10 Cringiest Moments In The Star Wars Prequels
7. Palpatine Does A Barrel Roll
Along with Ewan McGregor, Ian McDiarmid was one of the few actors who fared quite well in the prequels, with the thespian delivering some questionable dialogue with a deliciously sinister tone.
He acquitted himself admirably, and Palpatine was highly entertaining to watch - but the dastardly Sith Lord couldn't escape the trilogy without one or two cringey scenes to his name.
In the same movie as our first entry, Palpatine has another cringey moment while squaring off against Mace Windu and his three Jedi comrades. After brushing aside Windu's threat of arrest, Palps - for reasons known only to George Lucas - lets out a bizarre battle cry and busts into a horizontal 360 corkscrew forward leap.
Considering that he could've just jumped towards Windu normally, Palps' barrel roll maneuver feels completely unnecessary, and, as such, more than a little out of place.
The fight that follows is also quite cringey too, with some noticeably weak CGI being used to cover McDiarmid's stunt double's face, and Windu's supposedly badass allies flailing about like incompetent buffoons while Palpatine dispatches them way too easily. It's poorly done, to say the least.