CT Palpatine's body evolving?

Is there a difference?

 

A Kwa, maybe.

It's not stated in the DVD commentary ( I haven't seen the Blu-ray ). The only places I know of where the "true form" theory was presented were Ian's Insider 82 interview and WOTC's "Jedi Counseling 72". There's also the book Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader in which it was said that Palpatine's ROTS disfigurements were "really nothing new".

 

The time to edit the above message has expired, so I'll make the correction here: It was Jedi Counseling 71, not 72.

 

I don't particularly care what the EU says, but I will say there is virtually no evidence whatsoever to support this theory in the movies. No other Sith from the movies engages in this activity and with Palpatine it is quite clearly a one-way transformation. At no point prior to zapping himself is he ugly and at no point after zapping himself does he revert to being handsome. Even when he is wearing his Darth Sidious garments in E1 and E2, alone with Maul or Tyranus, he is still clearly the dashing senator from Naboo.

 

Star Wars has the 2 scariest villains in the history of cinema, Darth Vader and Palpy.

 

Yes, but the people who supported the "mask" theory cite that while lightning may have deformed his flesh, it couldn't have been responsible for things like the gnarly teeth and nails and his red eyes. At the very least, I think it'd be a combination of the two.

 

Yellow eyes are well established as being a result of the dark side empowering the Sith, as Maul has them and Anakin switches back and forth on Mustafar. That's not a disguise so much as the evil taking a hold when they surrender to the rage and hate. As to the teeth, look closely and you can see the lightning bolts hitting him in the mouth. The fingers, well, that's where the bolts come from. Palpatine has far more rage than Dooku did.

 

Why do Sith eyes turn yellow?

 

It's just a part of the dark side's natural effects on the body.

 

I'm not completely sold on the teeth and fingers; I don't see how redirected lightning would cause crooked, yellow teeth and cause fingernails to grow and become grimy.

Though I agree with the eyes, it seems harder to explain why they appear yellow at some points, but not others. Sidious was still the hate-fueled Sith when he was posing as a senator/chancellor. There was some degree of manipulation involved, as his default state in Return of the Jedi is constantly yellow eyes.

 

Dooku's eyes never turned yellow. Is he semi-evil? Quasi-evil? The Diet Coke of evil? Just one calorie- not evil enough!

 

The beer explanation is that the lightning doesn't behave exactly like normal lightning. When you're dealing with lightning that can be conjured from one's fingertips, it's a safe bet that it won't work like you might expect

As for Palpatine's yellow eyes, when he was a Senator/Chancellor, he had to hide his Sith attributes. As the Emperor, he no longer had anything to hide.

 

I guess we're supposed to believe that Dooku had more humble reasonings for joining the Sith, and wasn't in it for selfish reasons (as had been the reason throughout history). Of course, the OOU explanation is that evil eyes would immediately kill any suspense to the question of if he's evil or not.

 

I suppose for the same reason Palps' eyes don't change when he's playing the part of noble policitian...gotta keep that mask on to manipulate the masses.

 

It's not really grimy in ROTS. The nail growth is just an exaggeration of the skin's transformation everywhere else. Just as his skull changes shape, so do his nails increase in length. The teeth are just damage

Note that Anakin's eyes change as he's killing the Confederacy leadership on Mustafar. That is his rage boiling over for three years of pain and suffering to Padme and to the galaxy at large. His eyes could have turned on Tatooine with the Tuskens. We don't know for certain. But we do on Mustafar. And his eyes change again when Obi-wan has wounded him, before he is catches fire. But then his eyes revert back to normal when Palpatine finds him. I suspect that when the anger is held on to, and the hate flows, then the eyes change. Especially the greater the hatred and anger. Dooku had anger, but I don't think it was nearly as great as it was for the others. Palpatine tapped into the darkness when he was deformed and never let go. Hence they were always yellow. When he was hiding in plain sight, he was doing his best to submerge his true feelings, lest they alert the Jedi.

 

Can you tell me where I can find this passage in the Making of... book? A page number would be nice if you can.

 

Luke getting hit by copious amounts of lightning in ROTJ and not transforming into a monster.

You're welcome.

 

Ah, but there's a difference. First, Palpatine doesn't hit Luke with a full strength blast until he says, "Now you will die." When Palpatine blasted Mace, he hit him full bore. Second, the energy was being reflected back at him. That caused the disfigurement.

 

How do you really know there's any difference, beyond speculation? Luke was still hit for a long enough time at full strength, to the point where we should have seen him "transformed" at least to some extent by the example of ROTS. But he didn't transform at all, just like any other victim of lightning over the years in the all-inclusive continuity, including Maul and Savage, and excepting only Palpatine. This implies that Palpatine may be a special case. We also have the issue of his teeth, nails and eyes changing to their "monstrous" appearance, and for whatever it's worth Sidious already had the unsightly teeth in Tartakovsky's Clone Wars. According to Ian McDiarmid, going back and forth between the two forms during the film was considered.

 

Really? I've never heard that tidbit before. Wonder how they would've pulled that off (the transformations probably wouldn't have been shown onscreen).

 

I never liked the theory of Palpatine's "mask". The metaphor of a mask hiding evil is so much cooler than the idea of the actual force being a literal mask

 

The difference between the two cases are twofold:

1) The lightning was reflected by Mace's lightsaber. The saber's energy could have amplified the lightning's energy.
2) Even accounting for the rebound, Palpatine was closer to Mace than he was to Luke. That also affects the lightning's power.

 

It would be a product of what the EU calls "Sith alchemy" as opposed to pure Force.

That should be another "could have". Neither of those contentions have been backed up anywhere, for whatever that's worth; they're fan workarounds designed to patch the holes in "scarred by the lightning".

 

I wouldn't hold up the cartoon in that regard since Palpatine never does it in the rest of the films. And while it was in consideration, it never happened. Thus in TPM, AOTC and the first scene in ROTS, Palpatine's face is normal while the hood is pulled over his face. There was also consideration of having it happen over time, which is why Palpatine looks sickly in AOTC and not so much in ROTS.

 

The cartoon is just another source, like Sithisis and Dark Lord, which indicates that Sidious' "disfigurements" predate the lightning incident.

Ian obviously knows this, yet he still claims that Sidious looks the way he does because he is "very old and very evil", not because of lightning damage. ( On a related note, John Knoll said that Sidious' apparent transformation was due to his "exertion" as opposed to lightning damage. )

Which is consistent with either theory.

Palpatine's improved appearance in ROTS only serves to undermine "scarred by the lightning" further. Why is Palpatine already sickly-looking in AOTC if he isn't hit by the lightning until ROTS? Palpatine's AOTC appearance certainly "happened" in that by the time of ROTS it was too late to take anything out of AOTC.