Official Site confirms that Palpatine's lightning disfigured him.

"Skywalker witnessed a stunning sight: the Chancellor, cornered, with Windu looming over him with his lightsaber blade extended. Palpatine unleashed a torrent of Sith lightning at the Jedi Master, but Windu was able to deflect it back at the Chancellor. The evil energies twisted Palpatine's face as they flowed through him, scarring and disfiguring his once handsome features. His eyes burned yellow, his voice grew ragged and deep, and he became a well of dark side energies."-from starwars.com

don't know if anyone mentioned this yet.

Its been mentioned plenty of times....well, maybe not from the OS, but from other sources..

I don't care what any site says I believe that's his natural appearance...

Well you suck, my good sireuro
😛

But look at his face in your sig and compare it to his face when he melts....his face is natural looking in the sig, its just...f*cked afterwards😬

Yeah, but I like the idea that he's just so evil he's naturally ugly... The lightning thing is just real weak.

No one else melts when they get lightnig-ified...

... But I really don't wanna get into all this again. 😛

Yep, long dead argument. It was stupid how he just melted though..

Indeed... Thats shit.

Its abundantly clear that Lucas has never heard of charring or even seen/heard what happens to people even after the briefest of lightning strikes, let alone a minute long sustained strike...

And it doesn't explain Palp's change of dentistry or the fact that he was cloaking his voice/appearance, speaking in his "Emporer" voice BEFORE his transformation etc.... This stinks and i'll never accept that as the 'truth'.... puke

But force lightning isn't lightning...

Should it be lightning, it would be electrons charging into their targets and at the same time, generating heat and light.

But isn't it force, that is shot =P

Does Luke melt whe-- AHH, NO! I'm not doing this again!

Originally posted by DeVi| D0do
I don't care what any site says I believe that's his natural appearance...

I have to agree with this some what, i do believe that the lighting disfigured him, but it just turned him into his true self twisted and evil. Let's face it palpatine must be very old and he is using the dark side to slow his aging process, but inorder to not be zapped by mace with his own lightning he had to use alot of his powers therefore weakening himself and making him disfigured.
I had thought his eyes were yellow cause the darkside was flowing through him like anakin killing the nemodians and after he got his legs and arm cut off.
as for palps voice it was changing when anakin went to see him and found out he was a sith and when mace went to see him.
I think someone at LFL pulled that explanation out of their ass.

I think it's a good explanation. Anakin & Dooku turned to the dark side, and they still looked pretty much the same as they did before they turned. And true, it's not "real" lightning or Luke would have looked like a french fry.

It's also a "movie." 😉

why the heck did SW.com have to go and say that. i think thats not needed at all. they should have just let us wonder instead of explaining every god damn thing.

i wish the effect was more like in the book, where his face swelled up, then flowed down like water.

HE GETS WRINKLEY!

I think that's dumb. All of it is dumb. It was dumb in the movie....and sounds dumb in the novel because its dumb. It's a dumb idea. It's a dumb plot point...

I think it's a Lucas screw up, personally...he had no way of aging Palp a good 50 years in 25. Way to cock it up!!!

Thats so very cool...I knew that was the answer the whole time.

the reason why lukes face didn't melt was because it wasnt his forcelightning being used against him. the reason why palpatines face became a prune was because his own evil forcelighting was deflected and used against him. its very sinple but just so happens to look stupid in the movie.

Done and done, good explanation.

i don't think it has anything to do with who's lightning it is, i think it's more a matter of intensity and proximity