Palpatine: Reverts to true form OR damaged because of Mace

palpitine is damaged because if you look at some of the earlier pictures of him in his hood you can see his regular face

 

also no one was real exposed to lighting as long as palps, mace wasn't realy in direct contact with either. luke got it in sirts it wasn't one continuos blast. you can see lukes cloths start to smoke so if he would have gotten a little more he probly would have started to deform

 

luke gets more, and he gets it longer- palps clothes smoke also, i believe that palps was deforemd cuz it projected his rotton personality onto his face....

 

wow, i really really really like that!! seriously!! it makes a lot of sense also

 

guys, the lightning is cooking him to put it simply! you can see it course across his skin, and it's reflecting back at him becasue the lightsaber is so close!

 

yes we kno, but it doenst make sense that the lightinign deformes him and not anyone ealse, or like i posted above you could believe that it reflected his rotton personality on his face, or that it keept flowing through him or w/e the poster at the top of his page posted

 

The idea isn't that he's being damaged by lightning alone. What triggers his transformation is that fact that it's his own lightning being sent back at him. The lightning is backfiring, literally and figuratively. You also have to keep in mind that he's not just plugging into a wall socket; Force lightning isn't real lightning, it just happens to look (and to a point, behave) like it. Palpatine was drawing on his anger and hate to use the lightning (being a dark side technique, you sort of have to), and when it was fired back at him, his own anger and hatred (sort of) were being run through his body. What happened wasn't a surface scarring (like that of a burn victim), but an internal reaction that corrupted his body, aging and wrinkling it and doing all sorts of other crazy corrupting things to it.

 

i never even thought of that, i was thinking the true face revealed thing and blah blah blah, but that makes so much more sense!! thank you!! i can finally rest without tossing and turning over this subject lol

 

Well said, that is basically my take on the situation.

 

I know that a lot of people are saying that Palpatine revelead himself because no one else ever was deformed due to lightning, but no one else ever got hit in the face, in such close parameters. Anakin, in the chest for a few moments. Luke in the body, not *directly* in the face. And Yoda blocks most of it, and he only gets in in shocks, never continuosly, directly in his face.

Besides, the Visual Dictionary says that he was deformed by Sith Lightning reflected back to him. I think it is also alluded to in the Novel. (I know neither are canon, but as this is the most concrete evidence provided, other than speculation and personal theories, it will have to do for now.)

*~*Ti*~*

 

The ligntning is all over Luke and Mace and nothing happens to them. The ligntning strikes Palpatine and he turns all grey, not just his face. I doubt the lightning would do anything like that to anyone. This has more to do with Palpatine's use of the Dark Side, not the lightning burning him. It's his use of his power that deforms him.

He must have had that power bottled up for a long time, releasing it just lets loose all of his anger and hatred, revealing the evil of Sidious through the lightning. That would explain why his skin and nails turns grey and his face deforming.

 

Correct. And not only that, but Palpatine suffers no further deformation aboard
the DS II as he is frying himself and Vader at the same time.

 

I think it's a combination of using his power and getting hit back by it, rather than either of them separate. Like you said, people have been hit by Force lightning and weren't deformed, but also I think Sidious must've been able to use this power on his own before, if for no other reason than to teach his apprentices.

 

It seems to me that it's like a force-lightning loop; the more the force lightning deflect back upon him, the angrier he gets, so he amps up the lightning, and eventually it just tears him up because he has so much dark side hatred flowing through him.

 

I think by now it's basically become common knowledge that the lightening did infact actually damamge him because it made a current through him or whatever. There doesn't really seem to be much dispute about it anymore. I think the fact of the matter is that some people just prefer to believe that it was his true form (like me ). I fully understand that GL didn't intend it that way, and that all evidence basically proves otherwise, I just like the idea that it was his true form better. To me it just seems more sinister. Looking at the movies, nothing really is a solid fact, and everyone is entitled to believe what they want to. I just prefer this theory to all others. Anyways...that's just my 2 cents .

 

once again, a perfect example of people who ignore parts of the the VD to suit their theorys, in case you didnt notice there is a big paragraph on the same page- i believe its titels "two faces" and it says that he was unmasked- if you dont believe me, look here

http://img124.exs.cx/img124/9732/sidiousexplained19cw.jpg

so its useless as it contradicts itself, but not if the we accept the theory that the lightnign reflected his personality, cuz that means it deformed his face, but ALSO revealed his true face, some of you take it much to literally

also, luke got more of it, and he also got it longer, it was more than a few seconds, more than palps got it- also if you notice in some of the farther away shots, palps IS getting it all over his body, most people just htink his face only gets it cuz they show closeups of his face mostly, there is really only one good shoot that shows his whole body, and it only last 3 seconds

 

about vader being fried and not getting deformed how would you know you never realy saw his face until luke took off his mask, i remember he had all these cuts under his eyes that could have been due to the lighting flowing through him, but still vader didn't get the lighting for that long, and luke did not get it longer than palps he got it in spirts. palps got long and continuos exposer to it, were as luke got it for a bit then palps stopped and there was no charge in him, palps was tourchering luke so he just gave it to him in blast after blast so he didn't die quick. palps kept blasting because of his anger, and mace deflected it with his lightsaber so he wasn't even in direct contact with it. thats like saying obi wan should have scared in AOTC when he blocked tyrans blast od lighting. So palps got the longest continous exposer so that why he deformed, if palps had just kept frying luke with one continous blast then he two would have deformed, but like i said already luke got it in spirts, whats going to hurt you more one continous shock or a bunch of short ones.

 

Knoll:

"The strain of all this exertion is what's transforming him into the Emperor that we see later in ROTJ"

ANSWERED

 

"The strain of all this exertion is what's transforming him into the Emperor that we see later in ROTJ" - Knoll, DVD commentary.

Thanks Chozn1 for that new, most interesting excerpt from the commentary.

I guess we'll have to accept the damage theory. Palpatine is not unmasked nor fried, but deformed by the strain of unleashing his dark fury.

Why not. I only regret to see that Sidious' incredible dark side powers in that scene are formidable enough to turn him into a prune face but do Mace no harm. At that point, Sids is faking weakness as Lucas reported in the same DVD commentary. Yet it damages him more than anything else in the saga ! Go figure !

Anyway, as long as he is not literally fried by deflected lightning, that's ok with me.

Thanks again chozn1

 

It is as I stated some time ago.

 

By using the dark side power, Sidious' true identity, which he has kept under wraps, is revealed.

 

Well, I've always argued true form, clearly that's wrong according to the "official explanation." I still think unmasking makes more sense, for a whole host of reasons. And I come back to one of them: if the lightning is damaging him, why does he keep firing? I may be stupid enough to stick my finger in any electrical socket - it's another matter entirely not to pull it out once I get shocked! Does part of being a Sith involve masochism?

 

You know, it doesn't exclude the unmasking theory, strictly speaking. "The strain of all this exertion is what's transforming him into the Emperor that we see later in ROTJ". This doesn't preclude the possibility that "the strain of all this exertion" was responsible for him not being able to hold up the appearance any longer and the transformation is due to this.

Same as with the Mace vs. Palps comment by Lucas - clear statement on first sight, but if you look closer, it's completely open to interpretation. I predict that the DVD commentary won't settle anything.

 

I predict that the DVD commentary won't settle anything.

Then our worst fears have been realized. If that is so, it will be civil war without end.


if the lightning is damaging him, why does he keep firing? I may be stupid enough to stick my finger in any electrical socket - it's another matter entirely not to pull it out once I get shocked! Does part of being a Sith involve masochism?


Very true. And if Palpatine is faking weakness during the lightning struggle as Lucas says he did, why would he be damaged at all ? Why would his flesh decay if he is not in danger for real ? Why ?

Doesn't make sense.


But remember ...

... two weeks ago, Darth First posted a DVD commentary report at MF.com saying that Lucas had Sidious voice tweaked for the Vader Knighting scene because it is the first time we hear the true Sidious and he wanted to make him impressive. TheChozn1 doesn't remember that part but he told me he would be checking it out later and confirm ... or not.

It it is true, then I'd say the "mask" theory will have the higher ground


I also hope there are other comments about Sidious abilities, face, strategy, during other scenes of the movie. The commentary follows what's on screen, but sometimes Lucas gives us a wider view than just commenting image by image.

 

The "mask" is and has always been a metaphor. He was corrupted by the dark side and his handsome features are disfigured due to prolonged dark side rage, the strain of the lightning, and the deflection of the power back on his form.

The lightning triggered the deformation and the deformation is the evil within bubbling forth.

Palpatine was never concealing his hideous face behind a facial shield.