Palpatine: Reverts to true form OR damaged because of Mace

"Lightning DOES NOT DEFORM.

If it did, Luke would be one ugly son-of-a-!@#."


Have you seen Mark Hamill's face now? I definitely think it had an effect.

Seriously though, I think Palpatine is deformed by the lightning. His voice is really screwed up after it, the guy sitting next to me laughed when he first starts to talk. It definitely didn't sound like his old evil self.

 

If he hadn't have wanted Anakin to witness the scarring of his face and the Jedi's treachery, then Mace would have gone out like Kit and Kolar and Tiin.

No. No. No.

Mace legitimately defeated Palpatine in combat. The reasons have been discussed many times in various threads here, though I'm sure there will always be debate.

 

It's his true form. He's completely lying to the Senate members about being "deformed".

And BTW, Mace totally owned Palpatine during their duel.

 

I don't want to believe the nice Palpatine's face was just a mask. I want to think it was the lightning.. but here are the facts, which I haven't sorted out yet; maybe listing them will help me.

-People who take the scene at 'face value' (pun intended, lol) believe exactly what they (and Anakin and the Senate) are supposed to. He lost to Mace and was deformed.

-People who are on to Palpatine understand that he was in control the whole time. I think that is emphasized in the fact that he slashed up 3 jedi in seconds. With only Mace to worry about, he stepped it down a notch to stall until Anakin came (which he knew would happen otherwise he wouldn't just sit waiting to be arrested).

I'm of the second opinion. Not only was he stalling, but he used the lightning to provoke Mace (who originally wanted to arrest him) to kill him, and thus force the decision on Anakin then and there. Now our question is whether the lightning was melting a mask or melting his real face. And because I do believe he had control of (and wanted an excuse for) the situation, he let it happen. The mask idea logically fits with the second opinion, but here are my problems with it:
-Sidious in TPM and AOTC looks fine
-Dooku looks fine
-Palpatine looks fine even while fighting Mace
-If it were a mask he could go back and forth, right?

Arguments for the mask:
-His eyes and voice obviously didn't 'melt'...
-Exactly how old is Palpatine and when was Darth Plagus?
-His personality was certainly unmasked. Lightning doesn't change Jeckyll to Hyde...

Anyway, there are probably more arguments. I want to believe Palpatine allowed himself to be deformed, not unmasked, but I can't explain all these arguments. I don't know what to think...

 

Even before the prequels, I had always thought Palpatine was much older than a normal human and was using the darkside to stay alive much longer than is naturally possible.

Given what Palpatine tells Anakin about his former master, I would like to think that the deflected force lightning was reversing some of this aging process.

 

This is his true form....nothing else makes sense.
He transforms himself to gain symphathy from Anakin(who believes he's deformed by lighting like everybody else does) and later to gain support from the senate. That's why he doesnt change back to that "normal" face ever again. That would reveal his lies right!? That deep dark voice he gets just right after I believe is some sort of Dark force persuasion that he uses to fully convert Anakin....

 

For those of you who are pointing to Palpatine's strange voice after Mace's death as evidence it was actual damage... note, his voice starts to go through puberty before the transformation.

"I AM THE SENATE."

"NO NO NO YOU WILL DIE."

He was starting to "bubble."

 

This is kind of off topic, but did anyone else think that Anakin should have fought Mace? At least for a little bit. When SLJ was on Letterman he said he fought "outside" so I assumed that was when Anakin stepped in, not when Sids was by the window.

I

 

It really wouldn't have been nessecary for him to fight Mace. Just a fanboy thing that wouldn't add anything to the film.

 

Yeah, I guess thats why they put it in the video game.

 

I say he was damaged, he didnt look like that before in I and II

 

I think they also wanted to make a point that Palpatine was just faking exhaustion at that point, so instead of Anakin finishing off Mace, Sidious suddenly springs to life and pwns him.

 

It would be out of character for Palpatine NOT to be faking or manipulating the situation. His greatest power is ability to mislead and manipulate people and events to his advantage.

 

i am going to have to go on the side of that was his true form. i have read somewhere and it was brought up before that he lets his true form come to life during this time. and if he was being disfigured wouldnt you think he would want to move away, stop using the lighting, or something for it to stop. he was playing games with anakin for him to turn on windu.

also once he stands up he is not once a bit concerned about what has happened to him, since he knows that is what he really looks like.

as for him not chaning back. simple. he used he disfigured face as evidence that he was attackec and should get sympathy because of it.

 

JayCat101 said that,

"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 thought I read somewhere that only the administrators could post threads in this forum.

 

Palpatine is destroyed by the lightning and Sidious is revealed to be evil incarnate. The lightning triggers the transformation but does not cause it... it is his true evil persona bubbling forth.

 

if palps was deformed by lightning, why wasn't anakin, or yoda, or luke especially?

 

I really wished they didnt have his face disfigured and just made his nasty looks out to be because of age and the Darkside in the OT

 

Visually the movie explains it as being melted by the lightning. You can interpret it any other way, but the movie is the movie and that's what happens.

 

The premise is indeed lost on the effect ILM applied.

 

yodaluke-wan said, "and if he was being disfigured wouldnt you think he would want to move away, stop using the lighting, or something for it to stop."

I have to agree with those who said that Palpatine reverted to his true self because it's hard to argue against yodaluke-wan's logic in the quote above.

 

I'm new. So, who do I ask if only administrators can post threads in this forum?

 

He's damaged because of the lightning. If it was his true form, why does he suddenly revert now? If it was merely his use of the darkside, surely that would have already twisted him out of shape. And don't say he can revert at will as he changes between his two personas, ie his Sith Lord and his senator- because if that were the case, the hologram Sidious we saw before would have been all deformed too.

The new appearance is indeed symbolic of the ugliness of his soul and the face of the darkside, but literally, it happens because he gets fried by such powerful lightning at such a close range.

 

Palpatine was going to revert back and forth in ROTS but that was changed.

This wasn't decided until between AOTC and ROTS. Originally, George was going to have Ian slowly age throughout the prequels, but decided to go with the evil persona coming forth while using intense dark side powers, hate and anger.

I admit though that the FX look like it is entirely the lightning that does it, but we know this does not make any sense unless you consider his lightning more powerful than Dooku's.

 

swfan27 there was a ban, but I believe it is lifted. Try to post a new thread. If it works, you can do it.

Whoever says they can't believe this is being debated completely missed the point. While watching that scene I was thinking, "how much of this is real and how much is Palps manipulating this.
So far in this discussion people have mentioned 3 sources of material saying that Palp was a mask and wrinkley sideous was the true form. Those of you with access, please give us exact quotes from the visual guide, the novel and Ian's interview. Also, Can anyone confirm that prostetics were used on Sideous in Episodes 1 and 2. He looked more wrinkly (more like the emperor) when he had his sith robes on than when he was playing palpatine, but I could be mistaken. If prosthesis was used, we can assume that while in his sith guise he changes his face. We also can assume that his eyes and probably his teeth change due to being a sith, and not because of lightining. If make-up was used in 1 or 2, or if all of the sources can be confirmed, then we must believe that the wrinkles were his true form and he allowed everyone to think it was damage caused by the jedi. It makes him a greater manipulator.
SithLard has already quote Ian's interview:
Let's quote Ian:

Did George ever give you advice on how to approach playing the role?

"George once said a really useful thing when I began playing Palpatine (in The Phantom Menace), and I don't know if he remembers this. He said, "In a sense, your eyes are contact lenses." In other words, the Palpatine character was the most artificial - it was as if they grafted his face and put in (his) eyes. Because the real Palpatine is the one who bursts forth at a calculated moment in Episode III just after persuading Anakin to kill Mace (Windu). That is when the true person comes out, letting the evil fully manifest itself. The Emperor that you see in the last film looks like he does because he's very old and very evil - it is what he always looked like. He just had this carapace of looking like a fairly ordinary guy, a politician that smiled a bit, and so on."

Was there always the intention to show Sidious as he appears at the end of the film?

"I dont think George had made up his mind when we started shooting whether to contintually show Lord Sidious as he really is after his initial tranformation or if Sidious would go back and forth with his appearance. I (believe) when George finally saw Dave's wonderful makeup he decided that constantly changing Palpatine's appearance would be a step backward. So the moment in the film where I make the tranformation is the way I appear until the end. It's an interesting sort of study in schizophrenia really - the nice guy that you saw was revealed later in the monstrous mask as the self, the Sith self.

Sidious actually allowed Palpatine to come out, not the other way around, which works in reverse to what audiences are used to seeing.