PT Did Palpatine "allow" force lightning to scar himself?

Don't forget about the teeth, he goes from perfectly fine teeth to decayed teeth.

 

I intended that to be covered under the "etc."

 

When I first saw ROTS, I thought it was Palpatines true form coming out, that the unnatural aspect of the Dark Side has it's toll. Before Palpatine changes, he has what we would think are natural eyes, natural teeth, natural finger nails. After the transformation he doesn't looked scarred or burned, he looks aged. Yellow nasty nails that grew longer like claws, aged wrinkles in his face, decayed teeth where once there were nice white teeth, however the kicker are the eyes, the eyes to me meant something. Especially later in the movie when Anakin has the same eyes. They've been called Sith eyes as meaning they are brought on by the Dark Side.

So to my point, if Palpatine's transformation was a scarring or wounding to his physical appearance, than why do the eyes change? If the transformation was a result of scarring, then why don't we see his eyes change back after the attack and time have passed? Anakin's eyes change back after he is done with his rampage, then come back when he is enraged on the lava bank. They then are back to normal again as he is getting fitted for the helmet. So why does Palps change during the attack, and stay after the attack. The conclusion I came too was he no longer had the need to hold up his "Palpatine" appearance. His complete corruption by the Dark Side took it's toll on him, and he no longer needed the look of a politician. The dropping of the mask during the attack was part of the act of weakness to show Anakin that he had to make a quick decision. It was all an act on the part of Palpatine, Lucas has even said he was faking being too weak.

Furthermore, during that scene Palpatine took a deflected lightning attack, not a direct attack which can be argued as being weaker than a direct attack. That argument aside he took a good 40 seconds of lightning. Go forward to ROTJ, and during the final lightning assault on Luke, Luke takes 23 seconds of sustained direct lightning, with no physical deformities. Palpatine starts changing well before the 25 second mark, so why does Luke seem unscathed physically? Same lightning from the same guy. If a sustaiined lightning attack causes physical deformities, than surely Luke would have something, but, he didn't

I don't know what the right answer is, I have my opinion from my observations of the movie.

 

In the YA novelization, Anakin, while watching it happen, is thinking "Palpatine's aging rapidly".

 

sidious used the dark side for about 46 years by rots. vader used the dark side from 19 bby to 4 aby in rotj, so he used the dark side for 23+ years and he doesn't look like palps. he doesn't look half that bad either.

dooku was a sith from 32 bby to 19 bby. 13 years. no visible signs at all.

maul was a sith from 53 bby to at least 20 bby. 33 years. only visible signs are the yellow eyes. maybe the teeth. technically maul, having been trained from childhood, should be completely shriveled up like a raisin.

the only thing separating palps is his lightning battle.

 

btw here's palps charring Gentis to death with his lightning powers.

Suddenly, he was wracked with Force lightning, attacked by the Emperor himself. As he screamed and clutched his son to his chest, his body was ravaged by Palpatine's dark side power, and he was left a charred husk.

 

Yellow eyes are not stabile. Anakin's eyes in RotS is proof of this.
Also in Sidious persona, Palpatine's eyes changed many times in TCW ;



And here ;



And for lightning scars, deflecting ligtning from lightsaber in close range is different thing than taking it directly from 10 or 5 meters imo.

 

Exactly my point about the eyes, the two examples you pointed out are pre-ROTS. Where we know Palpatine has normal eyes. So why after the lightning did they not go back to normal if they are not a stable appearance? What would his eyes have anything to do with being "burned" by lightning. After the fight in ROTS and through the rest of the movies (into the OT) he has yellow eyes. Also, what does being burned by Lightning have to do with fingernails growing, or teeth decaying?

Like I said before I don't know what the answer is because there are good points for both pov's. I would think that if Lucas ever came out and gave an answer it would be one that would not make everyone happy but would have to accept.

 

The years of use are good points, but, again there is no explanation why Luke doesn't look any worse for wear after getting hit for a sustained 23 seconds of direct lighting in ROTJ, and in fact getting hit with shorter bursts before that. No burns, no deformities etc. Luke just kinda pops back up and shrugs it off.

And as for the comic, it says that Palaptine's target was charred to death, there is just no way anyone can argue that Palpatine looks charred. Anakin is charred, Palpatine is aged. Fingernails don't grow and teeth just don't decay from lightning. No blisters, no open wounds, in fact Palpatine just pops back up and starts giving orders. During the lightning attack in fact Palpatine is holding a conversation with Anakin, well not necessarily a conversation but he is pleading with Anakin with not a lot of pain in his voice. When Luke was getting zapped he was in pain and could only blurt out cries for help in between his agony. Nothing like that in Palpatine's voice as he is supposedly getting ravaged and burned.

As I said a post to another member, I don't know what the answers are, you bring up very good points, but, I think I have as well. It's one of those things that if Lucas ever says anything one of us or all of us are going to scratch our heads and go huh?

Just another point I want to bring up, and that is the motif that Lucas uses through out the PT's and that is of the Devil. Maul has attributes that Lucas acknowledge are motifs of the devil, that he wanted attached to the character to elicit that subconscious response that he is evil. Mustafar is a motif of Hell, and Sidious (the Devil) comes to Hell to save Anakin. Anakin makes a deal with Sidious, essentially pledging himself to Sidious in exchange for something that Anakin wants. Very similar to someone that signs a contract with the Devil and sells their Soul for some material and greedy possession. In this case Anakin sold his soul to Sidious (The Devil). The point I'm getting at is that in literature, there are many examples of the Devil disguising himself to gain an advantage over people. While I am not a Biblical Scholar and won't try to come across as one, I do know there is a story about the Devil disguising himself as an Angel. So what we might have in ROTS, is a continuation of the Devil motif by Lucas, where Palpatine (The Devil) loses his disguise or allows it to be shown to illicit a response from Anakin?

Just some thoughts... not trying to tell you that you are wrong, because I don't know if you are. I'm just trying to show where I lean and why...

 

This was something that was probably done on the fly, when Lucas wanted to show Palpatine looking like he did in ROTJ. If you look at Palpatine in Episode 2 you can see he was going for the whole Dark Side or stress eating him alive, because he looks about 10 years younger for Episode 3.

The worst tragedy was the awful makeup/prosthetics used for him in EP3. You think 20 years later they would be as good or better, but they look worse.





Vs

 

And then, when addressing the Senate, he gets to use his appearance as evidence of the Jedi attack! Bonus.

I've seen it said somewhere that ROTS was like the "old school monster movie" of the saga; it may even have been on one of the commentaries. In this vein, Palpatine reminds me of Coppola's Dracula, who he even resembles in one scene. In other words, he may have multiple forms: a normal-looking form and another ( true? ) form which is monstrous in appearance.

 

It is Palpatine true form. During the Plaguies anovel, Palpatine had asked if he would become like plaguies scarred and the yellow eyes, and Plaguies said yes it will happen to u. U can read the novel on Playstore or buy it on Amazon.

 

Here is the part ;

Plagueis was not sure.

 

I've seen evidence pointing to the two main theories: lightning scars or revealed form.There's so much evidence for both theories, that neither one could be true. Evidence from one theory cancels out the other theory, and vise-versa.

Perhaps we could combine the two theories, using two essential pieces of evidence: the excerpt from the Plaguies novel and Luke's experience with sith lightning.

Plagueis said that in order to properly use sith lightning, you had to be on both the giving and the recieving ends of it. Luke only suffered the recieving end, he never actually used sith lightning. Palpatine suffered scarring. Luke did not.

The only logical theory that can be distilled from this is that by taking and recieving sith lightning, Palpatine's appearance is forever changed, while Luke, having only experienced half of this equation, does not suffer the transformation.

Any other suggestions?

 

to me this says it's the lightning that does it.

it's interesting. plagueis alludes to ommin who was a user of lightning and dark magic which made his appearance change. darth sion who kept himself from dying with the dark side and who looked like a broken corpse because of its use. also darth nihilus who because of his use of dark side powers no longer even had a physical body. plagueis says of himself that his appearance comes from using lightning.

this says to me that using different powers has different effects on your appearance.

ommin



darth sion



darth nihilus



darth plagueis



dath sidious

 

At the very least it would seem remaining "disfigured" was his choice because one would assume there would be some fairly advanced forms of cosmetic surgery available to the Emperor of the galaxy to repair the damage.

 

I think that his transformation is due to how much he is channeling the dark side at that moment, more than he ever has before. We see in the movie that using the Dark side causes Anakin's eyes to yellow temporarily which indicates using the Dark side alters appearance at least temporarily.
My guess is that Sidious gives himself over to the force more than ever before while channeling the lightning at Windu and that causes a permanent transformation.

 

Here's some additional footage that was edited out of AOTC that might shed some light on this issue. Unfortunately, the CGI is absolutely dreadful.

 

This Palpatine is apparently based on Wormtongue from the LOTR cartoon...

 

While researching another topic, I came across this in the Star Wars Chronicles book for the prequels on page 290:

"The backlash of energy combined with the sheer unrestrained potency of the dark side of the Force begins to twist Palpatine's visage. The irises in his eyes burst into sickly yellow hues, his skull warps, his teeth and fingernails split and decay, and his skin bubbles like paraffin. The end result is a sickening deformation, sparked by lightning and molded by darkness."

So it looks like it's a combination of both the lightning, but also how strong he was in the Dark Side. The lightning brought on his "true" appearance in that he was the Dark Side incarnate.

The lightning wasn't burning him or scarring him in the way we think lightning might normally burn or scar, but, he wasn't exactly hiding an secret appearance either.

 

So I was right! His true form wasn't revealed at that moment, it was made at that moment!

 

"I don't think George had made up his mind when we started shooting whether to continuously show Lord Sidious as he really is after his initial transformation or if Sidious would go back and forth with his appearance. I believe when George finally saw Dave's makeup he decided that constantly changing Palpatine's appearance would be a step backward. So the moment in the film where I make the transformation 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."

"George once said a really useful thing when I began playing Palpatine, 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 had 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. That is when the true person comes out, letting the evil fully manifest itself. The Emperor that you see in the last film looks the way 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 looking guy, a politician that smiled a bit, and so on."

- Ian McDiarmid

 

there are many people that are evil but look normal on the outside. their "true form" doesn't mean "true" physically. it means their true identity as a person.

 

"it is what he always looked like."

 

that's motivation for the actor not an in-universe explanation. anyway i prefer lightning. to each their own.