits that character as Kylo Ren / Ben Solo in The Rise of Skywalker, and Kylo Ren is the other figure Palpatine tries to use.

The pattern repeats across three films: Anakin, Luke and Kylo Ren are each offered power by Palpatine, and only the first accepts it for good.

Darth Vader kills Palpatine in Return of the Jedi, and Rey kills the resurrected Emperor Palpatine in The Rise of Skywalker, so he is not immortal. Two different characters deliver the two deaths, thirty-six years apart in release terms.

In Return of the Jedi, the Emperor attacks Luke with lightning during the duel, and Vader finally turns on his master and kills him. Vader is fatally wounded in the process. The same film ends with the Rebels destroying the second Death Star after the shield falls. In The Rise of Skywalker, Rey defeats Palpatine by turning his Force lightning back on him, using the lightsabers of Luke and Leia.

The two deaths mirror each other. Lightning is the weapon in both, and in both the end comes from someone he tried to claim: Vader, the apprentice he made in Revenge of the Sith, and Rey, the person Kylo Ren is told to kill. The first death is a betrayal by a fallen Jedi. The second is a defeat by a Jedi's heir who stands on the lightsabers of Luke and Leia.

No, Palpatine is not immortal: he dies in Return of the Jedi and returns in The Rise of Skywalker. A man who dies and then comes back as a resurrected Emperor is not the same as one who cannot die. The Rise of Skywalker is the only film in which he returns, and its plot does not establish a method for the return. His status is dead: killed by Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi, and shown resurrected and defeated by Rey in The Rise of Skywalker.

The Mace Windu confrontation in Revenge of the Sith is the strongest Palpatine scene, and that ranking is opinion rather than record. It is the point where the slow plan of the prequels becomes personal: Windu goes to arrest him, Anakin intervenes, and Windu is killed.

The second pick, also opinion, is the throne room in Return of the Jedi, where the Emperor tries to push Luke to the dark side while the Rebel fleet attacks the second Death Star. The scene works because it follows Revenge of the Sith in story order. By the time he appears there, the audience has seen how he turned Anakin, so his patience with Luke reads as a repeat of a tactic rather than a new threat.

The third pick, again opinion, is the end of The Rise of Skywalker, where Rey turns his Force lightning back on him. It draws on the lightning from Return of the Jedi and answers it with a new character. Compared with his near silence in The Phantom Menace, where he is billed fifth as Senator Palpatine and mostly watched rising toward the Chancellor's office, these late scenes show how far the character was moved from the margins to the center.

Revenge of the Sith, the film where Palpatine finally reveals himself as Darth Sidious, earned more than $900 million worldwide on a $113 million budget, according to Box Office Mojo. The Rise of Skywalker earned about $1.08 billion worldwide on a $275 million budget, and its Emperor Palpatine credit comes fifteenth in the billing, the lowest of his live action credits despite the plot resting on him.