title: Palpatine

text: When Padmé attempts to liberate Naboo, Sidious sends his apprentice Darth Maul (portrayed by Ray Park, voiced by Peter Serafinowicz) to capture her. The invasion is eventually thwarted and Maul is defeated in a lightsaber duel with Jedi Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor). Palpatine uses the crisis to get elected as the new Chancellor of the Republic. He then returns to Naboo, where he befriends the young Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd), telling the boy, "We will watch your career with great interest."


title: Palpatine

text: In the 2002 sequel "", set 10 years later, Palpatine exploits constitutional loopholes to remain in office after his term expires. Meanwhile, as Sidious, he continues to manipulate events from behind the scenes by having his new Sith apprentice Count Dooku (Christopher Lee) lead a movement of planets in seceding to form the Confederacy of Independent Systems. He has the Separatists try to assassinate Padmé, now a senator, but the attempt on her life fails. He then arranges for Anakin (now played by Hayden Christensen) to guard Padmé on Naboo, which leads to them falling in love and marrying in secret.


title: Palpatine

text: With the Separatists secretly building a battle droid army, Palpatine uses the situation to have himself granted emergency powers. Palpatine feigns reluctance to accept this authority, promising to return it to the Senate once the crisis has ended. His first act is to allow a clone army's creation to counter the Separatist threat; this results in the first battle of the Clone Wars. With the galaxy now at war as Sidious planned, Dooku brings him the secret plans for the Death Star.


title: Palpatine

text: In the 2005 sequel "", set three years later, Palpatine is captured by cyborg Separatist leader General Grievous (voiced by Matthew Wood). Palpatine is rescued by Anakin and Obi-Wan, but not before the Jedi confront Dooku again. A duel ensues in which Anakin disarms and kills Dooku at Palpatine's urging. Palpatine then escapes with his rescuers and returns to Coruscant. By this point, Palpatine has become a virtual dictator, able to take any action in the Senate. He makes Anakin his personal representative on the Jedi Council, whose members deny Anakin the rank of Jedi Master and order him to spy on the Chancellor. Palpatine tells Anakin the story of Darth Plagueis, a powerful Sith Lord who was able to create life and prevent death but was killed by his own apprentice. Eventually, Palpatine reveals his secret Sith identity to Anakin; he knows that Anakin has been having prophetic visions of Padmé dying in childbirth, and offers to teach him Plagueis' secrets to save Padmé's life.


title: Palpatine

text: Anakin informs Jedi Master Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson) of Palpatine's treachery. With three other Jedi masters at his side, Windu attempts to arrest Palpatine, but Palpatine produces a lightsaber and quickly dispatches all but Windu. Palpatine engages Windu in a duel and attacks him with Force lightning; Windu deflects the lightning back into Palpatine's face, deforming it into the gray, wizened visage first seen in the original trilogy. Before Windu can kill Palpatine, Anakin appears and intervenes on the Sith Lord's behalf, allowing Palpatine to kill Windu with another blast of lightning. Anakin then pledges himself to the dark side as Palpatine's Sith apprentice, Darth Vader.


title: Palpatine

text: Palpatine issues Order 66, commanding the clone troopers to turn on their Jedi generals, while dispatching Vader to kill everyone inside the Jedi Temple and then murder the Separatist leaders on the planet Mustafar. Palpatine then reorganizes the Republic into the Galactic Empire, with himself as Emperor. Jedi Master Yoda (voiced by Frank Oz) confronts Palpatine and engages him in a lightsaber duel that ends in a stalemate. Sensing that Vader is in danger, Palpatine travels to Mustafar and finds his new apprentice near death following a duel with Obi-Wan. After returning to Coruscant, he rebuilds Vader's burned, mutilated body with the black armored suit from the original trilogy. Palpatine then tells Vader that Padmé was killed in the heat of Vader's anger, breaking what remains of Vader's spirit. Palpatine is last seen watching the original Death Star's construction, with Vader and Wilhuff Tarkin (Wayne Pygram) at his side.


title: Palpatine

text: The sequel trilogy is set three decades following the events of "Return of the Jedi" (1983). The First Order has risen from the fallen Empire and seeks to destroy the New Republic, the Resistance, and Jedi Master Luke Skywalker. In the trilogy's first installment, "The Force Awakens" (2015), Palpatine's voice is heard during a vision that the protagonist Rey (Daisy Ridley) experiences upon touching Luke and Anakin's lightsaber. In the sequel, "The Last Jedi" (2017), Luke briefly mentions Palpatine as Darth Sidious while explaining the fall of the Jedi Order to Rey.


title: Palpatine

text: Palpatine, again played by McDiarmid, appears in the trilogy's final film, "The Rise of Skywalker" (2019). Prior to the film's opening, Palpatine threatens revenge against the galaxy, having used the dark side to cheat death. This prompts First Order leader and fallen Jedi Kylo Ren (Adam Driver)—the grandson of Anakin and nephew of Luke—to seek him out on the Sith planet Exegol, where a physically impaired Palpatine is supported by machinery. Palpatine reveals himself as the mastermind behind the First Order and Ren's former master, Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis), whom he created to lure Ren to the dark side. He then unveils the Final Order, a massive fleet of "Xyston"-class Star Destroyers built by the Sith Eternal. Palpatine offers the fleet to Ren on the condition that he find and kill the galaxy's last remaining Jedi, Rey, who is revealed to be Palpatine's granddaughter. It is subsequently revealed that Palpatine had a son (who was his clone) whom he named Dathan, who renounced him; he and his wife, Miramir took their daughter Rey to the planet Jakku, assuming lives as "nobodies" to keep her safe. Palpatine's assassin Ochi eventually found Rey's parents and killed them on his orders, but never found Rey.


title: Palpatine

text: Near the end of the film, Rey arrives on Exegol to confront Palpatine. Surrounded by his Sith loyalists, Palpatine embodies all the Sith's power. He orders Rey to kill him in anger so his spirit can pass into her, which will allow him to possess her body. Rey refuses, and she and Ren (now the redeemed Ben Solo) confront Palpatine together. Sensing their power as a dyad in the Force, Palpatine absorbs their life energy to rejuvenate his body. He incapacitates Ben and attacks the Resistance fleet with Force lightning. Rey uses the power of the past Jedi to face Palpatine once more; he attacks her with lightning, but Rey deflects it using the Skywalker lightsabers, destroying Palpatine, and the Sith, once and for all.


title: Palpatine

text: In the 2008 animated film "" and the (set between "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith"), Palpatine continues to serve as Supreme Chancellor while his Sith identity orchestrates the Clone Wars behind the scenes. Palpatine was voiced by Ian Abercrombie (from 2008 to his death in 2012), and by Tim Curry (from 2012 to 2014). In the film, Sidious engineers a Separatist plot in which Count Dooku (voiced by Corey Burton) turns Jabba the Hutt against the Republic by kidnapping his son Rotta and framing the Jedi for it. Meanwhile, Palpatine suggests that the Republic ally itself with the Hutts. Although Anakin Skywalker and his Padawan Ahsoka Tano (voiced by Ashley Eckstein) foil the plot, the outcome suits Palpatine's ends: Jabba places Hutt hyperspace routes at the Republic's disposal.


title: Palpatine

text: In season two of the TV series, Sidious hires bounty hunter Cad Bane (voiced by Corey Burton) to infiltrate the Jedi Temple and steal a holocron. He then takes a valuable Kyber memory crystal that contains the names of thousands of Force-sensitive younglings – the future of the Jedi Order – from around the galaxy. The final stage of the plot: to bring four Force-sensitive children to Sidious' secret facility on Mustafar. Anakin and Ahsoka again foil the plot, but Bane escapes and all evidence of Sidious' involvement is lost. In season three, Sidious senses Dooku's assassin Asajj Ventress (voiced by Nika Futterman) becoming powerful in the dark side and orders Dooku to eliminate her; he suspects that Dooku is planning to have Ventress assassinate him. Ventress survives and her revenge against Dooku sets off a chain of events including the return of Sidious' former apprentice and Dooku's predecessor, Darth Maul.


title: Palpatine

text: In season five, Sidious personally travels to the planet Mandalore to confront Maul, who has become the leader of Death Watch. Sidious kills Maul's brother Savage Opress (voiced by Clancy Brown) before torturing Maul with the intent to make use of his former apprentice. In season six, Sidious goes to lengths to conceal his plan from the Jedi by silencing Clone Trooper Fives from learning of Order 66, and having Dooku wipe out anything tied to the former Jedi Master's connection to the conspiracy.


title: Palpatine

text: In "Star Wars Rebels", set between "Revenge of the Sith" and "A New Hope", Palpatine is portrayed as the Emperor of the Galactic Empire. He briefly appears off-screen at the end of season two's premiere "The Siege of Lothal" (originally voiced by Sam Witwer and later Ian McDiarmid from 2019). Darth Vader informs Palpatine that the Rebel Alliance cell on Lothal has been broken and that Ahsoka Tano is alive and is now helping the Rebels. Palpatine sees this as an opportunity to seek out other remaining Jedi, ordering Vader to dispatch an Inquisitor to hunt down Ahsoka.


title: Palpatine

text: Palpatine returns physically in season four (voiced again by McDiarmid). In the episodes "Wolves and a Door" and "A World Between Worlds", he appears as a hologram overseeing the excavation of the Lothal Jedi Temple, which contains a portal to a separate dimension of the Force outside of space and time, which Palpatine considers a 'conduit between the living and the dead' that could give him unrivaled power of the Force itself if he can access it. Shortly after protagonist Ezra Bridger (voiced by Taylor Gray) reaches through time and space to rescue Ahsoka from Vader, Palpatine sets up a portal that shows Jedi Master Kanan Jarrus' (voiced by Freddie Prinze Jr.) final moments. While Ezra wants to reach through the portal and rescue Kanan, Ahsoka convinces him not to. Palpatine then reveals himself through the portal and attacks Ezra with Force lightning. However, Ahsoka and Ezra manage to evade him and go their separate ways, thus denying Palpatine full power.


title: Palpatine

text: Palpatine later returns in the series finale "Family Reunion - and Farewell". In the episode, Ezra, having surrendered himself to Grand Admiral Thrawn (voiced by Lars Mikkelsen) to protect Lothal, is taken by him to a room containing a reconstructed section of the ruined Jedi Temple and a hologram of Palpatine as he appears in the prequel films. Palpatine, having acknowledged the threat Ezra poses to the Empire, presents himself as a kindly old man and shows Ezra a vision of his dead parents through a doorway, promising that the youth will be with them if he enters it. Ezra is initially mesmerized by Palpatine's promise and goes to enter the door, but finally resists and destroys the reconstructed Jedi Temple and the illusion. Palpatine's hologram emerges from the rubble, flickering to show his true self, and commands his Royal Guards to kill Ezra, though Ezra manages to defeat them and escape. According to series creator Dave Filoni, the events of "Rogue One" and "A New Hope" happen shortly after this episode, thus refocusing Palpatine's attention from Ezra and Lothal's liberation to the Rebel Alliance and Luke Skywalker.


title: Palpatine

text: Palpatine appears in the first season of the 2021 animated series "". The series is set during (and immediately following) the events of the 2005 film "Revenge of the Sith". The series' first episode depicts Palpatine's senate speech from the film in animated form, using the archive sound of McDiarmid's dialogue. As in the film, Palpatine orders the extermination of the Jedi and declares himself emperor.


title: Palpatine

text: Palpatine appears in the sixth episode of the 2022 series "Obi-Wan Kenobi". The series is set ten years after the 2005 film "Revenge of the Sith". After Darth Vader is defeated by Obi-Wan Kenobi following their second duel, Palpatine contacts Vader in his Mustafar castle via hologram, questioning Vader's motives and loyalty when Vader reports that he will not rest until Obi-Wan is found. Vader reassures Palpatine that Obi-Wan does not mean anything, reaffirms his commitment to Palpatine and abandons his search.


title: Palpatine

text: The first appearance of Palpatine in "Star Wars" literature was in the prologue of Alan Dean Foster's ghostwritten novelization of the script of "A New Hope", published as "" (1976). His background as a senator of the Republic was explored in James Kahn's novelization of "Return of the Jedi".


title: Palpatine

text: Palpatine also appears in Rae Carson's novelization of "The Rise of Skywalker", which expands upon the film's story. In the book, Palpatine is revealed to have discovered the "secret to immortality" from his former master, Darth Plagueis, using this knowledge to survive after his death in "Return of the Jedi". The novelization also describes Palpatine's son as a failed clone of himself. However, the 2021 book "Skywalker: A Family at War" describes Palpatine's son as an "offshoot of [his] genetic research, not precisely a clone but made of cloned tissue and donated cells."


title: Palpatine

text: "" (2015) was one of the first canon spin-off novels to be released in the Disney canon begun in 2014. In it, Vader and Palpatine find themselves hunted by revolutionaries on the Twi'lek home planet Ryloth. In "", the titular character warns Palpatine of "threats lurking in the Unknown Regions." Chuck Wendig's "" book trilogy reveals that, prior to his death, Palpatine enacted a plan for the remnants of the Empire, intended to be led by his adoptive son Gallius Rax, to retreat to the Unknown Regions, where they formed into the First Order. The dark side was thought to be concentrated in this region, where one Sith cultist believed that Palpatine would be found alive. The upcoming illustrated book "" is told from Palpatine's perspective.


title: Palpatine

text: Palpatine appears frequently in the comic book series "" (2017–2018), written by Kieron Gillen and Charles Soule. It is suggested at the end of the series that Palpatine manipulated the Force to impregnate Vader's mother Shmi Skywalker, making him, in essence, Vader's father—although this is left somewhat ambiguous. This builds on the plot point of Anakin's virgin birth introduced in "The Phantom Menace", and the claim that a Sith lord "could use the Force to influence the midi-chlorians to create life," as Palpatine tells Anakin in "Revenge of the Sith". This would seem to have incestuous implications for Rey and Ben Solo at the end of "The Rise of Skywalker", but Soule says that "The Dark Side is not a reliable narrator," and a Lucasfilm story group member who collaborated on the comic confirmed that a direct connection between Palpatine and Vader was not their intent.


title: Palpatine

text: The character also appears in the final chapter of the comic book "Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren" (2020), which illustrates Palpatine's manipulation of the young Ben Solo into becoming Kylo Ren.


title: Palpatine

text: "Star Wars Battlefront II" adds a canonical tale spanning the destruction of the second Death Star through the events of "The Force Awakens". The story takes an Imperial perspective, following an elite squadron known as Inferno Squad, led by protagonist Iden Versio, as they help execute "Operation: Cinder" following the Emperor's death. "Operation: Cinder" was carried out by the Galactic Empire as a means of devastating several Imperial planets a few weeks after the Battle of Endor. The operation was part of the "Contingency", a plan devised by Emperor Palpatine to ensure that the Empire and its enemies would not outlive him should he perish. The plan was put into action following the Emperor's death during the Battle of Endor.


title: Palpatine

text: Palpatine's threat of revenge referenced in the opening crawl of "The Rise of Skywalker" was included in the finale of the "Fortnite: Battle Royale X Star Wars" event. The character has appeared in every Lego Star Wars video game to date, including "."


title: Palpatine

text: In April 2014, Lucasfilm rebranded most of the licensed "Star Wars" novels and comics produced since the originating 1977 film "Star Wars" as "Star Wars Legends" and declared them non-canon to the franchise. "Star Wars Legends" literature elaborates on Palpatine's role in "Star Wars" fiction outside of the films.


title: Palpatine

text: Palpatine/Darth Sidious is a central character in Genndy Tartakovsky's "" micro-series, which is set between "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith". The character's likeness in the series is voiced by Nick Jameson. In the first chapter, Palpatine is informed by Obi-Wan Kenobi (voiced by James Arnold Taylor) that the Jedi have discovered that the InterGalactic Banking Clan has established battle droid factories on the planet Muunilinst. Palpatine agrees to send a strike force that includes Anakin Skywalker (voiced by Mat Lucas) and suggests that Anakin be given "special command" of Obi-Wan's fighters. Yoda and Obi-Wan initially speak against the idea but reluctantly concede. In the seventh chapter, a holographic image of Sidious appears shortly after Dooku trains Dark Jedi Asajj Ventress (voiced by Grey DeLisle). Sidious orders Ventress to track down and kill Anakin. He remarks to Dooku that Ventress is certain to be defeated, but that the point of her mission is to test Anakin. In the final chapters, a hologram of Sidious again appears and orders General Grievous to begin an assault on the galactic capital. Later, the Separatist invasion of Coruscant begins and Palpatine watches from his apartment in the 500 Republica. Grievous breaks through the Chancellor's window and attempts to kidnap him, leading to a long chase while Palpatine is protected by Jedi Shaak Ti (voiced by Tasia Valenza), Roron Corobb and Foul Moudama. After Grievous defeats the Jedi, Palpatine is taken on board the "Invisible Hand", setting the stage for "Revenge of the Sith".


title: Palpatine

text: Palpatine made his first major appearance in "Star Wars"-related comic books in 1991 and 1992, with the "Dark Empire" series written by Tom Veitch and illustrated by Cam Kennedy. In the series (set six years after "Return of the Jedi"), Palpatine is resurrected as the Emperor Reborn, or "Palpatine the Undying". His spirit returns from the netherworld of the Force with the aid of Sith ghosts on Korriban and possesses the body of Jeng Droga, one of Palpatine's elite spies and assassins known as the Emperor's Hands. Droga flees to a secret Imperial base on the planet Byss, where the Emperor's advisor Sate Pestage exorcises Palpatine's spirit and channels it into one of many clones created by Palpatine before his death. Palpatine attempts to resume control of the galaxy, but Luke Skywalker, now a senior Jedi Knight, sabotages his plans. Luke destroys most of Palpatine's cloning tanks but is only able to defeat the Emperor with help from Leia Organa Solo, who has received rudimentary Jedi training from Luke. The two repel a Force storm Palpatine had created and turn it back onto him, once again destroying his physical form.


title: Palpatine

text: Palpatine's ultimate fate is further chronicled in the "Dark Empire II" and "Empire's End" series of comics. The "Dark Empire II" series, published from 1994 to 1995, details how the Emperor is once again reborn on Byss into a clone body. Palpatine tries to rebuild the Empire as the Rebel Alliance grows weak. In "Empire's End" (1995), a traitorous Imperial guard bribes Palpatine's cloning supervisor to tamper with the Emperor's stored DNA samples. This causes the clones to deteriorate at a rapid rate. Palpatine tries to possess the body of Anakin Solo, the infant son of Leia Organa and Han Solo, before the clone body dies, but is thwarted once again by Luke Skywalker. Palpatine is killed by a blaster shot fired by Han, but his spirit is captured by the mortally wounded Jedi Empatojayos Brand. When Brand dies, he takes Palpatine's spirit with him into the netherworld of the Force, destroying the Sith Lord once and for all.


title: Palpatine

text: Novels and comics published before 1999 focus on Palpatine's role as Galactic Emperor. "" (1996) by Steve Perry and "The Mandalorian Armor" (1998) by K. W. Jeter—both set between "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi"—show how Palpatine uses crime lords such as Prince Xizor and bounty hunters like Boba Fett to fight his enemies. In the "Jedi Prince" series of young-reader novels (1992–1993) by Paul and Hollace Davids, set about a year after "Return of the Jedi", a three-eyed mutant named Triclops is revealed to be Palpatine's illegitimate son; he had a son named Ken, the titular "Jedi Prince". Barbara Hambly's novel "Children of the Jedi" (1995), set eight years after "Return of the Jedi", features a woman named Roganda Ismaren who claims that Palpatine fathered her son Irek.


title: Palpatine

text: After the release of "The Phantom Menace", writers were allowed to begin exploring Palpatine's backstory as a politician and Sith lord. The comic "Marked" by Rob Williams, printed in "Star Wars Tales 24" (2005), and Michael Reaves' novel "" (2001) explain Darth Sidious' relationship with his apprentice Darth Maul. "Cloak of Deception" (2001) by James Luceno follows Reaves' novel and details how Darth Sidious encourages the Trade Federation to build an army of battle droids in preparation for the invasion of Naboo. "Cloak of Deception" also focuses on Palpatine's early political career, revealing how he becomes a confidant of Chancellor Finis Valorum and acquainted with Padmé Amidala, newly elected queen of Naboo. Palpatine's role during the Clone Wars as Chancellor of the Republic and Darth Sidious is portrayed in novels such as Matthew Stover's "Shatterpoint" (2003), Steven Barnes' "The Cestus Deception" (2004), Sean Stewart's "" (2004), and Luceno's "Labyrinth of Evil" (2005) and "Darth Plagueis" (2012).


title: Palpatine

text: Following the theatrical release of "Revenge of the Sith", "Star Wars" literature focused on Palpatine's role after the creation of the Empire. John Ostrander's comic "Star Wars Republic 78: Loyalties" (2005) chronicles how, shortly after seizing power, Emperor Palpatine sends Darth Vader to assassinate Sagoro Autem, an Imperial captain who plans to defect from the Empire. In Luceno's novel "" (2005) (set shortly after "Revenge of the Sith"), the Emperor sends Darth Vader to the planet Murkhana to discover why clone troopers there refused to carry out Order 66 against their Jedi generals. Palpatine hopes these early missions will teach Vader what it means to be a Sith and crush any remnants of Anakin Skywalker.


title: Palpatine

text: James Luceno's 2012 novel "Darth Plagueis" depicts Palpatine's early life, prior to the films. The scion of an aristocratic family on Naboo, Palpatine first turns toward the dark side upon meeting the titular Sith lord. Sensing great power in Palpatine, Plageuis takes him on as his Sith apprentice. In the final test of his devotion to the dark side, Palpatine kills his parents and his brother and sister.


title: Palpatine

text: In "Star Wars" fiction, Palpatine is a cunning politician, a ruthless emperor, and an evil Sith Lord. The "Star Wars" Databank describes him as "the supreme ruler of the most powerful tyrannical regime the galaxy had ever witnessed" and Stephen J. Sansweet's "Star Wars Encyclopedia" calls him "evil incarnate".


title: Palpatine

text: As a senator, Palpatine is "unassuming, yet ambitious". In "Cloak of Deception", James Luceno writes that Palpatine carefully guards his privacy and "others found his reclusiveness intriguing, as if he led a secret life". Despite this, he has many allies in the government. Luceno writes, "What Palpatine lacked in charisma, he made up for in candor, and it was that directness that had led to his widespread appeal in the senate. ... For in his heart he judged the universe on his own terms, with a clear sense of right and wrong." In Terry Brooks' , Palpatine claims to embrace democratic principles. He tells Queen Amidala, "I promise, Your Majesty, if I am elected [chancellor of the Republic], I will restore democracy to the Republic. I will put an end to the corruption that has plagued the Senate." A "Visual Dictionary" states that he is a self-proclaimed savior.


title: Palpatine

text: As Emperor, however, Palpatine abandons any semblance of democracy, as noted in "A New Hope", when he abolishes the Imperial Senate. Sansweet states, "His Empire ... is based on tyranny."


title: Palpatine

text: "Revenge of the Sith" implies that Palpatine was the apprentice of Darth Plagueis, while later Expanded Universe materials say explicitly that he was. Palpatine is characterized as "the most powerful practitioner of the Sith ways in modern times." Palpatine is so powerful that he is able to mask his true identity from the Jedi for decades. In the novel "Shatterpoint", Mace Windu remarks to Yoda, "A shame [Palpatine] can't touch the Force. He might have been a fine Jedi."


title: Palpatine

text: The "Star Wars" Databank explains that the Force "granted him inhuman dexterity and speed, agility enough to quickly kill three Jedi Masters" (as depicted in "Revenge of the Sith"). Stover describes the duel between Yoda and Palpatine in his thus: "From the shadow of a black wing, a small weapon ... slid into a withered hand and spat a flame-colored blade ... When those blades met, it was more than Yoda against Palpatine, more the millennia of Sith against the legions of Jedi; this was the expression of the fundamental conflict of the universe itself. Light against dark. Winner takes all." During the duel, Yoda realizes that Sidious is a superior warrior, and represents a small but powerful Sith Order that had changed and evolved over the years, while the Jedi had not: "He had lost before he started. He had lost before he was born."


title: Palpatine

text: According to the Databank and "New Essential Guide to Characters", Palpatine possesses great patience and his maneuverings are as a dejarik grandmaster moves pieces on a board. He is depicted as a diabolical genius.


title: Palpatine

text: Palpatine was not given a first name in any canonical or ""Star Wars" Legends" sources until 2014, when the character's first name—Sheev—was revealed in the novel "", written by James Luceno. The Lucasfilm Story Group approached Del Rey Books and asked if they wanted to use the name, which was created by George Lucas, in the "Tarkin" novel, to which Del Rey agreed.


title: Palpatine

text: Lucas' conceptualization of Palpatine and the role the character plays in "Star Wars" changed over time. From "Return of the Jedi" onwards, Palpatine became the ultimate personification of evil in "Star Wars", replacing Darth Vader as the central villain.


title: Palpatine

text: When the original "Star Wars" trilogy was filmed, the Emperor was unnamed and his throne-world unidentified. The name would not be used in the film until the prequel trilogy, and the first mention of the name Palpatine came from the prologue of Alan Dean Foster's 1976 novelization of "A New Hope", which detailed the Emperor's rise to power. Foster writes,


title: Palpatine

text: It is unclear whether Lucas intended Palpatine to be the reigning Emperor or just the first of a succession of emperors. In "The Secret History of Star Wars", Michael Kaminski states that Lucas' initial notes discuss a line of corrupt emperors, not just one. If Palpatine was the first, Kaminski infers, he would therefore not be the current emperor. However, by the time of "Return of the Jedi" and its novelization, Palpatine was made the name of the current emperor.


title: Palpatine

text: During story conferences for "The Empire Strikes Back", Lucas and Leigh Brackett decided that "the Emperor and the Force had to be the two main concerns in [the film]; the Emperor had barely been dealt with in the first movie, and the intention in the sequel was to deal with him on a more concrete level." Lucas ultimately decided instead to focus on the Emperor in "Return of the Jedi".


title: Palpatine

text: In that film, the initial conception of Palpatine was superseded by his depiction as a dictatorial ruler adept in the dark side of the Force. The Emperor was inspired by the villain Ming the Merciless from the "Flash Gordon" comic books. The characterization of Palpatine as an ambitious and ruthless politician dismantling a democratic republic to achieve supreme power is in part inspired by the real-world examples of democratic backsliding during the rise and rule of Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Adolf Hitler. Other elements of the character come from Richard Nixon. Lucas said that Nixon's presidency "got me to thinking historically about how do democracies get turned into dictatorships. Because the democracies aren't overthrown; they're given away." Lucas also said, "The whole point of the movies, the underlying element that makes the movies work, is that you, whether you go backwards or forwards, you start out in a democracy, and democracy turns into a dictatorship, and then the rebels make it back into a democracy."


title: Palpatine

text: Lucas wanted to establish the Emperor as the true source of evil in "Star Wars". Screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan noted, "My sense of the relationship between Darth Vader and the Emperor is that the Emperor is much more powerful ... and that Vader is very much intimidated by him. Vader has dignity, but the Emperor in "Jedi" really has all the power." He explained that the climax of the film is a confrontation between Darth Vader and his master. In the first scene that shows the Emperor, he arrives at the Death Star and is greeted by a host of stormtroopers, technicians, and other personnel. Lucas states he wanted it to look like the military parades on "May Day in Russia."


title: Palpatine

text: Lucas fleshed out the Emperor in the prequel films. According to Lucas, Palpatine's role in "The Phantom Menace" is to explain "how Anakin Skywalker came to be Palpatine's apprentice" and the events that led to his rise to power. According to film critic Jonathan L. Bowen, "Debates raged on the Internet concerning the relationship between Darth Sidious and Senator Palpatine. Most fans believed the two characters are actually the same person with logic seeming to support their conclusion." Bowen notes that the debate was fueled by the fact that "suspiciously Darth Sidious does not appear in the credits."


title: Palpatine

text: In "Star Wars and History" published by Lucasfilm, it describes Palpatine's consolidation of power as being similar to the Roman political figure Augustus. Both legitimized authoritarian rule by saying that corruption in the Senate was hampering the powers of the head of state; both pressured the Senate to grant extraordinary powers to deal with a crisis, falsely claiming that they would rescind those powers once the crisis was over; and both relied on their strong control over military force.


title: Palpatine

text: When the Emperor first appeared in "The Empire Strikes Back", he was portrayed by Marjorie Eaton under heavy makeup. Chimpanzee eyes were superimposed into darkened eye sockets during post-production. The character was voiced by Clive Revill. The makeup was sculpted by Phil Tippett and applied by Rick Baker, who initially used his own wife, Elaine, for the makeup tests.


title: Palpatine

text: "With [director Irvin] Kershner," Revill said, "you had to keep the reins tight — you couldn't go overboard. It was the perfect example of the old adage 'less is more' — the Emperor doesn't say very much. But when he finally appears, it's at a point in the saga when everyone's waiting to see him. It's the Emperor, the arch-villain of all time, and when he says there's a great disturbance in the Force, I mean, that's enough "oomph"!" Years later, during production of "Revenge of the Sith", Lucas decided to shoot new footage for "The Empire Strikes Back" to create continuity between the prequels and original trilogy. Thus, in the 2004 DVD release of "The Empire Strikes Back" Special Edition, the original version of the Emperor was replaced by Scottish Shakespearean actor Ian McDiarmid, and the dialogue between the Emperor and Darth Vader was revised.


title: Palpatine

text: Lucas and director Richard Marquand cast McDiarmid to play Emperor Palpatine for "Return of the Jedi". He was in his late 30s and had never played a leading role in a feature film, though he had made minor appearances in films like "Dragonslayer" (1981). After "Return of the Jedi", he resumed stage acting in London. In an interview with "BackStage", McDiarmid revealed that he "never had his sights set on a film career and never even auditioned for the role of Palpatine." He elaborated, "I got called in for the interview after a "Return of the Jedi" casting director saw me perform in the Sam Shepard play "Seduced" at a studio theatre at the Royal Court. I was playing a dying Howard Hughes."


title: Palpatine

text: McDiarmid was surprised when Lucas approached him 16 years after "Return of the Jedi" to reprise the role of Palpatine. In an interview, he stated, "When we were doing "Return of the Jedi" there was a rumor that George Lucas had nine films in his head, and he'd clearly just completed three of them." McDiarmid added, "Someone said that, 'Oh, I think what he might do next is go back in time, and show how Vader came to be.' It never occurred to me in a million years that I would be involved in that, because I thought, 'oh well, then he'll get a much younger actor to play Palpatine. That would be obvious." However, "I was the right age, ironically, for the first prequel when it was made. ... So I was in the very strange and rather wonderful paradox of playing myself when young at my own age, having played myself previously when 100-and-I-don't-know-what."


title: Palpatine

text: Palpatine's role in the prequel films required McDiarmid to play two dimensions of the same character. Recalling the initial days of shooting "The Phantom Menace", McDiarmid stated, "Stepping onto the set of "Episode I" for the first time was like going back in time, due to my experience in "Jedi". Palpatine's an interesting character; he's conventional on the outside, but demonic on the inside — he's on the edge, trying to go beyond what's possible." McDiarmid added another layer to the character in "Attack of the Clones". He noted, "[Palpatine] is a supreme actor. He has to be even more convincing than somebody who isn't behaving in a schizophrenic fashion, so he's extra charming, or extra professional — and for those who are looking for clues, that's almost where you can see them." McDiarmid illuminated on the scene where Padmé Amidala is almost assassinated:


title: Palpatine

text: In "Revenge of the Sith", McDiarmid played a darker interpretation of the character. He explained that "when you're playing a character of solid blackness, that in itself is very interesting, in the sense that you have no other motivation other than the accumulation of power. It's not so much about not having a moral center, it's just that the only thing that mattered is increasing power." He admitted, "I've been trying to find a redeeming feature to Palpatine, and the only one I've got so far is that he's clearly a patron of the arts because he goes to the opera." McDiarmid compared the character to Iago from William Shakespeare's "Othello":


title: Palpatine

text: McDiarmid noticed that the script for "Revenge of the Sith" demanded more action from his character than in previous films. Lightsaber combat was a challenge to the 60-year-old actor, who, like his costars, took fencing lessons. The close-up shots and non-acrobatic sequences of the duel between Palpatine and Mace Windu were performed by McDiarmid. Advanced fencing and acrobatic stunts were executed by McDiarmid's doubles, Michael Byrne, Sebastian Dickins, and Bob Bowles.


title: Palpatine

text: McDiarmid's performance as Palpatine was generally well received by critics. Todd McCarthy of "Variety" commented, "Entertaining from start to finish and even enthralling at times, 'Sith' has some acting worth writing home about, specifically McDiarmid's dominant turn as the mastermind of the evil empire." Ed Halter of "The Village Voice" wrote that "Ian McDiarmid's unctuous Emperor turns appropriately vampiric as he attempts to draw Anakin into the Sith fold with promises of eternal life." Still, his performance was not without detractors; David Edelstein of "Slate" critiqued, "McDiarmid isn't the subtlest of satanic tempters. With his lisp and his clammy little leer, he looks like an old queen keen on trading an aging butt-boy (Count Dooku) for fresh meat — which leaves Anakin looking more and more like a 15-watt bulb." McDiarmid had expressed interest in reprising the role of Palpatine in the planned "" TV series, which remains un-produced, but according to Cory Barlog, would have depicted the character as "a sympathetic figure who was wronged by this fucking heartless woman. She's this hardcore gangster, and she just totally destroyed him as a person."


title: Palpatine

text: In the 2019 film "The Rise of Skywalker", the ninth episode in the Skywalker saga, McDiarmid returned to the role of Palpatine on screen for the first time since "Revenge of the Sith". McDiarmid spoke of the process behind Palpatine's first scene in the film:


title: Palpatine

text: McDiarmid was surprised to learn of the filmmakers' decision to bring back Palpatine, given the character died in "Return of the Jedi". The film's director, J. J. Abrams, spoke of Palpatine's inclusion in the sequel trilogy: "...when you look at this as nine chapters of a story, perhaps the weirder thing would be if Palpatine didn't return. You just look at what he talks about, who he is, how important he is, what the story is — strangely, his absence entirely from the third trilogy would be conspicuous". On Palpatine's portrayal in the film, McDiarmid said, "he's fairly physically impaired, but his mind is as sharp as ever."


title: Palpatine

text: Transforming McDiarmid into Emperor Palpatine in "Return of the Jedi" required extensive makeup. McDiarmid remarked in an interview with "Star Wars Insider", "Yes—that was a four-hour job, initially, although we got it down to about two-and-a-half in the end. But this was just a little bit of latex here and there, a little bit of skin-scrunching." Film critic Roger Ebert wrote that the Emperor "looks uncannily like Death in "The Seventh Seal"," and film historian Robin Wood compares him to the hag from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937). McDiarmid remarked, "When my face changes in ["Revenge of the Sith"], my mind went back to the early silent movie of "The Phantom of the Opera" with Lon Chaney." Conversely, he required little makeup in "The Phantom Menace" and "Attack of the Clones". He recalled, "I'm ... slightly aged [in "AotC"]. In the last film, I had a fairly standard make-up on, but now, they're starting to crinkle my face."


title: Palpatine

text: Palpatine's wardrobe in the prequels, tailored by costume designer Trisha Biggar, played an important part in the development of the character. In "Attack of the Clones", explained McDiarmid, "The costumes ... have got much more edge to them, I think than the mere senator had in "The Phantom Menace". So we see the trappings of power." On "Revenge of the Sith", McDiarmid said that "To wear the costumes as the character I play is wonderfully empowering." McDiarmid's favorite costume in the film was a high-collared jacket that resembles snake or lizard skin. He stated that "it just feels reptilian, which is exactly right for [Palpatine]." According to Biggar, the character's costumes proved the most daunting challenge. She said, "His six costumes get progressively darker and more ornately decorated throughout the movie. He wears greys and browns, almost going to black, taking him toward the dark side."


title: Palpatine

text: In "The Rise of Skywalker", Palpatine is unable to move without the aid of a large machine, to which he is attached. He is depicted as having eyes without pupils and rotting hands. Costume designer Michael Kaplan opted to dress Palpatine in a utilitarian black robe, which he wears for the majority of the film. At the end of the film, Palpatine rejuvenates himself using the Force and becomes physically mobile. He dons a new costume — a formal robe with red velvet — which Kaplan refers to as "his true Emperor's garb".


title: Palpatine

text: With the premiere of "Return of the Jedi" and the prequel films and the accompanying merchandising campaign, Palpatine became an icon in American popular culture. Kenner/Hasbro produced and marketed a series of action figures of the character from 1983 to 2005. According to John Shelton Lawrence and Robert Jewett, "These action figures allow children ('4 & up') to handle the symbols of the Force."


title: Palpatine

text: Academics have debated the relationship of Palpatine to modern culture. Religion scholars Ross Shepard Kraemer, William Cassidy, and Susan Schwartz compare Palpatine and "Star Wars" heroes to the theological concept of dualism. They insist, "One can certainly picture the evil emperor in "Star Wars" as Satan, complete with his infernal powers, leading his faceless minions such as his red-robed Imperial Guards." Lawrence and Jewett argue that Vader killing Palpatine in "Return of the Jedi" represented "the permanent subduing of evil". However, according to director J. J. Abrams, Palpatine's return in "The Rise of Skywalker" represented the idea that evil can return as a result of complacency. He said, "I think the idea that if we are not careful, the evil — the ultimate evil — will rise again."


title: Palpatine

text: Since "Return of the Jedi" and the prequel films, Palpatine's name has been invoked as a caricature in politics. A "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" editorial noted that anti-pork bloggers were caricaturing West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd as "the Emperor Palpatine of pork", with Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska having "clear aspirations to be his Darth Vader." The charge followed a report that linked a secret hold on the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 to the two senators. Politicians have made comparisons as well. In 2005, Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey compared Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee to Palpatine in a speech on the Senate floor, complete with a visual aid.


title: Palpatine

text: A Fox News editorial stated "no cultural icon can exist without someone trying to stuff it into a political ideology. The "Star Wars" saga, the greatest pop culture icon of the last three decades, is no exception... Palpatine's dissolution of the Senate in favor of imperial rule has been compared to Julius Caesar's marginalization of the Roman Senate, Hitler's power-grabs as chancellor on his way to becoming a dictator,Franklin D. Roosevelt's failed court-packing scheme and the creation of a perceived Imperial Presidency in the United States."


title: Palpatine

text: After Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm in 2012 and the sequel trilogy's success in the mid-late 2010s, the character became the subject of various internet memes, emphasizing certain lines of dialogue the character spoke in "".


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing for liquid water to exist on the Earth's surface, absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation, warming the surface through heat retention (greenhouse effect), and reducing temperature extremes between day and night (the diurnal temperature variation).


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: By mole fraction (i.e., by number of molecules), dry air contains 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: Air also contains a variable amount of water vapor, on average around 1% at sea level, and 0.4% over the entire atmosphere. Air composition, temperature, and atmospheric pressure vary with altitude. Within the atmosphere, air suitable for use in photosynthesis by terrestrial plants and breathing of terrestrial animals is found only in Earth's troposphere.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: Earth's early atmosphere consisted of gases in the solar nebula, primarily hydrogen. The atmosphere changed significantly over time, affected by many factors such as volcanism, life, and weathering. Recently, human activity has also contributed to atmospheric changes, such as global warming, ozone depletion and acid deposition.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The atmosphere has a mass of about 5.15 kg, three quarters of which is within about of the surface. The atmosphere becomes thinner with increasing altitude, with no definite boundary between the atmosphere and outer space. The Kármán line, at or 1.57% of Earth's radius, is often used as the border between the atmosphere and outer space. Atmospheric effects become noticeable during atmospheric reentry of spacecraft at an altitude of around . Several layers can be distinguished in the atmosphere, based on characteristics such as temperature and composition.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The study of Earth's atmosphere and its processes is called atmospheric science (aerology), and includes multiple subfields, such as climatology and atmospheric physics. Early pioneers in the field include Léon Teisserenc de Bort and Richard Assmann. The study of historic atmosphere is called paleoclimatology.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The three major constituents of Earth's atmosphere are nitrogen, oxygen, and argon. Water vapor accounts for roughly 0.25% of the atmosphere by mass. The concentration of water vapor (a greenhouse gas) varies significantly from around 10 ppm by mole fraction in the coldest portions of the atmosphere to as much as 5% by mole fraction in hot, humid air masses, and concentrations of other atmospheric gases are typically quoted in terms of dry air (without water vapor). The remaining gases are often referred to as trace gases, among which are other greenhouse gases, principally carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. Besides argon, already mentioned, other noble gases, neon, helium, krypton, and xenon are also present. Filtered air includes trace amounts of many other chemical compounds. Many substances of natural origin may be present in locally and seasonally variable small amounts as aerosols in an unfiltered air sample, including dust of mineral and organic composition, pollen and spores, sea spray, and volcanic ash. Various industrial pollutants also may be present as gases or aerosols, such as chlorine (elemental or in compounds), fluorine compounds and elemental mercury vapor. Sulfur compounds such as hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide (SO) may be derived from natural sources or from industrial air pollution.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The average molecular weight of dry air, which can be used to calculate densities or to convert between mole fraction and mass fraction, is about 28.946 or 28.96 g/mol. This is decreased when the air is humid.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: In general, air pressure and density decrease with altitude in the atmosphere. However, the temperature has a more complicated profile with altitude, and may remain relatively constant or even increase with altitude in some regions (see the temperature section, below). Because the general pattern of the temperature/altitude profile, or lapse rate, is constant and measurable by means of instrumented balloon soundings, the temperature behavior provides a useful metric to distinguish atmospheric layers. In this way, Earth's atmosphere can be divided (called atmospheric stratification) into five main layers: troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, and exosphere. The altitudes of the five layers are as follows:


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The exosphere is the outermost layer of Earth's atmosphere (i.e. the upper limit of the atmosphere). It extends from the thermopause, at the top of the thermosphere at an altitude of about 700 km above sea level, to about 10,000 km (6,200 mi; 33,000,000 ft), where it merges into the solar wind.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: This layer is mainly composed of extremely low densities of hydrogen, helium and several heavier molecules including nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide closer to the exobase. The atoms and molecules are so far apart that they can travel hundreds of kilometers without colliding with one another. Thus, the exosphere no longer behaves like a gas, and the particles constantly escape into space. These free-moving particles follow ballistic trajectories and may migrate in and out of the magnetosphere or the solar wind.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The exosphere is too far above Earth for meteorological phenomena to be possible. However, Earth's auroras—the aurora borealis (northern lights) and aurora australis (southern lights)—sometimes occur in the lower part of the exosphere, where they overlap into the thermosphere. The exosphere contains many of the artificial satellites that orbit Earth.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The thermosphere is the second-highest layer of Earth's atmosphere. It extends from the mesopause (which separates it from the mesosphere) at an altitude of about up to the thermopause at an altitude range of . The height of the thermopause varies considerably due to changes in solar activity. Because the thermopause lies at the lower boundary of the exosphere, it is also referred to as the exobase. The lower part of the thermosphere, from above Earth's surface, contains the ionosphere.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The temperature of the thermosphere gradually increases with height and can rise as high as , though the gas molecules are so far apart that its temperature in the usual sense is not very meaningful. The air is so rarefied that an individual molecule (of oxygen, for example) travels an average of between collisions with other molecules. Although the thermosphere has a high proportion of molecules with high energy, it would not feel hot to a human in direct contact, because its density is too low to conduct a significant amount of energy to or from the skin.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: This layer is completely cloudless and free of water vapor. However, non-hydrometeorological phenomena such as the aurora borealis and aurora australis are occasionally seen in the thermosphere. The International Space Station orbits in this layer, between . It is this layer where many of the satellites orbiting the earth are present.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The mesosphere is the third highest layer of Earth's atmosphere, occupying the region above the stratosphere and below the thermosphere. It extends from the stratopause at an altitude of about to the mesopause at above sea level.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: Temperatures drop with increasing altitude to the mesopause that marks the top of this middle layer of the atmosphere. It is the coldest place on Earth and has an average temperature around .


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: Just below the mesopause, the air is so cold that even the very scarce water vapor at this altitude can sublimate into polar-mesospheric noctilucent clouds of ice particles. These are the highest clouds in the atmosphere and may be visible to the naked eye if sunlight reflects off them about an hour or two after sunset or similarly before sunrise. They are most readily visible when the Sun is around 4 to 16 degrees below the horizon. Lightning-induced discharges known as transient luminous events (TLEs) occasionally form in the mesosphere above tropospheric thunderclouds. The mesosphere is also the layer where most meteors burn up upon atmospheric entrance. It is too high above Earth to be accessible to jet-powered aircraft and balloons, and too low to permit orbital spacecraft. The mesosphere is mainly accessed by sounding rockets and rocket-powered aircraft.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The stratosphere is the second-lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere. It lies above the troposphere and is separated from it by the tropopause. This layer extends from the top of the troposphere at roughly above Earth's surface to the stratopause at an altitude of about .


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The atmospheric pressure at the top of the stratosphere is roughly 1/1000 the pressure at sea level. It contains the ozone layer, which is the part of Earth's atmosphere that contains relatively high concentrations of that gas. The stratosphere defines a layer in which temperatures rise with increasing altitude. This rise in temperature is caused by the absorption of ultraviolet radiation (UV) radiation from the Sun by the ozone layer, which restricts turbulence and mixing. Although the temperature may be at the tropopause, the top of the stratosphere is much warmer, and may be near 0 °C.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The stratospheric temperature profile creates very stable atmospheric conditions, so the stratosphere lacks the weather-producing air turbulence that is so prevalent in the troposphere. Consequently, the stratosphere is almost completely free of clouds and other forms of weather. However, polar stratospheric or nacreous clouds are occasionally seen in the lower part of this layer of the atmosphere where the air is coldest. The stratosphere is the highest layer that can be accessed by jet-powered aircraft.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The troposphere is the lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere. It extends from Earth's surface to an average height of about , although this altitude varies from about at the geographic poles to at the Equator, with some variation due to weather. The troposphere is bounded above by the tropopause, a boundary marked in most places by a temperature inversion (i.e. a layer of relatively warm air above a colder one), and in others by a zone that is isothermal with height.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: Although variations do occur, the temperature usually declines with increasing altitude in the troposphere because the troposphere is mostly heated through energy transfer from the surface. Thus, the lowest part of the troposphere (i.e. Earth's surface) is typically the warmest section of the troposphere. This promotes vertical mixing (hence, the origin of its name in the Greek word τρόπος, "tropos", meaning "turn"). The troposphere contains roughly 80% of the mass of Earth's atmosphere. The troposphere is denser than all its overlying layers because a larger atmospheric weight sits on top of the troposphere and causes it to be most severely compressed. Fifty percent of the total mass of the atmosphere is located in the lower of the troposphere.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: Nearly all atmospheric water vapor or moisture is found in the troposphere, so it is the layer where most of Earth's weather takes place. It has basically all the weather-associated cloud genus types generated by active wind circulation, although very tall cumulonimbus thunder clouds can penetrate the tropopause from below and rise into the lower part of the stratosphere. Most conventional aviation activity takes place in the troposphere, and it is the only layer that can be accessed by propeller-driven aircraft.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: Within the five principal layers above, which are largely determined by temperature, several secondary layers may be distinguished by other properties:


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The average atmospheric pressure at sea level is defined by the International Standard Atmosphere as . This is sometimes referred to as a unit of standard atmospheres (atm). Total atmospheric mass is 5.1480×10 kg (1.135×10 lb), about 2.5% less than would be inferred from the average sea level pressure and Earth's area of 51007.2 megahectares, this portion being displaced by Earth's mountainous terrain. Atmospheric pressure is the total weight of the air above unit area at the point where the pressure is measured. Thus air pressure varies with location and weather.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: If the entire mass of the atmosphere had a uniform density equal to sea level density (about 1.2 kg per m) from sea level upwards, it would terminate abruptly at an altitude of .


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: Air pressure actually decreases exponentially with altitude, dropping by half every or by a factor of 1/e (0.368) every , (this is called the scale height) -- for altitudes out to around . However, the atmosphere is more accurately modeled with a customized equation for each layer that takes gradients of temperature, molecular composition, solar radiation and gravity into account. At heights over 100 km, an atmosphere may no longer be well mixed. Then each chemical species has its own scale height.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: commercial airliners typically cruise between where the lower density and temperature of the air improve fuel economy; weather balloons reach and above; and the highest X-15 flight in 1963 reached .


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: Even above the Kármán line, significant atmospheric effects such as auroras still occur. Meteors begin to glow in this region, though the larger ones may not burn up until they penetrate more deeply. The various layers of Earth's ionosphere, important to HF radio propagation, begin below 100 km and extend beyond 500 km. By comparison, the International Space Station and Space Shuttle typically orbit at 350–400 km, within the F-layer of the ionosphere where they encounter enough atmospheric drag to require reboosts every few months, otherwise, orbital decay will occur resulting in a return to Earth. Depending on solar activity, satellites can experience noticeable atmospheric drag at altitudes as high as 700–800 km.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The division of the atmosphere into layers mostly by reference to temperature is discussed above. Temperature decreases with altitude starting at sea level, but variations in this trend begin above 11 km, where the temperature stabilizes over a large vertical distance through the rest of the troposphere. In the stratosphere, starting above about 20 km, the temperature increases with height, due to heating within the ozone layer caused by the capture of significant ultraviolet radiation from the Sun by the dioxygen and ozone gas in this region. Still another region of increasing temperature with altitude occurs at very high altitudes, in the aptly-named thermosphere above 90 km.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: Because in an ideal gas of constant composition the speed of sound depends only on temperature and not on pressure or density, the speed of sound in the atmosphere with altitude takes on the form of the complicated temperature profile (see illustration to the right), and does not mirror altitudinal changes in density or pressure.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The density of air at sea level is about 1.2 kg/m (1.2 g/L, 0.0012 g/cm). Density is not measured directly but is calculated from measurements of temperature, pressure and humidity using the equation of state for air (a form of the ideal gas law). Atmospheric density decreases as the altitude increases. This variation can be approximately modeled using the barometric formula. More sophisticated models are used to predict the orbital decay of satellites.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The average mass of the atmosphere is about 5 quadrillion (5) tonnes or 1/1,200,000 the mass of Earth. According to the American National Center for Atmospheric Research, "The total mean mass of the atmosphere is 5.1480 kg with an annual range due to water vapor of 1.2 or 1.5 kg, depending on whether surface pressure or water vapor data are used; somewhat smaller than the previous estimate. The mean mass of water vapor is estimated as 1.27 kg and the dry air mass as 5.1352 ±0.0003 kg."


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: Solar radiation (or sunlight) is the energy Earth receives from the Sun. Earth also emits radiation back into space, but at longer wavelengths that humans cannot see. Part of the incoming and emitted radiation is absorbed or reflected by the atmosphere. In May 2017, glints of light, seen as twinkling from an orbiting satellite a million miles away, were found to be reflected light from ice crystals in the atmosphere.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: When light passes through Earth's atmosphere, photons interact with it through "scattering". If the light does not interact with the atmosphere, it is called "direct radiation" and is what you see if you were to look directly at the Sun. "Indirect radiation" is light that has been scattered in the atmosphere. For example, on an overcast day when you cannot see your shadow, there is no direct radiation reaching you, it has all been scattered. As another example, due to a phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering, shorter (blue) wavelengths scatter more easily than longer (red) wavelengths. This is why the sky looks blue; you are seeing scattered blue light. This is also why sunsets are red. Because the Sun is close to the horizon, the Sun's rays pass through more atmosphere than normal before reaching your eye. Much of the blue light has been scattered out, leaving the red light in a sunset.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: Different molecules absorb different wavelengths of radiation. For example, O and O absorb almost all radiation with wavelengths shorter than 300 nanometers. Water (HO) absorbs at many wavelengths above 700 nm. When a molecule absorbs a photon, it increases the energy of the molecule. This heats the atmosphere, but the atmosphere also cools by emitting radiation, as discussed below.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The combined absorption spectra of the gases in the atmosphere leave "windows" of low opacity, allowing the transmission of only certain bands of light. The optical window runs from around 300 nm (ultraviolet-C) up into the range humans can see, the visible spectrum (commonly called light), at roughly 400–700 nm and continues to the infrared to around 1100 nm. There are also infrared and radio windows that transmit some infrared and radio waves at longer wavelengths. For example, the radio window runs from about one centimeter to about eleven-meter waves.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: "Emission" is the opposite of absorption, it is when an object emits radiation. Objects tend to emit amounts and wavelengths of radiation depending on their "black body" emission curves, therefore hotter objects tend to emit more radiation, with shorter wavelengths. Colder objects emit less radiation, with longer wavelengths. For example, the Sun is approximately , its radiation peaks near 500 nm, and is visible to the human eye. Earth is approximately , so its radiation peaks near 10,000 nm, and is much too long to be visible to humans.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: Because of its temperature, the atmosphere emits infrared radiation. For example, on clear nights Earth's surface cools down faster than on cloudy nights. This is because clouds (HO) are strong absorbers and emitters of infrared radiation. This is also why it becomes colder at night at higher elevations.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The greenhouse effect is directly related to this absorption and emission effect. Some gases in the atmosphere absorb and emit infrared radiation, but do not interact with sunlight in the visible spectrum. Common examples of these are and HO.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The refractive index of air is close to, but just greater than 1. Systematic variations in the refractive index can lead to the bending of light rays over long optical paths. One example is that, under some circumstances, observers onboard ships can see other vessels just over the horizon because light is refracted in the same direction as the curvature of Earth's surface.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The refractive index of air depends on temperature, giving rise to refraction effects when the temperature gradient is large. An example of such effects is the mirage.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: "Atmospheric circulation" is the large-scale movement of air through the troposphere, and the means (with ocean circulation) by which heat is distributed around Earth. The large-scale structure of the atmospheric circulation varies from year to year, but the basic structure remains fairly constant because it is determined by Earth's rotation rate and the difference in solar radiation between the equator and poles.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The first atmosphere consisted of gases in the solar nebula, primarily hydrogen. There were probably simple hydrides such as those now found in the gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn), notably water vapor, methane and ammonia.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: Outgassing from volcanism, supplemented by gases produced during the late heavy bombardment of Earth by huge asteroids, produced the next atmosphere, consisting largely of nitrogen plus carbon dioxide and inert gases. A major part of carbon-dioxide emissions dissolved in water and reacted with metals such as calcium and magnesium during weathering of crustal rocks to form carbonates that were deposited as sediments. Water-related sediments have been found that date from as early as 3.8 billion years ago.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: About 3.4 billion years ago, nitrogen formed the major part of the then stable "second atmosphere". The influence of life has to be taken into account rather soon in the history of the atmosphere because hints of early life-forms appear as early as 3.5 billion years ago. How Earth at that time maintained a climate warm enough for liquid water and life, if the early Sun put out 30% lower solar radiance than today, is a puzzle known as the "faint young Sun paradox".


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The geological record however shows a continuous relatively warm surface during the complete early temperature record of Earth – with the exception of one cold glacial phase about 2.4 billion years ago. In the late Archean Eon an oxygen-containing atmosphere began to develop, apparently produced by photosynthesizing cyanobacteria (see Great Oxygenation Event), which have been found as stromatolite fossils from 2.7 billion years ago. The early basic carbon isotopy (isotope ratio proportions) strongly suggests conditions similar to the current, and that the fundamental features of the carbon cycle became established as early as 4 billion years ago.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: Ancient sediments in the Gabon dating from between about 2.15 and 2.08 billion years ago provide a record of Earth's dynamic oxygenation evolution. These fluctuations in oxygenation were likely driven by the Lomagundi carbon isotope excursion.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The constant re-arrangement of continents by plate tectonics influences the long-term evolution of the atmosphere by transferring carbon dioxide to and from large continental carbonate stores. Free oxygen did not exist in the atmosphere until about 2.4 billion years ago during the Great Oxygenation Event and its appearance is indicated by the end of the banded iron formations.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: Before this time, any oxygen produced by photosynthesis was consumed by the oxidation of reduced materials, notably iron. Free oxygen molecules did not start to accumulate in the atmosphere until the rate of production of oxygen began to exceed the availability of reducing materials that removed oxygen. This point signifies a shift from a reducing atmosphere to an oxidizing atmosphere. O showed major variations until reaching a steady state of more than 15% by the end of the Precambrian. The following time span from 539 million years ago to the present day is the Phanerozoic Eon, during the earliest period of which, the Cambrian, oxygen-requiring metazoan life forms began to appear.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: The amount of oxygen in the atmosphere has fluctuated over the last 600 million years, reaching a peak of about 30% around 280 million years ago, significantly higher than today's 21%. Two main processes govern changes in the atmosphere: Plants using carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and releasing oxygen, and then plants using some oxygen at night by the process of photorespiration while the remaining oxygen is used to break down organic material. Breakdown of pyrite and volcanic eruptions release sulfur into the atmosphere, which reacts with oxygen and hence reduces its amount in the atmosphere. However, volcanic eruptions also release carbon dioxide, which plants can convert to oxygen. The cause of the variation of the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere is not known. Periods with much oxygen in the atmosphere are associated with the rapid development of animals.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: is the introduction into the atmosphere of chemicals, particulate matter or biological materials that cause harm or discomfort to organisms. Stratospheric ozone depletion is caused by air pollution, chiefly from chlorofluorocarbons and other ozone-depleting substances.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: Since 1750, human activity has increased the concentrations various greenhouse gases, most importantly carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. This increase has caused an observed rise in global temperatures. Global average surface temperatures were higher in the 2011-2020 decade than they were in 1850.


title: Atmosphere of Earth

text: On October 19, 2015, NASA started a website containing daily images of the full sunlit side of Earth at https://epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/. The images are taken from the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) and show Earth as it rotates during a day.


title: Callum Turner

text: Callum Robilliard Turner (born 15 February 1990) is a British actor and model. He is known for his roles as Theseus Scamander in "" and "", Bill Rohan in "Queen and Country", Eli in E4 series "Glue" and Shaun Emery in the BBC One television series "The Capture".


title: Callum Turner

text: For his performance in "The Capture", Turner received a nomination for the BAFTA Television Award for Best Actor.


title: Callum Turner

text: Turner was born on 15 February 1990 in Hammersmith and grew up in Chelsea, London. His middle name is after his mother's friend, poet David Robilliard, who died two years before Turner was born.


title: Callum Turner

text: In an interview at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, Turner said his mother instilled in him a love of film and inspired him to become an actor. He stated that having grown up on an estate, he distanced himself from the wrong crowds and was inspired to change after being affected by Shane Meadows' "A Room for Romeo Brass".


title: Callum Turner

text: Turner started his career in 2010, modelling for companies such as Next and Reebok, and in his first acting role for the short student film "Think of England" for the University of Hertfordshire Film and Television programme.


title: Callum Turner

text: He starred as Tony in "Zero", a 2011 film directed by David Barrouk and produced by Michael Riley. In 2012, he starred alongside "Waterloo Road" star Ben-Ryan Davies in the short film "Human Beings", directed by Jonathan Entwistle.


title: Callum Turner

text: In 2012, Turner was in the ITV series "Leaving", alongside Helen McCrory. Turner's performance was met with mostly positive reviews.


title: Callum Turner

text: In December 2012, Turner starred with Andrew Scott and Martin Clunes in another ITV Drama, "The Town", portraying Ashley, a troubled teen.


title: Callum Turner

text: In early 2013, Turner made a guest appearance in Showtime's historical-fiction drama television series, "The Borgias" as Calvino. He also starred in short film "Alleycats" as Eze, directed by Ian Bonhôte, and had a small role as Phillip in the second series of BBC One's "Ripper Street".


title: Callum Turner

text: In June 2012, Turner was cast in the lead role of John Boorman's film "Queen and Country". Turner stated that Boorman revealed secret and personal events from his life, to help Turner to portray his character as best as he could.


title: Callum Turner

text: In E4's whodunit series "Glue" in 2014, he portrayed Eli, a gypsy traveller, whose brother is murdered.


title: Callum Turner

text: He starred as Danny in the 2016 film "Tramps", which premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival.


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: Ben-Hur is a 1959 American religious epic film directed by William Wyler, produced by Sam Zimbalist, and starring Charlton Heston as the title character. A remake of , it was adapted from Lew Wallace's 1880 novel "". The screenplay is credited to Karl Tunberg, but includes contributions from Maxwell Anderson, S. N. Behrman, Gore Vidal, and Christopher Fry.


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: "Ben-Hur" had the largest budget ($15.175 million), as well as the largest sets built, of any film produced at the time. Costume designer Elizabeth Haffenden oversaw a staff of 100 wardrobe fabricators to make the costumes, and a workshop employing 200 artists and workmen provided the hundreds of friezes and statues needed in the film. Filming commenced on May 18, 1958, and wrapped on January 7, 1959, with shooting lasting for 12 to 14 hours a day and six days a week. Pre-production began in Italy at Cinecittà around October 1957, and post-production took six months. Under cinematographer Robert L. Surtees, executives at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer made the decision to produce the film in a widescreen format. Over 200 camels and 2,500 horses were used in the shooting of the film, with some 10,000 extras. The sea battle was filmed using miniatures in a huge tank on the back lot at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios in Culver City, California. The nine-minute chariot race has become one of cinema's most famous action sequences, and the score, composed and conducted by Miklós Rózsa, was at the time the longest ever composed for a film, and was highly influential on cinema for over 15 years.


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: Following a $14.7 million marketing effort, "Ben-Hur" premiered at Loew's State Theatre in New York City on November 18, 1959. It was the fastest-grossing, as well as the highest-grossing film of 1959, becoming the second highest-grossing film in history at the time, after "Gone with the Wind". It won a record eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Wyler), Best Actor in a Leading Role (Heston), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Griffith), and Best Cinematography – Color (Surtees); it also won Golden Globe Awards for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture for Stephen Boyd. In 1998, the American Film Institute named it the 72nd best American film and the second best American epic film in the AFI's 10 Top 10. In 2004, the National Film Preservation Board selected "Ben-Hur" for preservation by the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: In A.D. 26, Judah Ben-Hur is a wealthy Jewish prince and merchant in Jerusalem, living with his mother, Miriam, and his sister, Tirzah. The family's loyal slave, the merchant Simonides, pays a visit with his daughter, Esther. Seeing each other for the first time since childhood, Judah and Esther fall in love, but she is betrothed to another. After several years away from Jerusalem, Judah's childhood friend Messala returns as commander of the Fortress of Antonia. Messala believes in the glory of Rome and its imperial power, while Judah is devoted to his faith and the freedom of the Jewish people. This difference causes tension between the friends, and results in their split after Messala issues an ultimatum demanding that Judah deliver potential rebels to the Roman authorities.


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: During a parade for the new governor of Judea, Valerius Gratus, loose tiles fall from the roof of Judah's house. Gratus is thrown from his horse and nearly killed. Although Messala knows this was an accident, he condemns Judah to the galleys and imprisons Miriam and Tirzah. Simonides confronts Messala and is also imprisoned. Judah swears revenge upon Messala. As he and other slaves are marched to the galleys, they stop in Nazareth to water the Romans' horses. Judah begs for water, but the commander of the Roman detachment denies it to him. Judah collapses, but is revived when Jesus gives him water.


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: After three years as a galley slave, Judah is assigned to the flagship of the Roman Consul Quintus Arrius, who has been charged with destroying a fleet of Macedonian pirates. Arrius admires Judah's determination and self-discipline, and offers to train him as a gladiator or charioteer. Judah declines the offer. When the Roman fleet encounters the Macedonians, Arrius exempts Judah, among all the rowers, from being chained to the ship. Arrius' galley is rammed and sunk, but Judah frees as many other rowers as he can and rescues Arrius. Arrius believes he has lost the battle and attempts to fall on his sword, but Judah stops him. After they are rescued, Arrius is told his fleet had won a decisive victory. Arrius petitions Emperor Tiberius to free Judah, and adopts him as his son.


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: Judah becomes a champion charioteer, then returns to Judea. Along the way, he meets Balthasar and Arab Sheik Ilderim. After noting Judah's prowess as a charioteer, the sheik asks him to drive his "quadriga" in a race before the new governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate. Judah declines, even after learning that Messala will compete. Judah returns to Jerusalem. He finds Esther and learns she is not married and that she still loves him. Miriam and Tirzah contracted leprosy in prison and were expelled from the city. The women beg Esther to conceal their condition from Judah, so Esther tells Judah they died. Judah smashes his family's mezuzah, then seeks revenge by competing against Messala in the chariot race. Sheik Ilderim goads Messala into making an enormous wager on himself.


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: During the race, Messala drives a chariot with blades on the hubs to disable his competitors. He attempts to destroy Judah's chariot, but wrecks his own instead. He is dragged behind his horses and trampled by another chariot, while Judah wins the race. Before dying, Messala tells Judah to search for his family in the Valley of the Lepers.


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: Judah visits the leper colony, where he confronts Esther while she delivers supplies to his mother and sister. Esther convinces Judah to not see them. Judah visits Pilate and rejects his patrimony and Roman citizenship. He returns with Esther to the leper colony, reveals himself to Miriam and learns that Tirzah is dying. Judah and Esther take Miriam and her daughter to see Jesus, but the trial of Jesus has begun. As Jesus is carrying his cross through the streets, he collapses. Judah recognizes him as the man who gave him water years before, and reciprocates. As Judah witnesses the crucifixion of Jesus, Miriam and Tirzah are miraculously healed.


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: Judah returns to his house, where he finds Esther, and his mother and sister now restored to health. The four embrace one another and rejoice at the miracle.


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) originally announced a remake of the 1925 silent film "Ben-Hur" in December 1952, ostensibly as a way to spend its Italian assets. Stewart Granger and Robert Taylor were reported to be in the running for the lead. Nine months later, MGM announced it would make the film in CinemaScope, with shooting beginning in 1954. In November 1953, MGM announced it had assigned producer Sam Zimbalist to the picture and hired screenwriter Karl Tunberg to write it. Sidney Franklin was scheduled to direct, with Marlon Brando intended for the lead. In September 1955, Zimbalist, who continued to claim that Tunberg's script was complete, announced that a $7 million, six- to seven- month production would begin in April 1956 in either Israel or Egypt in MGM's new 65mm widescreen process, MGM Camera 65. MGM, however, suspended production in early 1956, following Franklin's resignation.


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: By the late 1950s, the consent decree of 1948 forcing film studios to divest themselves of theater chains and the competitive pressure of television had caused significant financial distress at MGM. In a gamble to save the studio, and inspired by the success of Paramount Pictures' 1956 Biblical epic "The Ten Commandments", studio head Joseph Vogel announced in 1957 that MGM would again move forward on a remake of "Ben-Hur". Filming started in May 1958 and wrapped in January 1959, and post-production took six months. Although the budget for "Ben-Hur" was initially $7 million, it was reported to be $10 million by February 1958, reaching $15.175 million by the time shooting began—making it the costliest film ever produced up to that time. When adjusted for inflation, the budget of "Ben Hur" was approximately $ in constant dollars.


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: One notable change in the film involved the opening titles. Concerned that a roaring Leo the Lion (the MGM mascot) would create the wrong mood for the sensitive and sacred nativity scene, Wyler received permission to replace the traditional logo with one in which Leo the Lion is quiet.


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: Lew Wallace's 1880 novel, "", ran to about 550 pages. Zimbalist hired a number of screenwriters to cut the story down and turn the novel into a script. According to Gore Vidal, more than 12 versions of the script had been written by various writers by the spring of 1958. Vidal himself had been asked to write a version of the script in 1957, refused, and been placed on suspension for his decision. According to Vidal, Karl Tunberg was one of the last writers to work on the script. Other sources place Tunberg's initial involvement much earlier. Tunberg cut out everything in the book after the crucifixion of Jesus, omitted the sub-plot in which Ben-Hur fakes his death and raises a Jewish army to overthrow the Romans, and altered the manner in which the leperous women are healed. According to Wyler, Vidal, their biographers (see bibliography below) and the sources that follow them, Zimbalist was unhappy with Tunberg's script, considering it to be "pedestrian" and "unshootable".


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: The writing effort changed direction when director Sidney Franklin fell ill and was removed from the production. Zimbalist offered the project to William Wyler, who had been one of 30 assistant directors on the 1925 film, in early 1957. Wyler initially rejected it, considering the quality of the script to be "very primitive, elementary" and no better than hack work. Zimbalist showed Wyler some preliminary storyboards for the chariot race and informed him that MGM would be willing to spend up to $10 million, and as a result, Wyler began to express an interest in the picture. MGM permitted Wyler to start casting, and in April 1957, mainstream media outlets reported that Wyler was giving screen tests to Italian leading men, such as Cesare Danova.


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: Wyler did not formally agree to direct the film until September 1957, and MGM did not announce his hiring until January 3, 1958. Even though he still lacked a leading man, Wyler took the assignment for many reasons: He was promised a base salary of $350,000 as well as 8 percent of the gross box office (or 3 percent of the net profits, whichever was greater), and he wanted to work in Rome again (in Hollywood on the Tiber, where he had filmed "Roman Holiday"). His base salary was, at the time, the largest ever paid to a director for a single film. Professional competitive reasons also played a role in his decision to direct, and Wyler later admitted that he wished to outdo Cecil B. DeMille, and make a "thinking man's" Biblical epic. In later years, William Wyler would joke that it took a Jew to make a good film about Christ.


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: Wyler felt Tunberg's draft was too much of a morality play overlaid with current Western political overtones, and that the dialogue was too modern-sounding. Zimbalist brought in playwright S. N. Behrman (who also wrote the script for "Quo Vadis") and then playwright Maxwell Anderson to write drafts. Gore Vidal biographer Fred Kaplan states that British poet and playwright Christopher Fry was hired simultaneously with Vidal, although most sources (including Vidal himself) state that Vidal followed Anderson, and that Fry did not come aboard until Vidal was close to leaving the picture. Vidal arrived in Rome in early March 1958 to meet with Wyler. Vidal claimed that Wyler had not read the script, and that when he did so (at Vidal's urging) on his flight from the U.S. to Italy, he was upset with the modernist dialogue. Vidal agreed to work on the script for three months so that he would come off suspension and fulfill his contract with MGM, although Zimbalist pushed him to stay throughout the entire production. Vidal was researching a book on the 4th century Roman emperor Julian and knew a great deal about ancient Rome. That book was eventually published in 1964 under the title "Julian".


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: Vidal's working style was to finish a scene and review it with Zimbalist. Once Vidal and Zimbalist had come to agreement, the scene would be passed to Wyler. Vidal said he kept the structure of the Tunberg/Behrman/Anderson script, but rewrote nearly all the dialogue. Vidal admitted to William Morris in March 1959 that Fry rewrote as much as a third of the dialogue which Vidal had added to the first half of the script. Vidal made one structural change which was not revised, however. The Tunberg script had Ben-Hur and Messala reuniting and falling out in a single scene. Vidal broke the scene in two, so that the men first reunite at the Castle Antonia and then later argue and end their friendship at Ben-Hur's home. Vidal also added small character touches to the script, such as Messala's purchase of a brooch for Tirzah and Ben-Hur's purchase of a horse for Messala. Vidal claimed that he worked on the first half of the script (everything up to the chariot race), and scripted 10 versions of the scene where Ben-Hur confronts Messala and begs for his family's freedom.


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: Vidal's claim about a homoerotic subtext is hotly debated. Vidal first made the claim in an interview in the 1995 documentary film "The Celluloid Closet", and asserted that he persuaded Wyler to direct Stephen Boyd to play the role as if he were a spurned homosexual lover. Vidal said that he believed that Messala's vindictiveness could only be motivated by the feeling of rejection that a lover would feel, and claimed to have suggested to Wyler that Stephen Boyd should play the role that way, and that Heston be kept in the dark about the Messala character's motivations. Whether Vidal wrote the scene in question or had the acting conversation with Wyler, and whether Wyler shot what Vidal wrote, remain issues of debate. Wyler himself said that he did not remember any conversation about this part of the script or Boyd's acting with Gore Vidal, and that he discarded Vidal's draft in favor of Fry's. Morgan Hudgens, publicity director for the film, however, wrote to Vidal in late May 1958 about the crucial scene, and implied there was a homosexual context: "...  the big cornpone [the crew's nickname for Heston] really threw himself into your 'first meeting' scene yesterday. You should have seen those boys embrace!" Film critic F. X. Feeney, in a comparison of script drafts, concludes that Vidal made significant and extensive contributions to the script.


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: The final writer on the film was Christopher Fry. Charlton Heston has claimed that Fry was Wyler's first choice as screenwriter, but that Zimbalist forced him to use Vidal. Whether Fry worked on the script before Vidal or not, sources agree that Fry arrived in Rome in early May 1958 and spent six days a week on the set, writing and rewriting lines of dialogue as well as entire scenes, until the picture was finished. In particular, Fry gave the dialogue a slightly more formal and archaic tone without making it sound stilted and medieval. A highly publicized bitter dispute later broke out over screenplay credits to the film, involving Wyler, Tunberg, Vidal, Fry and the Screen Writers' Guild. In 1996, the "Los Angeles Times" published a brief letter from Charlton Heston taking issue with Vidal's version which, he wrote, "irritates the hell out of me". Three months later the paper published a 1,200 word response from Vidal, which included the statement that, with regard to the controversial scene's subtext, he had been delegated to inform Boyd (who was "delighted"), but that Wyler had warned "don't tell Chuck because he'll fall apart".


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: The final script ran to 230 pages. The screenplay differed more from the original novel than did the 1925 silent film version. Some changes made the film's storyline more dramatic. The role of Esther was greatly expanded from that of the novel to provide a strong onscreen love interest throughout the film. Other changes included incorporating an admiration for the Jewish culture and people (historical and modern), as well as representing the more pluralistic society of 1950s America rather than the "Christian superiority" view of Wallace's novel (though the movie retained a strongly positive religious portrayal of Early Christianity).


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: MGM opened a casting office in Rome in mid-1957 to select the 50,000 people who would act in minor roles and as extras in the film, and a total of 365 actors had speaking parts in the film, although only 45 of them were considered "principal" performers. In casting, Wyler placed heavy emphasis on characterization rather than looks or acting history. He typically cast the Romans with British actors and the Jews with American actors to help underscore the divide between the two groups. The Romans were the aristocrats in the film, and Wyler believed that American audiences would interpret British accents as patrician.


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: Several actors were offered the role of Judah Ben-Hur before it was accepted by Charlton Heston. Burt Lancaster stated he turned down the role because he found the script boring and belittling to Christianity. Paul Newman turned it down because he said he didn't have the legs to wear a tunic. Marlon Brando, Rock Hudson, Geoffrey Horne, and Leslie Nielsen were also offered the role, as were a number of muscular, handsome Italian actors (many of whom did not speak English). Kirk Douglas was interested in the role, but was turned down in favor of Heston, who was formally cast on January 22, 1958. His salary was $250,000 for 30 weeks, a prorated salary for any time over 30 weeks, and travel expenses for his family.


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: Stephen Boyd was cast as the antagonist, Messala, on April 13, 1958. William Wyler originally wanted Heston for the role, but sought another actor after he moved Heston into the role of Judah Ben-Hur. Because both Boyd and Heston had blue eyes, Wyler had Boyd outfitted with brown contact lenses as a way of contrasting the two men. Marie Ney was originally cast as Miriam, but was fired after two days of work because she could not cry on cue. Heston says that he was the one who suggested that Wyler cast Martha Scott as Miriam, and she was hired on July 17, 1958. Cathy O'Donnell was Wyler's sister-in-law, and although her career was in decline, Wyler cast her as Tirzah.


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: More than 30 actresses were considered for the role of Esther. The Israeli actress Haya Harareet, a relative newcomer to film, was cast as Esther on May 16, 1958, after providing a 30-second silent screen test. Wyler had met her at the Cannes Film Festival, where she impressed him with her conversational skills and force of personality. Sam Jaffe was cast as Simonides on April 3, 1958, and Finlay Currie was cast as Balthasar on the same day. Wyler had to persuade Jack Hawkins to appear in the film, because Hawkins was unwilling to act in another epic motion picture so soon after "The Bridge on the River Kwai". Hugh Griffith, who gained acclaim in the post-World War II era in Ealing Studios comedies, was cast as the colorful Sheik Ilderim. The role of Jesus, whose face is never seen, was played by an uncredited Claude Heater, an American opera singer performing with the Vienna State Opera in Rome when he was asked to do a screen test for the film.


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: Robert L. Surtees, who had already filmed several of the most successful epics of the 1950s, was hired as cinematographer for the film. Early on in the film's production, Zimbalist and other MGM executives made the decision to film the picture in a widescreen format. Wyler strongly disliked the widescreen format, commenting that "Nothing is "out" of the picture, and you can't fill it. You either have a lot of empty space, or you have two people talking and a flock of others surrounding them who have nothing to do with the scene. Your eye just wanders out of curiosity." The cameras were also quite large, heavy, and difficult and time-consuming to move. To overcome these difficulties, Surtees and Wyler collaborated on using the widescreen lenses, film stocks, and projection technologies to create highly detailed images for the film. Wyler was best known for composition in depth, a visual technique in which people, props, and architecture are not merely composed horizontally but in depth of field as well. He also had a strong preference for long takes, during which his actors could move within this highly detailed space.


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: The movie was filmed in a process known as "MGM Camera 65". 1957's "Raintree County" was the first MGM film to use the process. The MGM Camera 65 used special 65mm Eastmancolor film stock with a 2.76:1 aspect ratio. 70mm anamorphic camera lenses developed by the Mitchell Camera Company were manufactured to specifications submitted by MGM. These lenses squeezed the image down 1.25 times to fit on the image area of the film stock. Because the film could be adapted to the requirements of individual theaters, movie houses did not need to install special, expensive 70mm projection equipment. Six of the 70mm lenses, each worth $100,000, were shipped to Rome for use by the production.


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: Pre-production began at Cinecittà Studios around October 1957. The MGM Art Department produced more than 15,000 sketches and drawings of costumes, sets, props, and other items needed for the film (8,000 alone for the costumes); photostatted each item; and cross-referenced and catalogued them for use by the production design team and fabricators. More than a million props were ultimately manufactured. Construction of miniatures for the entrance of Quintus Arrius into Rome and for the sea battle were under way by the end of November 1957. MGM location scouts arrived in Rome to identify shooting locations in August 1957. Location shooting in Africa was actively under consideration, and in mid-January 1958, MGM said that filming in North Africa (later revealed to be Libya) would begin on March 1, 1958, and that 200 camels and 2,500 horses had already been procured for the studio's use there. The production was then scheduled to move to Rome on April 1, where Andrew Marton had been hired as second unit director and 72 horses were being trained for the chariot race sequence. However, the Libyan government canceled the production's film permit for religious reasons on March 11, 1958, just a week before filming was to have begun. It is unclear whether any second unit filming took place in Israel. A June 8, 1958, report in "The New York Times" said second unit director Andrew Marton had roamed "up and down the countryside" filming footage. However, the American Film Institute claims the filming permit was revoked in Israel for religious reasons as well (although when is not clear), and no footage from the planned location shooting near Jerusalem appeared in the film.


title: Ben-Hur (1959 film)

text: Principal photography began in Rome on May 18, 1958. The script was still unfinished when cinematography began, so that Wyler had only read the first 10 to 12 pages of it. Shooting lasted for 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week. On Sundays, Wyler would meet with Fry and Zimbalist for story conferences. The pace of the film was so grueling that a doctor was brought onto the set to give a vitamin B complex injection to anyone who requested it (shots which Wyler and his family later suspected may have contained amphetamines). To speed things up, Wyler often kept principal actors on stand-by, in full costume and make-up, so that he could shoot pick-up scenes if the first unit slowed down. Actresses Martha Scott and Cathy O'Donnell spent almost the entire month of November 1958 in full leprosy make-up and costumes so that Wyler could shoot "leper scenes" when other shots did not go well. Wyler was unhappy with Heston's performances, feeling they did not make Judah Ben-Hur a plausible character, and Heston had to reshoot "I'm a Jew" 16 times. Shooting took nine months, which included three months for the chariot race scene alone. Principal photography ended on January 7, 1959, with filming of the crucifixion scene, which took four days to shoot.