Palpatine’s Effortless Shit-Stirring
We the audience know Palpatine’s up to no good, because he shows up and his name is goddamn Palpatine, but Ian McDiarmid plays an incredible little performance when Palpatine’s in his Senatorial guise. We get all the classic Emperor stuff in the Lord Sidious sequences, but the masterful way he lays out the state of things on Coruscant to Padmé, and weaves her into his plans to depose Chancellor Valorum, is played to a slimy perfection. He’s not cackling and outwardly villainous, but there’s a smooth, sinister charm to Palpatine in Phantom Menace that’s really effective.
