The Problem and the Solution: Why Palpatine from Star Wars is One of the Great Movie Villains

George Lucas gets a lot of flak for his screenwriting, but credit must be given when due: Sheev Palpatine, the humble senator from Naboo who becomes a galactic despot in the "Star Wars" movies, is one of the great screen villains.  The narrative architecture of his rise is ingenious. It's thorough, too: the first few bricks of his foundation are already in place before the first "Star Wars" prequel, "The Phantom Menace," officially begins with the opening crawl. By the time the prequel trilogy wraps up, the secret Sith Lord has built a vast network of influence guarded by a clone army, fleets of starships, a government that has dismantled democracy and handed all of its decision-making power to him personally, and a right-hand man, Darth Vader, who's almost as formidable as he is. (There's also a Death Star under construction.) By the time the events of the original trilogy roll around, Palpatine has become a bit complacent, probably because he's ruled for over two decades without serious challenge. However, he's still not someone to be trifled with, and it takes the combined efforts of the second and third most powerful Force users alive, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader (aka Anakin Skywalker, aka Dad), to defeat him.  What's most remarkable about Palpatine's arc is that, unlike many supervillain plots, little of it is dependent on coincidence or inherently ridiculous on its face. Instead, it's based on understanding human (humanoid? This is "Star Wars," after all) nature, then setting up situations where politicians and the general populace will respond as they usually do when told that if they don't make a momentous decision immediately, all will be lost.  Ian McDiarmid, the veteran London stage actor who played Palpatine in three "Star Wars" trilogies, was the perfect actor for the role. It all seems fated in retrospect: McDiarmid has said in interviews that he lucked out in the timing of the series. He was 38 when he first played Palpatine under heavy makeup in 1983's "Return of the Jedi," much younger than the character on the page. By the time he was called in to perform the role again, he was the perfect age to play the character at that moment in his life (mid-to-late '50s).  McDiarmid has likened the character to Iago in William Shakespeare's "Othello." It's a perfect comparison point: Iago's plan is based on understanding the psychology of his nemesis, Othello, and everyone orbiting around him. Then, he sets up a situation where Othello will do the thing he's quite likely to do, given who he is and what his weaknesses are (insecurity, jealousy, and a lethal temper). Similarly, Palpatine's rise depends on understanding the political apparatus of the Old Republic and getting its key players to do what they're most likely to do.  There's some political analogy-making here, too, though it's necessarily inexact because the story is a space fantasy. The politics are fundamentally left-wing and antifascist. Lucas has said that the duo of Grand Moff Tarkin and Darth Vader in "A New Hope" was inspired by President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger during the later years of the Vietnam War, and that the rebels seeking a restoration of the old Republic were inspired by the Vietcong waging guerrilla war against the technologically superior American occupiers. It all got mixed in with mythology and elements from other parts of history, including World War II (the empire are basically space Nazis with retro-1940s German-style officer uniforms and ground infantry called "Stormtroopers") and the American revolutionaries' struggle against the British Empire (nearly all of the bad guys in the original "Star Wars" trilogy are played by actors from the United Kingdom, and with the sole exception of Obi-Wan, all the main actors are Americans).  By the time the prequel trilogy went into production, Lucas was already worried about the incremental expansion of presidential powers since the 1970s (Ronald Reagan called his proposed orbital missile defense program "Star Wars," to Lucas's disgust) and became more concerned after 2000, when George W. Bush took the presidency via a partisan-split Supreme Court decision after losing the popular vote to Al Gore. Then 9/11 happened and the country embarked on a global "War on Terror" that included two ground wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq, with a simultaneous, unprecedented expansion of executive branch powers, justified by the invocation of a "national emergency."  Jingoism, xenophobia and belligerence defined the early aughts in the United States when the second and third prequels were being made and released. National and state legislators were pressured to rubber-stamp whatever the Bush administration wanted without debate or hesitation, or be vilified as terrorism enablers, traitors, and/or wimps. In "Revenge of the Sith," when Mace Windu tries to arrest Palpatine for trial in the senate, the chancellor boasts, "I am the senate!" A phrase in Bush's inaugural addres