Emperor Palpatine Trivia
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50 free Emperor Palpatine trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Before Ian McDiarmid, the Emperor was an elderly actress in heavy makeup with a chimpanzee's eyes composited into her sockets and Clive Revill's voice dubbed over the top. George Lucas built the character out of Ming the Merciless, Richard Nixon and a long list of real strongmen who were handed power rather than seizing it, which is why the prequels spend so long in the Senate. These 50 questions run from the 1974 draft's Cos Dashit to the rotting hands on Exegol. The easy tier covers Naboo, Darth Sidious, Order 66, the Death Star chasm and Rey. The middle asks about the original 1980 hologram, the Royal Court performance that got McDiarmid the job, Finis Valorum, the Plagueis story and The Clone Wars voice cast. The expert tier reaches for Trisha Biggar's reptile-skin jacket, the May Day parade staging, Gallius Rax, Byss and the US senator who brought a visual aid to the Senate floor. Every answer is cited to a page we checked and comes with a short explanation. Play it alone or print it for a Star Wars night. Do it.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What first name was Palpatine given in the 2014 novel Tarkin?
Sheev
Sheev arrived 31 years after Return of the Jedi: the original films call him only the Emperor, and nobody says the name Palpatine on screen until The Phantom Menace.
Q 02The Emperor lures the Rebel fleet into a trap above which moon in Return of the Jedi?
Endor
Endor. The Emperor boasts to Luke that he leaked the second Death Star's location himself, so the Rebel fleet would arrive to find its shield still up and an Imperial armada waiting.
Q 03Palpatine's threat of revenge, cited in The Rise of Skywalker's opening crawl, was first heard in which video game?
Fortnite
Fortnite. The crawl opens 'The dead speak!' and mentions a mysterious broadcast, but the film never plays it: the message aired only at the end of a live in-game event days before release.
Q 04Who delivers the much-mocked line 'Somehow, Palpatine returned' in The Rise of Skywalker?
Poe Dameron
Poe Dameron. Oscar Isaac's line became a meme: the film itself adds only a passing mention of cloning and Sith secrets, and later series were left to fill in how the Emperor survived.
Q 05Who voiced the Emperor in the original 1980 version of his hologram scene?
Clive Revill
Clive Revill's performance lasted 24 years: for the 2004 DVD the scene was reshot with Ian McDiarmid during the making of Revenge of the Sith, with new dialogue, so the Emperor matched the prequels.
Q 06Whose eyes were superimposed into the 1980 Emperor's darkened eye sockets?
A chimpanzee's
A chimpanzee's eyes were composited onto the face of an actress in a sculpted mask, and a male actor dubbed the voice: the first on-screen Emperor was three performers in one.
Q 07In the 2008 Clone Wars film, Palpatine's scheme turns on the kidnapping of which crime lord's son?
Jabba the Hutt
Jabba the Hutt. The Separatists frame the Jedi for snatching his baby son Rotta, but Anakin and Ahsoka bring the child home, and Jabba opens Hutt hyperspace routes to the Republic.
Q 08Where did the name Palpatine first appear?
The 1976 Star Wars novelization
The 1976 Star Wars novelization went on sale months before the film; its prologue has Senator Palpatine make himself Emperor, only to end up controlled by his own aides.
Q 09Which earlier fictional tyrant did George Lucas use as a model for the Emperor?
Ming the Merciless
Ming the Merciless is the tyrant of Flash Gordon, the serial George Lucas first tried to license; when he couldn't get the rights, he wrote his own space saga instead.
Q 10Which US president's tenure got Lucas thinking about how democracies become dictatorships?
Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon. Lucas concluded that democracies 'aren't overthrown; they're given away', the idea the prequels play out when the Senate hands Palpatine his emergency powers.
Q 11Star Wars and History compares Palpatine's rise to which Roman emperor?
Augustus
Augustus kept up the facade of a free republic centred on the Senate while commanding the army himself, much as Palpatine swears to hand back emergency powers he means to keep.
Q 12After Luke defeats Vader in Return of the Jedi, what does the Emperor urge him to do?
Kill Vader and take his place
Kill Vader and take his place: the Emperor had meant all along to swap his apprentice for a younger one, but Luke refuses and declares himself a Jedi instead.
Q 13Ian McDiarmid won the Emperor role after a casting director saw him play a dying figure modelled on which tycoon?
Howard Hughes
Q 21How does the Emperor die in Return of the Jedi?
Vader throws him down a shaft
Vader throws him down a shaft: unable to watch his son being tortured with Force lightning, he turns on his master at last, and is fatally wounded doing it.
Q 22In The Phantom Menace, Palpatine is a senator from which planet?
Naboo
Naboo. Palpatine secretly arranges the invasion of his own home world, then persuades its young queen to call the no-confidence vote that clears his path to the Chancellorship.
Q 23Which Supreme Chancellor is ousted by the vote of no confidence Palpatine engineers?
Finis Valorum
Howard Hughes. McDiarmid, still in his thirties, was playing a dying Hughes figure in Sam Shepard's Seduced at London's Royal Court, and he never auditioned for the Emperor: he was simply called in for an interview.
Q 14Ian McDiarmid became the Emperor only after Alan Webb, the actor first cast, did what?
Fell ill and withdrew
Fell ill and withdrew: Alan Webb dropped out as shooting neared, Ben Kingsley was among the names considered, and McDiarmid was drafted in as a late substitute.
Q 15Critic Robin Wood likened the Emperor's Return of the Jedi look to the hag in which Disney film?
Snow White
Snow White. Wood saw the Queen's crone disguise in the hooded, wizened Emperor, a face that stayed unexplained for 22 years until Revenge of the Sith showed him disfigured on screen.
Q 16Roger Ebert wrote that the Emperor looked uncannily like Death in which film?
The Seventh Seal
The Seventh Seal. In Ingmar Bergman's 1957 film a knight home from the Crusades challenges Death to a game of chess to delay his own end, and Ebert saw that figure again under the Emperor's hood.
Q 17How do Palpatine's costumes change during Revenge of the Sith?
Darker
Darker, and more ornate too: designer Trisha Biggar took his six costumes through greys and browns 'almost going to black' to carry him toward the dark side, and Ian McDiarmid's favourite was a high-collared jacket that felt reptilian.
Q 18McDiarmid compared Palpatine's hypocrisy to which Shakespeare villain?
Iago
Iago. McDiarmid's point was that everyone in Othello, the hero included, takes 'Honest Iago' for a decent man doing his job, just as the Republic trusts its kindly Chancellor.
Q 19A 2017 screenshot of Palpatine captioned 'The Senate' became the most-upvoted post on which website?
Reddit. The caption asked for upvotes so that Googling 'The Senate' would bring up Palpatine's face, and hundreds of thousands of upvotes arrived.
Q 20In Star Wars (1977), who announces that the Emperor has dissolved the Imperial Senate?
Grand Moff Tarkin
Grand Moff Tarkin. Asked how the Emperor can keep control without the bureaucracy, he has the answer ready: regional governors, and 'fear of this battle station'.
Finis Valorum, played by Terence Stamp, never sees it coming: Palpatine talks Queen Amidala into calling the vote, then uses the crisis to get himself elected to the empty chair.
Q 24What does Palpatine tell young Anakin as The Phantom Menace ends?
We will watch your career with great interest
'We will watch your career with great interest' sounds kindly and plays as a threat in hindsight: the newly elected Chancellor is already sizing up the boy he will turn into Darth Vader.
Q 25Who is Sidious's apprentice during Attack of the Clones?
Count Dooku
Count Dooku, the fallen Jedi played by Christopher Lee, leads the Separatists in public and answers to his master in private, so one man is steering both sides of the coming war.
Q 26Who captures Palpatine at the start of Revenge of the Sith?
General Grievous
General Grievous. The cyborg commands a droid army that Sidious himself set up, so the captive is secretly his captor's master, and he ends the rescue by urging Anakin to kill a beaten enemy.
Q 27Palpatine tells Anakin the tragedy of which Sith Lord who could create life and prevent death?
Darth Plagueis
Darth Plagueis. The tale ends with the Sith Lord murdered in his sleep by his own apprentice, and the storyteller is quietly confessing: that apprentice was Palpatine himself.
Q 28Who deflects Palpatine's lightning back into his face, leaving it disfigured?
Mace Windu
Mace Windu. Three other Jedi Masters fall within seconds, yet Windu has Palpatine beaten until Anakin steps in to save the one man who claims he can keep Padme from dying.
Q 29What command compels the clone troopers to kill their Jedi generals?
Order 66
Order 66. The clones never choose to obey: The Clone Wars later revealed inhibitor chips implanted in their brains, and showed Sidious silencing the trooper Fives when he found out.
Q 30Who duels Palpatine to a stalemate after the Empire is declared?
Yoda
Yoda. Their duel tears through the Senate chamber itself, the Sith Lord hurling its floating pods at him, and it ends with the Jedi Master fleeing into exile.