3157: Emperor Palpatine

2025-10-23T15:36:44Z

2A01:CB04:4C5:7B00:826D:127D:1A04:E8A5: /* Transcript */ swapped X and Y axis labels

{{comic
| number = 3157
| date = October 20, 2025
| title = Emperor Palpatine
| image = emperor_palpatine_2x.png
| imagesize = 538x531px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = 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.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|What happened when Palpatine was a toddler (all I know is he wasn't a Jedi and discovered the dark side)? This page was created by A BOT OF UNCERTAIN AGE. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
This comic about {{w|extrapolation}} tracks the age of the {{w|Star Wars}} character {{w|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 from the immediate lead up to the Battle of Yavin until 4 <abbr title="years After the Battle of Yavin">ABY</abbr>), the prequel trilogy (1999-2005, portraying 32 <abbr title="years Before the Battle of Yavin">BBY</abbr> to 19 BBY), and the sequel trilogy (2015-2019, during 34-35 ABY). Palpatine is played by {{w|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 {{w|Star Wars}} movie and appears briefly in {{w|The Empire Strikes Back}} (see the Trivia section below), but doesn't have significant screen time until {{w|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 appears to be killed near the end of the film.
* The prequels portray Palpatine's rise from Senator to Chancellor to Emperor. McDiarmid 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 established timeline of the universe).
* {{w|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", echoing elements of the non-film fiction that had existed before the sequels, but were no longer considered official canon. 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.

Putting all this together, [[Randall]] comes up with a 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.

Firstly, this suggestion is highly impractical. Where it has so far been possible, using make-up and additional effects, for the actor to play a character at first much older and now much younger than him, it would require unusually extreme measures to make Randall's suggestion work, given the much larger changes that humans go through in childhood. Not only would his features need to be made radically younger, but his stature and body shape would have to be altered. It is hard to see how this could be done convincingly.

Secondly, 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 is excluded), there is not really a sufficient sample to make a proper extrapolation from here. Furthermore, three of the data points are clustered closely together, reducing their usefulness as independent markers, and by themselves represent a period where character-age and actor-age are effectively directly equivalent, in contradiction to the extrapolated negative slope.

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 was never so accurately anticipated, and the notion that the films would be made over the course of more than four 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, though Randall jokingly presents this as entirely intentional.

This comic continues a long xkcd [[:Category:Extrapolation|theme of applying graphing and extrapolation poorly]], and in situations where they're not appropriate, to show the kinds of ridiculous conclusions they can lead to.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
:[A scatter chart with the X scale from 30 to 90 and Y scale from 0 to 120. The X axis is labeled "Ian McDiarmid age during filming" and Y axis is labeled "Emperor Palpatine character age".]
:[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
:[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. It stops when it touches the black arrow mentioned later.] X value = ~75
:[Hollow circle with a dashed outline labeled "Now"] X value = ~81, Y value = ~4

:[A thick black arrow trending downwards from "Return of the Jedi" pointing near "The Phantom Menace", "Attack of the Clones", and "Revenge of the Sith". "The Phantom Menace" is below it and "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith" are above it.]
:[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, all from the original release of Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, when Palpatine would have been 88. {{w|Marjorie Eaton}} (79) visually played the character in an uncredited role (unless it was the trial footage of Elaine Baker, instead, at the time 27 and married to {{w|Rick Baker|the film's makeup designer}}), with different heavy prosthetics to McDiarmid and supposedly superimposed with the eyes of a chimpanzee ({{w|Chimpanzee#Mortality and health|age unknown}}!), whilst {{w|Clive Revill}} (50) provided the voice. For the 2004 DVD release, the scene was entirely reshot with McDiarmid, who was 60 at the time ''and'' given a make-over to more closely match his own initial appearance in the followup film.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Extrapolation]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]
[[Category:Scatter plots]]

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3157: Emperor Palpatine