PT When you first saw TPM, did you think Sidious/Palpatine was hiding his true face?

Or did you think his face would eventually age into what we see in ROTJ?

I know that there were debates about this when ROTS was released, but I want to know what fans thought in 1999.

 

I think it would age (or get distorted into what we saw). I think the only reason he hid his face was to conceal his identity as Palpatine, even from Maul.

 

I didn’t think so. And his older look in AotC made it clear he was simply going to age into his Emperor look. RotS changed that, but the movie provided its own explanation.

 

Neither. Middle school DS thought he looked pretty ugly already

 

Back in 1999, I just felt clever enough recognising that the uncredited Darth Sidious was played by the same guy as Palpatine, and feeling like my pre-existing fandom gave me the inside track on a big secret. I wasn't a smart kid.

If I recall correctly, it was only the make-up in Attack of the Clones (and then its absence in Revenge of the Sith) that sparked the whole "true face" thing.

 

I think I assumed his use of dark magic would cause his deformity . Which it kinda did.

 

But the 'lumps' on his forehead wouldn't be caused by age.

 

From what I've read about RotJ, The Emperor was designed to be ancient, many centuries old.
That is why he looks so odd and his skull is starting to be split in two.

Possibly as a dark reflection of Yoda, who had lived a long time but did not fight death when it came. The Emperor on the other hand had extended his life far beyond what was normal and wanted to live on. Natural vs unnatural.

Bye for now.
Mr "Insert-Name-Here."

 

Now, today - I do think Senator Palpatine was hiding his true face.

I didn’t know in 1999.

In 2002 it looked like would be aging or rotting into Return of the Jedi’s emperor

2005 Revenge of the Sith had his face melting or his true face being revealed.

The Rise of Skywalker makes me think his rejuvenated ultimate power form is his true face. Otherwise why comeback looking like that?

 

I don't think he is 'hiding' his true face even now,
I think he was deformed from the lightning, or, at least him using it as long as he did with effort drained him somewhat.

If I was to believe it is his 'true' face I would have to believe that every other ultra bad Sith was also hiding their true appearance,
what makes Sidious so special the force just decided "yup, that guy is proper bad, so lets deform his face to show it...."
up until that point, Palpatine was just a sleazy politician, and had killed another Sith lord and 3 Jedi, I'm sure other Sith lords had killed 10 times as many, did they get deformed twisty faces too?

the other problem with 'the masking' is how can a physical manifestation of the force, the lightning, cut through the mask? would love to know how the physics of how that works.

Another problem is the Jedi standing not three feet away from him, probably a few times weekly, if not more,did not sense anything at all. And we are not talking padawans here, we're talking Yoda, Mace, Ki-Adi etc,

so, no the masking theory does not work for me....I don't need another reason to add why the Jedi were morons and/or the force was working against them the whole time.

 

Darth Sidious is the one and only ultra bad Sith we’ve met so far. All the others are apprentices.

By ‘mask’ I don’t mean like a Scooby Doo villain or Mission Impossible. It’s more like magic - how the Snow White Queen turns into an old lady. Or just shape shifting.

Maybe it didn’t and that was part of Darth Sidious’s act. No one else hit work Force lightening got resting monster face. And when the lightening was too much in The Rise of Skywalker it straight up disintegrated his face like a divine Indiana Jones relic would a villain.

I have no idea how old Darth Sidious is. He could be older than Yoda. Or he could be the age of the actor playing him in the prequels. He’s so full of tricks it’s not possible to know.

Even the cane he walks with in Return of the Jedi is part of his act. He walks just fine without it in his thrown room when he finally stands up.

 

I mean all the other Sith lords that came before him, Darth Bane, Plagueis etc

yeah, and the fact the Jedi did not sense this, why?

I know, I know "the dark side clouds everything/the force did it..." loophole/"explanation

but we are not talking a general clouding here, we are talking about Jedi masters that are face to face with someone seemingly masking their 'true face'
I can for the most part 'suspend my disbelief' in a franchise like this, but it has to at least make sense
"the force did it" or "cuz good is dumb" might work for some...doesn't with me.

true,
but with Luke Palpatine was torturing Luke to death and was trying to sheild his face at least some of the time from the onslaught,
should the lightning have scarred Luke somewhat, if only tempoarily after Palpatine's 'now young Skywalker....you will die' line? I'd say yes, otherwise what's the point in Sith lightning or using it, if all it does is send 'elecrical tickles' to someone? might aswell have a feather duster instead. And that is a fault of ROTJ.

Dooku used the lightning as a 'back off' and if I remember rightly, didn't hit Anakin in the face.

Sidious was hit at full blast at close range, the lightning was literally bouncing back in his face, with twice the force (no pun intended)

exactly, thanks for proving my point.

Official sources say he is not ancient, and was 88 years of age in ROTJ.

 

I know nothing about either outside of name drops and one appearing as an illusion.

I know Plaguis died in his sleep. Is reported to bring the dead back to life. Bane started the Sith Rule of Two. His illusion wore cool looking armor. Voiced by Mark Hamill.

Maybe it’s more like a haircut than a force power once it’s done. Anakin and Obi-Wan couldn’t sense the bounty hunter was a shape shifter.

Luke looked to be in real agony far beyond tickles. The Sith lightening doesn’t need to burn skin to kill.

It didn’t just deform the skin on Palpatine’s face it disintegrated his head and then the rest of him. Also Palptine is so powerful on Exegol he stopped the entire rebel fleet with his hands.

If the official source isn’t a movie or tv show the answer for me is still TBD (to be determined).

 

my point was, that I do not believe that Sidious is the only Sith in history that got his face 'twisted' or 'deformed' by using the dark-side.
That would be a silly assumption to make, imo.
He seems more interested in galactic control than he does playing with Sith ouja boards.

?

what has got to do with anything?
that is a biological function of another species. It has nothing to do with sensing other people using the force in front of you.

again, what's your point?

fair enough,


but still I don't know why you feel the need to argue with me about this...

I simply stated that I don't believe it was him 'masking his true face'
especially since we did not see this 'true face' as Darth Sidious in either TPM or AOTC.

If you do, and the film works better for you...great.

Just let me view the film the way I want to view it.

Cheers,

 

In the Legends novel The Truce at Bakura, Luke started showing interesting symptoms from the lightning not long after the celebration, and needed medical treatment:


Surgical droid Too-Onebee set the control board and then swiveled to face Luke. Slender, jointed limbs waved in front of his gleaming midsection. “Now you, sir. Please step behind the scanner.”
“I’m all right.” Luke leaned his stool against the bulkhead. “Just tired.” Artoo-Detoo bleeped softly beside him, sounding concerned.
“Please, sir. This will only take a moment.”
Luke sighed and shuffled around a man-high rectangular panel. “Okay?” he called out through it. “May I go now?”
“One moment more,” came the mechanical voice, then clicking sounds. “One moment,” the droid repeated. “Have you experienced double vision recently?”
“Well …” Luke scratched his head. “Yes. But just for a minute.” Surely that little spell wasn’t significant.
As the diagnostic panel retracted into the bulkhead, a medical flotation bed extended itself from the wall beside Too-Onebee. Luke backstepped. “What’s that for?”
“You’re not well, sir.”
“I’m just tired.”
“Sir, my diagnosis is sudden and massive calcification of your skeletal structure, of the rare type brought on by severely conductive exposure to electrical and other energy fields.”
Energy fields. Yesterday. Emperor Palpatine, leering as blue-white sparks leaped off his fingertips while Luke writhed on the deck. Luke broke a sweat, the memory was so fresh. He’d thought he was dying. He was dying.
“The abrupt drop in blood minerals is causing muscular microseizures all over your body, sir.”
So that was why he ached. Until an hour ago, he hadn’t had a chance to sit still and notice. Deflated, he stared up at Too-Onebee. “But it’s not permanent damage, is it? You don’t have to replace bones?” He shuddered at the thought.
“The condition will become chronic unless you rest and allow me to treat you,” answered the mechanical voice. “The alternative is bacta immersion.”
Luke glanced at the tank. Not that, again. He’d tasted bacta on his breath for a week afterward. Reluctantly he pulled off his boots and stretched out on the flotation bed.
He awakened, squirming, some time later.
Too-Onebee’s metal-grate face appeared at his bedside. “Painkiller, sir?”
Luke had always read that humans had three bones in each ear. Now he believed it. He could count them. “I feel worse, not better,” he complained. “Didn’t you do anything?”
“Treatment is complete, sir. Now you must rest. May I offer you a painkiller?” he repeated patiently.

 

Sorry. I actually thought you were going after me for my point of view in a personal way. It was not my intention to do that towards you.

I agree it is open to interpretation. I think that’s part of the mystery of the Sith. We really don’t know much about them one way or the other.

Darth Sidious hiding his disfigured face to play Palpatine or Palpatine having his normal face disfigured are both valid possibilities supported by our view of the movies.

My opinion today is Sidious real face is that of the emperor and he is hiding it somehow from the Jedi. Or doesn’t have to be a Force power either to do it. That could include him being able to shape shift.

Heck we saw Obi-Wan use technology to shapeshift into Racko Hardeen.

 

Yeah back in 1999 I thought Palpatine was using a glamour of some sort and this was because I was going off old-school SW lore in that Palpatine was extremely old.

 

I think the argument is that he could be hiding his Sith face under the hood in TPM, since technically all you clearly see is the lower part of his face.

 

it's kinda like Clark Kent's glasses

 

he clearly has an ordinary human face here....

 

Well when I was born, I was shown Star Wars OT all throughout my childhood. I was given figures young. (Still manged to hang on to some of 'em)

I had a Palp figure (still do) so I knew who it was in TPM. Even 8 year old Bluth was smart back then.

So I thought he always looked like that. Then ROTS showed us that force lightning can age you in ten seconds.

 

I completely agree. In some scenes you can even see his eyes if you look carefully.

All I meant was that if Lucas had decided in RotS to have Sidious switch back and forth between his faces (which he considered for a time), then Sidious’s scenes in TPM and AotC could have been retconned to suggest he had his deformed appearance because the only part of his face we see clearly is the least deformed part.

We know the truth is that McDiarmid was not wearing any of that demonic face makeup in the first two prequels. That wasn’t the intention at the time. But it could’ve been one of those visual elements that is quietly changed. (There’s plenty in all the movies, though usually for more minor things.)

Consider the Emperor’s appearance in RotJ in scenes where his face is mostly hidden. Of course McDiarmid was wearing full makeup here, and we can see some of the rest of his face even when it’s obscured. But the overall look is similar enough to Sidious in the prequels that Lucas maybe could’ve possibly gotten away with that retcon.