Palpatine: Reverts to true form OR damaged because of Mace

During Palps fight with Mace you can see him change before our eyes when Mace has him pinned down and Palps is trying to use force lightning.

Is the form we see Palps in his true form OR one that has been damaged because he had felt his own force lightning off of Mace's lightsabre?

Finally, if it his is true form why doesn't he revert back to it in the scenes in the senate or the rest of the movie?

He is injured. His "true form" is the same one as friendly chancellor palpatine

both.

Great question!
I love that this mystery is left a bit open ended.
I believe Palpatine was always deformed that way and he was playing with mace and Anakin.

This is his true form; the personna of Palpatine is a mask. In the novel, Palpatine basically discards 'Palpatine', saying the mild-mannered politician has served his purpose. Seeing as he now has "Unlimited Power!", there's no reason for him to hide behind his mask anymore.

It wasn?t his true form; he was deformed by the Force-lightning. As he tried to up the dosage of it in order to overwhelm Mace it actually hurt him more, melting and deforming his face.

It simply is nothing more than what Palpatine stated..he was scarred...the power force going back on him while engaged in battle with Windu aged him and scarred him...it was never his true form...maybe it revealed what he looked like on the INSIDE..EVIL..but his appearance was just Palpatine..just like Dooku was Sith and not "changed" on the outside in looks.

he was deformed by the lightning, Palpatine never looked like that before...

I can't believe this is still an issue. It is self explanatory. He is deformed by the lightning. period.

I can just see the Palpatine is not Sidious threads popping back up.

I think the book says that it actually melts his face like Palpatine tells the senate, but i think the film implies otherwise. Remember, we have been introduced to Changellings in the form of Zam Wessel--remember how her face looks as she dies? It kind of melts away and her true form is kinda wrinkled looking. Palpatine looks like a twisted, evil, sithlord version of that. I believe that part of his scheme in hiding his true identity from the jedi was also his appearance. Think about it--he uses the dark side to disguise his presense so the jedi cannot detect him; why couldn't he use the darkside to alter his appearance as well. Anything is possible with the darkside! When he uses the force lightning, the dark side is surging for such a prolonged period that his "mask" slowly fades away and his true form is revealed--giving him the perfect excuse to say "the jedi assasination attempt has left me wounded and deformed". I like this explanaition much better than him being burned from Mace's deflection of his own energy bolts.

I think this is the best topic of debate about the movie...and I dont think we are going to hear a 100% answer any time soon.

He was definitely injured by the lightning. He didn't change from happy chappy senator to prune head in a split second- the longer he was hit by lightning the more jacked up he looked. If that was how he really looked, then he would have gone straight from happy chappy senator to prune head.

Deformed. Its a pity because I was always fond of the idea that sidious gradually became warped and deformed because of the dark side energies that flowed through him. ie the dark side was slowly consuming him.

If you look at Sidious's face in the beginning when he is giving instructions his face is not deformed. There is no question, he is deformed by the lightning.

To better illustrate this I propose this line be added when Ani interupts.

Palpatine: "Help Me...........I'm melting!! melting!!"

If lightning scarred him then why doesn't Luke have any scars on him from when he is getting blasted by Palpatine for what seemed to be a long time in ROTJ?

While your theory has valid points Zombie, I don't think sith (or jedi for that matter) have a set level of "force energy". That might be true in video games, but that's strictly for gameplay value. In other words, Sidious' prolonged use of force lightning didn't necessarily drain his force powers, causing him to lose his "force-fed mask".

It?s his true self, and my God (pardon Ian) he looks good.

The visual dictionary says his real face was the nasty one and that it was revealed by the lightning attack. Take it for what its worth.

Good point imajkt- but if we want to get nit-picky- I Luke was zapped from far away, and it wasn't concentrated on any particular part of his body, whereas Palpatine was zapped right in his mug from point blank range. It was for all intents and purposes more concentrated.

Damaged by lightning. BTW, Mace beat him down.

Didn't anyone else notice that in his 'lightsabre duel' with mace, you get a quick glimpse of his face changing in there fight, you get about a '1-2 second' look of his true face then it goes back to normal, i do recommend seeing the movie again and lookin out for it, or only way to know for sure, is once the dvd is out, is to go thru the scene, frame by frame... im sure his face changes as there lightsabre's clash at one point, and considering he's 'melting his face' he doesn't seem to be in 'much pain' about it, or trying to 'avoid it' does he, i wouldn't even say mace was deflecting it, he was just trying to defend himself, the emperor made it hit him, whilst saying 'if i die, my knowledge dies with me' to get anakin to do something, was all a setup...

I think he had a mask that burned during the force lightning

Luke was just getting hit with the force lightning. Palps was straining himself, "throwing" the force lightning at Mace and in return getting it "thrown" back at him. He is deformed by it.

This is just my theory on the change.

Palpatine must have exhibited a great amount of force energy, especially dark side energy to fend off Mace's attack. The resulting lightshow may have been for Anakin's benefit...Mainly to manipulate him into thinking that the jedi were rebelling. While that is ensuing, Palpatine allows the dark side energy to disfigure him on purpose. What good are looks when you control the known galaxy?

He was freakin disfigured, he said so himself. Not everything has to have something behind it. The lightning fried his damn face.