Star Wars: 10 Brilliant Changes George Lucas Made To His Saga

3. The Proper Emperor In Empire

Emperor It was one of the bigger continuity errors in the original trilogy. When audiences first got to see The Emperor, the one man above Vader, in Episode V it was Elaine Baker, wife of make-up designer Rick, with superimposed chimp eyes and the voice of Clive Revill. Unnerving and enticing in equal measure, the change in design for Return Of The Jedi and the eventual casting of Ian McDiarmid, this time without aging makeup, for the prequels ended up making this scene feel a little out of place. To combat this Lucas took advantage of having an in-make-up McDiarmid for Revenge Of The Sith and reshot the scene with some tweaked dialogue for the 2004 DVD release. Overall it improves both the movie, the original trilogy and how it links to prequels; the trifecta all the changes tried to do, but few did. The only real issue here is that the conversation still feels restrained; Palpatine looks normal, but there€™s still too much erring around Vader€™s identity for the scene to be realistic. I'm not saying the Emperor should call Luke his son, but there could have been a less hokey dialogue option. Still, in another world this would place at number one, but there€™s a couple of minor changes that surprisingly had massive, totally good, effects on the films that deserve higher spots.
Contributor
Contributor

Film Editor (2014-2016). Loves The Usual Suspects. Hates Transformers 2. Everything else lies somewhere in the middle. Once met the Chuckle Brothers.