Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis The Wise? I thought not… and you probably never will either, because it sounds like a planned Star Wars series following the character has been cancelled before we even knew it existed.
This news comes from the main man Ian McDiarmid himself, who you might know better as Darth "The Emperor" Sidious.
In a recent interview with Variety's Todd Gilchrist, McDiarmid was asked what happened to the planned Emperor Palpatine series and what it would have focused on… and he decided to just drop some lore regarding a Darth Plagueis instead. Very method.
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“Just the story of Darth Plagueis the Wise. It’s fairly obvious that my character murdered Plagueis on his road to becoming Palpatine. But beyond that, no. With George, you didn’t discuss anything really. You turn up and you shoot,” McDiarmid revealed.
“These films take a long time to make and the pressure is intense for many reasons; of course, George was at the forefront of all of that. So he had all of that to think about day by day. He takes a good deal of trouble over casting; but, once he’s cast, then he likes the actors to get on with it.”
As McDiarmid notes, the cancelled series seems to have been a George Lucas venture.
That means that it was likely cancelled following Disney taking over the Star Wars IP, given that Lucas has stated in the past that none of his notes for the franchise were ever incorporated into the resulting films or TV shows.
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Also, it might be a little bit too late for them to ever go back to it– at least with McDiarmid in the role. Palpatine is supposed to be much younger than he was in the prequel films during his time training under Plagueis, and that trilogy is 25 years old at this point.
It’s a shame but hey, they could always animate it instead?