Palpatine's Suicide

I was an intern at Boi Studios, I was paid, even though most internships aren't, and it had some perks beyond education. To kids it might not seem like a big one, but most adults at the time would go crazy over it. Me and two other interns were in the editing room along with the lead director and sound editors for the final cut. Sometimes we would leave in some funny stuff, like "I have the high ground" or "do it". They had very recently made the and the entire staff was somewhat sapped of creativity so it took them longer to start up the season. But the delay lasted longer for more upsetting reasons. There was a problem with the Revenge of the Sith that set everyone and everything back for several months. We received the copy that was supposed to be "Attack of the Clones" and gathered around the screen to watch. So, when we saw the title card "Palpatine's Suicide" we didn't think it more than a morbid joke.While playing, a few frames repeat themselves, but the sound doesn't. Palpatine tells Anakin about Darth Plageius the wise, but Anakin cuts it short. Anakin, looking very upset, tells Palpatine that "the Senate is coming" and precedes to walk off, confusing Palpatine.

Palpatine walks back to his room and finally begins playing the lightsaber. After performing several perfect notes, Yoda and Jar-Jar Binks begin laughing outside, interrupting Palpatine yet again. Palpatine walks over to the window and shouts at the two, telling them he needs to practice for a concert he will be performing at. Yoda and Jar-Jar Binks apologize with tears in their eyes and walk back to their houses. Palpatine, unsure of himself, walks back over and begins playing his lightsaber again, this time uninterrupted. The scene then fades to red over the course of twelve seconds.

Perhaps by glitch, the same scene is repeated once more which is somewhat common in rough cuts of animation. However, this time, the eyes have been replaced with new, more realistic eyes with red pupils, clearly not real but more realistic than CGI, TV, or animated. The audio is also completely absent from this scene, save for occasional clicks.

The shot goes to Palpatine sitting on the edge of his bed, looking very forlorn. The view out of his porthole window is of a night sky so it isn't very long after the concert. The unsettling part is at this point there is no sound. Literally no sound. Not even the feedback from the speakers in the room. It's as if the speakers were turned off, though their status showed them working perfectly. He just sat there, blinking, in this silence for about 30 seconds, then he started to sob softly. He put his hands over his eyes and cried quietly for a full minute more, all the while a sound in the background very slowly growing from nothing. It sounded like a slight heartbeat. The unsettling part is at this point there is no sound. Literally no sound. Not even the feedback from the speakers in the room. He just sat there, blinking, in this silence for about 30 seconds, then he started to sob softly. He put his hands over his eyes and cried quietly for a full minute more, all the while a sound in the background very slowly growing from nothing. It sounded like a slight heartbeat.

he screen slowly begins to zoom in on his face. By slow I mean it's only noticeable if you look at shots 10 seconds apart side by side. His sobbing gets louder, more full of hurt and anger. The screen then twitches a bit, as if it twists in on itself, for a split second then back to normal. The wind-through-the-trees sound gets slowly louder and more severe, as if a storm is brewing somewhere. The eerie part is this sound, and the sobbing, sounded real, as if the sound wasn't coming from the speakers but as if the speakers were holes the sound was coming through from the other side. As good as sound as the studio likes to have, they don't purchase the equipment to be that good to produce sound of that quality.

Below the sound of the heart and sobbing, very faint, something sounded like laughing. It came at odd intervals and never lasted more than a second so you had a hard time pinning it (we watched this show twice, so pardon me if things sound too specific but I've had time to think about them). After 30 seconds of this, the screen blurred and twitched violently and something flashed over the screen, as if a single frame was replaced.

The lead animation editor paused and rewound frame by frame. What we saw was horrible. It was a still photo of a dead child. He couldn't have been more than 6. The face was mangled and bloodied, one eye dangling over his upturned face, popped. He was naked down to his underwear, his stomach crudely cut open and his entrails laying beside him. He was laying on some pavement that was probably a road.

he most upsetting part was that there was a shadow of the photographer. There was no crime tape, no evidence tags or markers, and the angle was completely off for a shot designed to be evidence. It would seem the photographer was the person responsible for the child's death. We were of course mortified, but pressed on, hoping that it was just a sick joke.

The screen flipped back to Squidward, still sobbing, louder than before, and half body in frame. There was now what appeard to be blood running down his face from his eyes. The blood was also done in a hyper realistic style, looking as if you touched it you'd get blood on your fingers. The wind sounded now as if it were that of a gale blowing through the forest; there were even snapping sounds of Thanos. The laughing, a deep baritone, lasting at longer intervals and coming more frequently. After about 20 seconds, the screen again twisted and showed a single frame photo.

The editor was reluctant to go back, we all were, but he knew he had to. This time the photo was that of what appeared to be a little girl, no older than the first child. She was laying on her stomach, her barrettes in a pool of blood next to her. Her left eye was too popped out and popped, naked except for underpants. Her entrails were piled on top of her above another crude cut along her back. Again the body was on the street and the photographer's shadow was visible, very similar in size and shape to the first. I had to choke back vomit and one intern, the only female in the room, ran out. The show resumed.

About 5 seconds after this second photo played, Palpatine went silent, as did all sound, like it was when this scene started. He put his hands down and his eyes were now done in hyper realism like the others were in the beginning of this episode. They were bleeding, bloodshot, and pulsating. He just stared at the screen, as if watching the viewer. After about 10 seconds, he started sobbing, this time not covering his eyes. The sound was piercing and loud, and most fear inducing of all is his sobbing was mixed with screams.

Tears and blood were dripping down his face at a heavy rate. The wind sound came back, and so did the deep voiced laughing, and this time the still photo lasted for a good 5 frames.

The animator was able to stop it on the 4th and backed up. This time the photo was of a boy, about the same age, but this time the scene was different. The entrails were just being pulled out from a stomach wound by a large hand, the right eye popped and dangling, blood trickling down it. The animator proceeded. It was hard to believe, but the next one was different but we couldn't tell what. He went on to the next, same thing. He want back to the first and played them quicker and I lost it. I vomited on the floor, the animating and sound editors gasping at the screen. The 5 frames were not as if they were 5 different photos, they were played out as if they were frames from a video. We saw the hand slowly lift out the guts, we saw the kid's eyes focus on it, we even saw two frames of the kid beginning to blink.