10 Exact Moments Fans Turned On Their Favourite Movie Characters
8. Emperor Palpatine - Religious Martyr
Palpatine is one of the great villains - a Machiavellian manipulator who mastered the Dark Side and hoodwinked the entire galaxy into accepting him as its Emperor. Sure, torturing Darth Vader's son right in front of him may not have been the smartest idea, but after 25 years of absolute rule you can understand why Palpatine felt cocky enough to get away with it.
What's harder to understand is his complete change in motivation in Rise of Skywalker. The two prior Star Wars trilogies portrayed Palpatine as the most ruthless, self-centred man in the galaxy. Everything he did was to serve himself - he murdered countless billions in a needless war to install himself as the Emperor, and he became a Sith because he saw it as the best path to power and immortality. He approached the Dark Side with the same solipsistic attitude he had towards politics - a tool to be used for his own benefit, no more, no less.
So seeing him portrayed as a dark messiah in RoS, content to die to ensure the legacy of the Sith survived, was jarring to say the least. It showed a total lack of understanding of the character, and made fans everywhere turn their backs on this watered down version of one of cinema's best bad guys.