Ian McDermid's performance as the Emperor in 1983's Return of the Jedi was so good that they had to get him back all over again for the prequels, where he played the same character!
Over the course of the Original Trilogy, Sheev Palpatine only appears for about a dozen or so minutes, but he made one heck of an impression. McDermid plays the villain in the most theatrical manner possible, hunched over and hands raised in 'evil old man' fashion. Apply four hours' worth of makeup, a sinister voice and an electrifying use of the Force, and you're left with the second-most iconic Star Wars villain of all time.
It's also worth noting that, although the prequels failed in certain respects, McDermid was consistently one of their biggest highlights. He showcased an entirely different kind of evil in those films, illustrating Darth Sidious' rise to power in the most despicable manner: turning the Republic's one hope into their greatest enemy.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
