Star Wars Fan Art Imagines Loki’s Tom Hiddleston As Young Palpatine

A new piece of Star Wars fan art imagines Loki star Tom Hiddleston making the jump to the Star Wars franchise as the younger version of Sheev Palpatine. Palpatine is of course the man who mastered the ways of the dark side of the Force and became “Darth Sidious” a Sith Lord more powerful than anyone could imagine. Palpatine was also a master of political arts, scheming and charming his way from being a senator of the Republic to the Emperor of the Galactic Empire. In short, it’s just the kind of role that a lot of fans think is perfect for Tom Hiddleston.

Moviegoers around the world really took notice of Tom Hiddleston during his second appearance as Marvel’s Loki, in Avengers. Hiddleston was given the central villain role and showed the ability to mix gravitas with wit and humor, all while chewing just the right amount to scenery to never be too self-serious or pretentious. Moreover, Hiddleston was downright frightening when verbally lashing Black Widow in a cat-and-mouse interrogation scene between the two characters – still one of the best scenes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe saga.

It’s that dark streak of Hiddleston’s character and acting ability that has kept him on Star Wars fans’ radar for years now, as a potential frontrunner to play a young version of Palpatine. It’s much the same way that a lot of Star Wars fans think that Hiddleston’s MCU teammate Sebastian Stan is a perfect stand-in for a young Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker.

Palpatine remains a looming figure in the Star Wars saga years after his story apparently ended in The Return of the Jedi (1983). The villain’s presence was so strong that Disney and J.J. Abrams decided to bring Palpatine back as the big bad villain of the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy. It was a move that surprised fans everywhere, and ultimately felt more shoehorned into the franchise canon, rather than a master plan.

Indeed, since Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker brought the Skywalker Saga to a close, Palpatine’s story has been more confusing than anything. How the Sith Lord survived, learned to clone and transfer his essence, and had a clone who had an entire family (resulting in Rey) is definitely the sort of gap-filling storytelling that Star Wars is now making bank off of, through series like The Bad Batch or Clone Wars – and soon through live-action series like Ahsoka or The Book of Boba Fett.

Star Wars canon has already laid out a half-formed explanation of Rey’s grandfather being a quasi-clone of Palpatine who fathered a family. There’s also the pivotal story of how Sidious learned the deep secrets of the Sith from his master Darth Plagueis – and then killed him. So whether it’s a prequel, a clone story spinoff, or both, there’s a lot of fertile ground for Tom Hilddleston to plow through in a Disney+ series.