Shouldn't Luke have a messed up face?

My take on this is:

(i) It's something like the Biblical quote "it is what comes OUT of a man that corrupts him." Palpatine is all fricked up because all that evil is coming through and out of him. So it fargles him up (because he has embraced it), but Luke is innocent, so all it does is give him pain, because he's like an opposite polarity.

(ii) It's not just zapping him, it's draining him because it's leaving his body (I mean, okay, he also got zapped by his own electrics, but I think it's more a matter of having to put up a struggle to break through Mace's desfenses than backwash which is disfiguring him; rather - he is being drained. He may be lying about the extent of this, but I still think it holds true).

(iii) It could also be that his power was helping sustain a false youthful benign "good" appearance, hiding his true evil ugly shape, a bit like a Portrait of Dorian Gray kind of thing.

(iv) I need a job.

Well if we are going to think through that much I honestly believe Lucas felt he had to make up some excuse for Sidious being uglier in ROTJ.
However, why he even cares is beyond my comprehension..

Couldn't he have, like, practised with tin cans in his garage or something?

Originally posted by Lord Shadow Z
That really makes no sense. Why would Sith lightning hurt or disfigure a Sith? (especially the one using it) 😕

Sith lightning could basically described as an expulsion of pure hate let loose in this energy form-why would it hurt or disfigure someone who thrives on the same emotions?

excuse the rambling...

GL didn't know his lightning idea would scar skin. And frankly, how many among the masses actually asked themselves:

"Hmm, I wonder why the Emperor's face melted, but Luke's didn't?"

No-one except the hardcore fans who look at this stuff actually give a rat's ass. So the melting face was a great idea that worked--moviewise.

I just WISH Lucas had put a scene in when Windu and chums go to Palpatines office and he stands up and says something like"Now you will see my true form etc etc blah blah" and turns into wrinkly Palpatine before them. THAT would have saved a lot of sleepless nights for the nitpickers. Of which I'm one incidentally.

This just adds credence to the arguement that the lightning didn't melt Palpatine's face. That instead it was his true face coming out, buried down like he hid his power from the Jedi, in full view of them.

Originally posted by Tangible God
Continuity Error.

GL didn't know his lightning idea would scar skin. And frankly, how many among the masses actually asked themselves:

"Hmm, I wonder why the Emperor's face melted, but Luke's didn't?"

No-one except the hardcore fans who look at this stuff actually give a rat's ass. So the melting face was a great idea that worked--moviewise.

I agree with you, it was a continuity error but still even to the most simplest of minds a direct burst of lightning-like energy would still leave some kind of mark on the skin.

I don't really care about this topic either and I'm okay with the explanation but it is a reasonable point to bring up.

I don't know, but lightning never seems to kill anybody. It is shot all the time, and nobody likes to get hit by it, but they always live through it. The only exception i guess may be Vader, but honestly, i never made the connection that the lightning killed him, b/c it was being shot up into the air. I kind of thought he just dies from being out of the suit. So we actually have no proof that force lightning actually kills people.

Originally posted by Red Superfly
Can I buy some pot off some of you?

Me too.

why is Luke's hair always like that?? is it hot oiled? rebonded? even though if he's electrocuted already, why isn't the hair messed up? it's still 'beautiful and flowing'....

Originally posted by truejedi
The only exception i guess may be Vader, but honestly, i never made the connection that the lightning killed him, b/c it was being shot up into the air. I kind of thought he just dies from being out of the suit. So we actually have no proof that force lightning actually kills people.

I think the lightning did kill Vader but in a roundabout way- by shorting out the mechanical parts in the suit that were keeping him alive.

Thats just a guess don't quote me on it or anything... GL with have, or is going to find some reason for it on his next super-deluxe digitally-enhanced DVD edition of... THE SAME FILMS.

Originally posted by adamrubin
palpatine got lightning in the face luk egot lightning on his body

My excuses for Luke not shriveling like a prune...

1) Palpatine's face melted not because of the lightning, but due to the intensity at which he was using his connection to the Dark Side; it corrupted his mortal form

2) Palpatine was using his strongest blasts on Mace Windu, who was struggling to fend it off; he was merely torturing Luke with weak yet extremely painful blasts; apparently it still gave Luke some bone damage

I've got this whole idea of force lighting and it's biological effects that i'll post one of these days. but yeah, palps was starting out weak and slowly amplifying the lightning as a form of torture and never got anywhere near the distance and intensity that he took in ROTS. for people that argue about palps' nails and teeth. looking at vader, mace windu, and luke's teeth. it can be said that force lightning superheats the bones. so, couldn't it be said that palp's teeth became rotten cause the lightning burned of the enamel, exposing the dentine, and that his fingernails didn't grow, there was just so much power being channeled through his fingers and being reflected back that there was some kind of rapid osteoperosis and his finger bones shrank? he stopped not because he was out of power, but because eventually his eyeballs would start to boil and his brain would cook inside his superheated skull.

Christopher Lee was unscathed by channelling force lightning though.

He stopped because it would do him no good to shrivel up like a raisin.

christopher lee was using a very low current, with one arm, and none of it was being refelcted at him.

Originally posted by Darth Jello
so, couldn't it be said that palp's teeth became rotten cause the lightning burned of the enamel, exposing the dentine, and that his fingernails didn't grow, there was just so much power being channeled through his fingers and being reflected back that there was some kind of rapid osteoperosis and his finger bones shrank? he stopped not because he was out of power, but because eventually his eyeballs would start to boil and his brain would cook inside his superheated skull. [/B]

Then he shoulda gone or for broke and becomed Emperor Gelatine! 🙄

And dead before becoming Emperor! 🙄

Originally posted by Darth Jello
christopher lee was using a very low current, with one arm, and none of it was being refelcted at him.