A Hollywood Legend Created The Best Parts Of Revenge Of The Sith
It’s not a tale Stoppard would brag about.
Star Wars may be a space opera, but it doesn’t have much of a relationship to the stage. The only in-universe theater in the Star Wars movies is found in Revenge of the Sith, where Emperor Palpatine takes Anakin Skywalker to a performance by the Mon Calamari ballet. And while the scene is best known for Palpatine’s Darth Plagueis the Wise speech, it also contains a secret tie to one of the most esteemed playwrights of the 20th century.
Tom Stoppard, the revolutionary writer behind Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and the co-writer of Shakespeare in Love, recently passed away at the age of 88. For Star Wars fans, he’s best known for uncredited script polishing on Revenge of the Sith. Stoppard took several script doctor jobs over his career, including Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Stoppard’s straightforward but theatrical style is all over Sith’s ballet scene.
Which lines belong to Stoppard have never been confirmed, but The Daily Mail claims he wrote the Darth Plagueis speech. Elsewhere in the film, lines like “So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause” are certainly very Stoppardesque.
Star Wars is about as big as you can get, but Stoppard didn’t really consider it a highlight of his career. “I did talk to George about one of the episodes,” Stoppard told TimeOut in 2014. “It must have been ten years ago. Actually, it was Steven. Steven Spielberg asked me to read a script and do a kind of dialogue polish. I did a bit, but I wouldn’t want to usurp the writer’s claim on the movie. [Laughs] Polish is such a strange word for what one does. I interfered with George’s script in a mild way.”
Star Wars is just a small part of Stoppard’s long, long resume.
Stoppard may consider his contributions mild, but lines that likely belong to him are very quotable, and in the age of the Prequel Meme, that’s what makes Revenge of the Sith so memorable. “Have you ever heard the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?” is a call to Star Wars fans everywhere, and it makes sense that it came from someone with an Oscar and five Tonys.
