When you’re telling a Star Wars story set during the reign of the Empire, it’s only a matter of time until Emperor Palpatine is mentioned or straight up appears. With Star Wars: The Bad Batch kicking off in the final hours of the Clone Wars, Disney+ subscribers were treated in Season 1 to a brief look at Palpatine in the premiere, though we only heard archival audio of him from Revenge of the Sith commanding the clone troopers to execute Order 66. The Bad Batch Season 2, on the other hand, features brand-new dialogue from Ian McDiarmid’s sinister Sith Lord, and the show’s executive producers spoke with CinemaBlend about how complicated and “mind-blowing” it was bringing him into the show.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch marks Ian McDiarmid’s third time recording lines for an animated Star Wars show, having previously done so for Star Wars Rebels and Tales of the Jedi. Because Palpatine is such an integral figure to the Star Wars mythos, during the junket for The Bad Batch Season 2, I asked executive producers Jennifer Corbett and Brad Rau (the former also being the show’s head writer and the latter being the show’s supervising director) what the process was like of looping in Ian McDiarmid and how they came up with an organic way to fit Palpatine into the story. Corbett started off by saying the following:
A lot of planning went into that arc because you can’t mention things like Coruscant or Palpatine without opening a Pandora’s box a little bit, so it was very well mapped out and we had a lot of input with Dave Filoni and the team on what we can say, what we can’t and making sure that… why are we bringing him into this story? What is he serving, and what’s the best use of him? So it was exciting to have the opportunity to have this character… say new words for the show, but also every choice we made was discussed because we want to stay true to who he is as a character.
As seen in the first Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 2 trailer, Emperor Palpatine will evidently be addressing the Imperial Senate on Coruscant, and Ian McDiarmid is heard saying, “It is time for the new era.” That’s the extent of what the public knows about Palatine’s involvement in Season 2, but at this point in the Star Wars timeline, he’s roughly a year into ruling the galaxy far, far away with an iron fist following his time as Chancellor of the Republic. But while Palpatine is as evil as they come, the Bad Batch team found McDiarmid a joy to work with, as Brad Rau explained below:
And we were so happy Ian McDiarmid could reprise the role. He’s so nice, he’s so nice even though he’s an evil Sith Lord. It’s weird. He was so fantastic and had some thoughts on what he was saying as well, and we always look to the actors to make sure that they’re influencing the character, especially a legacy character like that. Getting a chance to work with him was mind-blowing.
While actors like Ian Abercrombie, Tim Curry and Sam Witwer have left their vocal stamp on Palpatine over the years, Ian McDiarmid will always reign supreme as the original, having first appeared as the character in Return of the Jedi, although new footage of McDiarmid as Palpatine was later inserted into The Empire Strikes Back for the movie’s DVD release. The Prequel Trilogy chronicled how Palpatine pulled strings from the shadows as the Sith Lord known Darth Sidious, including how he recruited Anakin Skyalker to his side as Darth Vader. Then in 2019, McDiarmid appeared as Palpatine in The Rise of Skywalker, followed by two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi last year.
The first two episodes of Star Wars: The Bad Batch premiere tomorrow on Disney+, the same place you can watch the Star Wars movies in order. Don’t forget to look through what other upcoming Star Wars movies and TV shows are on the docket, as well as our 2023 TV schedule for a bigger overview of this year’s programming.
