10 Movies That Completely Wasted Awesome Twists

2. Count Dooku Is A Sith - Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones

Count Dooku was obviously a villain. He's a Count played by Christopher Lee, for Anakin's sake. Nothing else needs to be said. Although that the toys (it's always the toys) had him with a red lightsaber certainly helped.

And yet everything in Attack Of The Clones itself seems to point towards the third act reveal of him being a Sith Lord, shooting Force Lightening, swinging a red blade and conspiring with the future Emperor, being a big shocker. Just look how he's presented up to that point: he's never seen as more than a ideologically driven activist, with a concerted effort made to make the Separatist cause at first seem logical; Mace Windu comments on how Dooku couldn't assassinate anyone; Jango says he met with a man named Tyrannus; Dooku reveals the existence of Darth Sidious to Obi-Wan (pretty dumb, that one) and conspires to defeat him; and there's a general shirking of direct Sith references.

All the elements are there, yet it's totally bungled, likely due to George Lucas' famously iffy screenwriting, with him unable to apply even a thin coat of subtlety to the character's motivations.

There's a strong element of the Darth Jar Jar theory that suggests Episode II was originally planned to end with Yoda showing off against the gungan in the ultimate CGI Force battle, but when that thread was dropped (and now we've seen Snoke it's 100% dropped people), a gentile politician became the Sith instead. Now that's convincing.