and the novel says, as someone pointed out, "Its been a long time since I have seen this face, my true face".
Its so obvious he was masking his appearance, he didn't have the Sith eyes until after the fight!!! He must have always had the sith eyes, he is a full fledged sith, so he must have been masking his appearance. Lucas was actually pretty consistent with the Sith eyes shockingly enough, Maul had them, Vader had them once he went full time (in the scene when they put the mask on him) and Palps had them.
mephistodesigns and some of the rest of you are correct about palp's appearance. He masked his true face. Hopefully, some sort of information will officially come out that tells us that Plagueis was his master, Palp. killed him, etc. Either way, Palpatine's appearance comes from the fact that he has been hiding his appearance or maybe even keeping his appearance different by "slowing down" the aging process.
the novel never said that, all it said was, "so the face of Sidious becomes the face of Palpatine" as he is putting on his black sith hood, which he wears in public from then on.
the technical book clearly says that his face is melted by force lightning and the novel describes his flesh and bone becoming fluid and flowing down his face.
the fact is, that he wanted to torture luke and kill him slowly, so the force of the lightning he was using was nowhere near the intensity of the stuff he uses in episode III. It was probably equally strong for vader (his bones glowed just like Palps' and Mace's) but his electronics melted before his flesh did, taking most of the energy of the lightning.
palpatine didnt seem to really be trying to seriously injure luke in rotj, it was more toying with him and torturing him, then when he got serious and said "now young skywalker, you will die" he let loose and ended up hitting vader, which ended up killing him. as well as that it was more to lukes body and not his face, although his face did take a decent amount i dont think the emperor was trying to do any serious damage to him. his face might already be deterorating like that anyway and he uses the force to maintain it to continue to fool the jedi, when it was struck it did alot more damage than it normally would because its only being held in a normal state by the force. i liked them showing he was toying with mace a bit in the end too. after making out that he was barely strong enough to survive even without mace finishing him he gets up and yells about his unlimited power as soon as he has secured anakins turn. then he stands up without any sign of fatigue. so assuming he was in control of the situation the whole time im guessing he wasnt worried about his face, which might mean he knew he didnt need to worry about keeping it human looking, or it could just mean that he didnt care what happened to it in the first place. he didnt seem surprised at all and didnt even bother looking at it in a mirror, or even giving it a mention, other than to the senete, which i think was more to cement their opinion of the jedi as trators. in my opinion it was a bit of his unmasking and a bit of him being injured by force lightning. without the lightning i think he would have let it deterorate anyway but the lightning it deformed it much faster than it would have naturally.
Originally posted by Decay
palpatine didnt seem to really be trying to seriously injure luke in rotj, it was more toying with him and torturing him, then when he got serious and said "now young skywalker, you will die" he let loose and ended up hitting vader, which ended up killing him. as well as that it was more to lukes body and not his face, although his face did take a decent amount i dont think the emperor was trying to do any serious damage to him. his face might already be deterorating like that anyway and he uses the force to maintain it to continue to fool the jedi, when it was struck it did alot more damage than it normally would because its only being held in a normal state by the force. i liked them showing he was toying with mace a bit in the end too. after making out that he was barely strong enough to survive even without mace finishing him he gets up and yells about his unlimited power as soon as he has secured anakins turn. then he stands up without any sign of fatigue. so assuming he was in control of the situation the whole time im guessing he wasnt worried about his face, which might mean he knew he didnt need to worry about keeping it human looking, or it could just mean that he didnt care what happened to it in the first place. he didnt seem surprised at all and didnt even bother looking at it in a mirror, or even giving it a mention, other than to the senete, which i think was more to cement their opinion of the jedi as trators. in my opinion it was a bit of his unmasking and a bit of him being injured by force lightning. without the lightning i think he would have let it deterorate anyway but the lightning it deformed it much faster than it would have naturally.
Paragraphs man!
What are you saying anyway? I'm none the wiser due to the many contradictions in that post.
Newsflash people. Lightning doesn't deform anything. It burns and shocks people. It doesn't melt skin like putty. Palpatine isn't made of wax dammit, it's skin!
I believe it was the Darkside of the Force that was slowly consuming him as he continued to use his power. He was struggling with Mace reguardless of his playing the victim... If Anakin would have stayed out of the fight Mace would have killed him.
Remember that he did Kill three other jedi like cutting through a piece of cake. I dont like how Kit Fisto got it... but hey... It happens...
He is after all a SITH LORD!
The Official Answer Is In Star Wars Insider
This post is so long, I hope people actually read far enough to find my post. The Star Wars Insider Magazine Issue 82 hit the stands this week. There is an exclusive interview with Ian McDiarmid, the actor that plays Sidious (The Emperor). The answer is on p. 58. Ian says that the Emperor is very old and very evil and that he was wearing a "carapace" which means a disguising shell. He said that he always looked evil and hideous and when Anakin turned to the dark side by attacking Mace, that's when the Emperor's true face came forward as he let evil manifest itself. Further evidence supports this theory because if you see the movie a second time and pay attention to that scene, there is a lot of dark side electricity around the Emperor, but only a little of that touches his face. His face goes through a transformation on it's own and then there are some stray bolts of electricity and smoke afterwards. This appears to also match the information found in the novel and visual dictionary in previous posts. Hope this helps solve some of the mystery.
Originally posted by Sesse
At least it didn't bother him too much.We never heard a signle complaint about his new looks.
"oh dear, now I am deformed and all... ah, but hey. POWER! ULTIMATE POWER!"
hahahahaha, exactly 😆
all of the quotes from the visual dictionary, the ROTS novel, and now SW insider # 82 state that palps has been masking his appearance for many years
also, the scene where palp's face gets messed up was referred to as "the revelation scene" or something, before the movie came out . Gl said somthing about "the scene where palp's true appearance is revealed". he also said somthing about palps being "much older than you would think". sorry, I don't have any links or exact quotes, but there's enough evidence anyways 😉
the following facts, while debatable, also suggest that palp's face was not "burned" or "scarred":
-Luke was hit with lightning for a much longer time in rotj, and he had no signs of scarring or changes in appearance. although palpatine's body was smoking, luke's was also smoking, yet he had no physical deformities
-in aotc, when obi-wan blocks dooku's lightning, the bolts just disappear, they do not bounce back (palps and mace were right next to each other tho, so this isn't really proof)
-yoda was shot in the face with lightning by palps so powerful that he flew backwards into the wall, but again, he had no physical wounds
one more thing:
palpy's whole story about darth plagueis suggests that palpatine has been using the power he spoke of to prolong his own life. the way he smirks when he speaks of plagueis' apprentice makes it seem like he is recalling the time when he murdered his master and took his power
in conclusion, it seems fairly obvious that palpatine has been using the dark side powers he learned from darth plagueis to grant himself extra long life, and make his appearance seem younger than he really was.
when he is hit with his own lightning, his disguise is dropped and his true appearance is revealed.
he then tells the republic that he was "deformed" by the jedi, in order to explain away his freakish looks, as well as to generate sympathy towards himself and anger toward the jedi.
it makes perfect sense
😮💨
When palpatine is "melting" during the duel b/w himslef and windu, he says, quitely, "I'm too weak.... I can't keep it up much longer..." This suggests either of two things:
1) He is being damaged by the lightning and he can't sustain teh lightnning
2) His powers are draining as he is using the full brunt of his force lightning abilities, which is weakening his force induced youthful appearance and stamina
I would go with 2, as this seems most plausible, considering all prior evidence about lightning not causing similar disfigurment (cf. obi-wan vs. dooku, sidious vs. luke).
Furthermore, and most importantly, the discussions palpatine had with anakin when he talked about Darth Plageus and his apprentice also indicate this fact. Firstly, palps talks to anakin about plageus, his apprentice and the technique of cheating death, and hinted, by his wry smile as though he was remembering the story from a first person perspective. Secondly, after windu was killed and anakin swore his allegiance, palps (now revealed as sidious), mentions that he will help anakin in discovering the secrets of giving life.
Re: Palpatine's Transformation
Originally posted by DarkAge
What do you think was the cause of Palpatine's transformation to the "deformed" man that is the Emperor? My theory is that Palpatine is in fact much older than he looks, and was using the unnatural powers the Dark Side gave him to maintain youthfulness (hence his ability to fight like that). When he used the force lightning on Windu, his ability to keep this appearance disappeared. Does anyone have a different theory?
Nope. I see it the same way too....
Originally posted by neo313
hahahahaha, exactly 😆all of the quotes from the visual dictionary, the ROTS novel, and now SW insider # 82 state that palps has been masking his appearance for many years
also, the scene where palp's face gets messed up was referred to as "the revelation scene" or something, before the movie came out . Gl said somthing about "the scene where palp's true appearance is revealed". he also said somthing about palps being "much older than you would think". sorry, I don't have any links or exact quotes, but there's enough evidence anyways 😉
the following facts, while debatable, also suggest that palp's face was not "burned" or "scarred":
-Luke was hit with lightning for a much longer time in rotj, and he had no signs of scarring or changes in appearance. although palpatine's body was smoking, luke's was also smoking, yet he had no physical deformities
-in aotc, when obi-wan blocks dooku's lightning, the bolts just disappear, they do not bounce back (palps and mace were right next to each other tho, so this isn't really proof)
-yoda was shot in the face with lightning by palps so powerful that he flew backwards into the wall, but again, he had no physical woundsone more thing:
palpy's whole story about darth plagueis suggests that palpatine has been using the power he spoke of to prolong his own life. the way he smirks when he speaks of plagueis' apprentice makes it seem like he is recalling the time when he murdered his master and took his powerin conclusion, it seems fairly obvious that palpatine has been using the dark side powers he learned from darth plagueis to grant himself extra long life, and make his appearance seem younger than he really was.
when he is hit with his own lightning, his disguise is dropped and his true appearance is revealed.
he then tells the republic that he was "deformed" by the jedi, in order to explain away his freakish looks, as well as to generate sympathy towards himself and anger toward the jedi.
it makes perfect sense😮💨
Quoted for truth.
