Little love is lost between Star Wars fans and the last movie in the saga, The Rise of Skywalker, but the biggest sin that film committed may not have been its botched handling of the legacy, but rather making us think about what Emperor Palpatine gets up to in the privacy of his living quarters, when he’s not busy terrorizing the galaxy. I don’t know if you can fully wrap your head around the scope of this travesty, because we had basically gone more than 40 years without even conceiving of the idea that this sinister megalomaniac could have human tendencies… like having sex. And then came The Rise of Skywalker, and ruined that image forever.
The third and final act in the sequel trilogy somehow managed to go from the abysmal “Somehow, Palpatine returned” line to Luke basically suggesting, and I paraphrase: “Somehow, Palpatine had sex, and you’re her granddaughter, Rey.” Well, it seems that even Ian McDiarmid has problem understanding exactly how that would work, as he explained it in a recent interview with Empire magazine.
“Please don’t pursue that line too vigorously,” he implores fans. “But yes, he does [have sex]. It’s a horrible idea to think of Palpatine having sex in any shape or form. But then, of course, perhaps he didn’t. Maybe it’s all to do with midi-chlorians – and don’t ask me what those are. Never trust your granddaughter. That’s the T-shirt Palpatine got made. Shortly after his death.”
Lucasfilm tried to explain away this controversial narrative development through canon reference publications like The Star Wars Book and Star Wars: The Secrets of the Sith, confirming that Palpatine didn’t actually get hot and heavy with an adoring Sith acolyte, but rather used cloning technology to sample his genes. Rey’s father, named Dathan, was the only person who survived the experiment, and he managed to escape the Emperor’s clutch and find a life of his own with Miramir, Rey’s mother.
So, while that does mitigate the disturbing afterimage left in our vision, and the sour taste in our mouth whenever we think of Palpatine’s family tree, we’re going to have to live with Ian McDiarmid pretty much confirming our worst fears about his character. Emperor Palpatine may be a perfectly respectable tyrant in the streets, but he’s a (Force) freak in the sheets.
What’s next, learning Sauron liked to get frisky in the dungeons of Barad-dûr?
Well, Happy Valentine’s Day, I guess.
