Err, that is Ian McDarmid. He played the Emperor in Jedi, and of course Palpatine / Sidious in Phantom and Clones. They replaced the Emperor in Empire from the original actress (yep, apparently it was an old woman in makeup with composited eyes) with new footage of McDarmid. They also changed the dialogue between Vader and the Emperor, IIRC.
Hang on have u seen it? It doesnt look like him to me! It looks the same as the old one! Then again i could be blind! -A-
No it's definately not the old one. The dialogue is quite different coming form the emperor and darth vader has an extra line. It looks quite different aswell because in the orignal it was more fuzzy and the emporer was more hidden and also not as large a projection.
Er, no. I didn't take the day off and watch them back to back at all, I was making it all up to fit in with the cool kids... From the DigitalBits Review, linked to in the first post of this thread: The digital changes to Empire for this DVD release are fewer than they are in A New Hope. In fact, there are only three major changes. These include the use of Temuera Morrison as the voice of Boba Fett (which I suppose makes sense given that Boba is a clone of Jango from Episode II), the elimination of Luke's scream when he jumps to escape Vader on Cloud City (which had been a source of much debate among fans - why would he scream if he were jumping willingly?), and the use of actor Ian McDiarmid as the Emperor (replacing the old woman and voice actor Clive Revill who played the character originally). I should note that the Emperor alteration also involves a change in the scene's dialogue - one that is at first confusing. The Emperor now tells Vader that he has no doubt "the young rebel who destroyed the Death Star" is the offspring of Anakin Skywalker, to which Vader replies "How is that possible?" That doesn't seem to make sense, because we know that Vader is aware of who Luke is from dialogue earlier in the film ("That's it. The Rebels are there. And I'm sure Skywalker is with them."). I suspect, however, that we'll find out in Episode III that Anakin DOES learn of Luke's existence as an infant, and he hides this knowledge from the Emperor. What that would mean is that Vader's been waiting all these years to find Luke as an adult and turn him to the Dark Side so that they can overthrow the Emperor together - a plot Vader ultimately confesses to Luke at the end of Empire. We'll have to wait for Episode III to see how this new bit of dialogue fits in. Here's the pics to back it up as well: http://www.thedigitalbits.com/reviews3/starwarschanges02.html
