Was the Emperor really disfigured by his own Force Lightning?

[Lashes.541]

Nope, it was just from using the dark side of the force, in the old expanded universe luke uses a massive amount of dark force powers and it mentions how it seem to age him decades in seconds, to the point he is super frail. It's in one of the last books before episode seven came out and they canceled the expanded universe so we never got to see how bad it effected him. Any massive amount of force use can have effects on the body, at least before the newer films. Han and lea's youngest son even died from using too much power. Like in episode eight Luke pretty much killed him self projecting himself to face down the new order.

 

[Nemesis-T Type]

It looked like it was reflected back at him and hits him in the face and that's what caused it

 

[Bishop89]

The lightsaber altered/amplified the properties of the lightning, thus having a different effect than when Luke got electrocuted

 

[Blackage]

Is the Jar Jar Sith lord theory still going strong or has it finally died ?

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Wellllll......from the canon comics:

 

[jett]

This will never be anything but a silly retcon to me.

 

[Deleted member 5666]

Can I just ask one favor?

Since it is confirmed Ian McDiarmid is back for The Rise of Skywalker playing Palpatine....

GIVE HIM BETTER MAKEUP THAN HE HAD IN REVENGE OF THE SITH. IT MADE HIM LOOK FAT.

Thank you.

 

[Boddy]

He was obviously wearing a ton of make up and the lightning melted it, disfiguring his face in the process.

 

[Lord Vatek]

Is the Jar Jar Sith lord theory still going strong or has it finally died ?

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Wait, was it ever serious?

 

[Stinkles]

I read the novelization when the movie released and I seem to remember it describing the emperor as (and I'm paraphrasing obviously) "ravaged and made cadaverous by decades of abusing the dark side of the force, how s face a sunken, revealing map of corrosive evil."

 

[Lupercal]

Wait, was it ever serious?

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There's about 300k search results for it so semi serious I'd say.

 

[Sheev]

It was all a part of his ruse to appear vulnerable and weak so that Anakin would step in and fully join his side. Getting zapped full of lightning and deformed just made him look more sympathetic in the eyes of Anakin.

 

[Enterprise1701]

sorry couldn't help it.

 

[Keywork]

I remember when I read "Shadows of the Empire" that the Emperor looked the way he was because the Dark Side basically made him a walking corpse by the time of the book and when RoTJ took place.

 

[Bor Gullet]

According to Lucas himself, he didn't throw the fight, Windu won.

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I'm pretty sure in the script it was said that Sheev was playing possum.

That's definitely how it comes across.

 

[TheAndyMan]

I never understood why lightning would make your skin develop folds.

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Darth Scrotum.

 

[Doggg]

I guess this is just head canon but I always imagined that his disfigured look was the real Palpatine all along, and his chancellor look was just a kind of disguise that he dispensed with once there wasn't much point to it any longer.

 

[I am a Bird]

And they all subconsciously go with yellow?

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Maybe they all have liver flukes causing yellowing in the eyes.

 

[Forkball]

I've always loved at how this random, pointless element is left purposefully ambiguous. Out of all the things to have mystery surround, it's about how Palps got fugly.

I personally always took it as him revealing his true form in order to make it look like Mace was gravely injuring him so it would force Anakin's hand. The Emperor is just so evil that he prefers to look this way in order to scare people.

I will never get over Emperor wearing fucking dress shoes though.

 

[Transistor]

Looking for logic in the prequels is just gonna give you a headache

 

[Santerestil]

Looking for logic in the prequels is just gonna give you a headache

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Preach.

 

[astro]

I thought it was clear the Windu was using his own force powers with his sabre to redirect it.

This action amplifying it would be a reasonable explanation.

 

[John Harker]

The man's true strength lies in his manipulation.

I always read it as he always looked like that, his normal human face is an illusion and he dropped the illusion in front of Anakin in that moment as a visual indicator to him that Mace could kill him, further forcing his hand to act and join the dark side.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

 

[Quacktion]

I take it as him using Force powers to hide his true, corrupted appearance and the lightning just undoing whatever he did.

 

[Dream Machine]

I take it as him using Force powers to hide his true, corrupted appearance and the lightning just undoing whatever he did.

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He was using the dark side force equivalent of full body spanx, an the force lightning was like he bent over too fast and it all came out.

 

[Shoe]

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Sheev "The Human Scrotum" Palpatine

 

[Brickhunt]

Genuinely disfigured. To me, disfigurement from the dark side use is stupid bullshit that makes no sense.

I agree with Lucas decision. Having Palpatine genuinely be defeated by Windu is better than him being meticulously in control of every single detail.

 

[dennett316]

It's what's portrayed on screen, with nothing else in the movie contradicting it, so that's what happened. He got beat, then used it to his advantage to give Anakin that final push to betray the Jedi, because Anakin was a fucking moron. It's a Prequel movie, I don't think overthinking things like that is necessary, that's how you get fan theories that lightsabres were turned on by the Force, and not the buttons on the side.
I just did a quick Google search to check if I'd imagined this, and found Wookiepedia talking about Forcesabres made by the Infinite Empire and used by Forcehounds, then I went crosseyed and had a flashback to that RLM episode where they read out the fanwank surrounding Darth Vader's suit,and all the pointless intricate detail that nobody could ever give a shit about. Now I'm kind of depressed.
The Prequels were all about explaining the origins of stuff that didn't need explained, including Palpatine looking a bit weird. They went OTT with the weirdness though, he looked ridiculous.

 

[Rodney McKay]

Before the prequels I always just assumed he was just super fucking old.
Probably keeping himself alive extra long with the force but still aging or something, but not SO bad looking that he was disfigured with electricity.

One of the things I hate about prequels in general is their constant need to shoehorn in explanations for the dumbest little things.

 

[Sordid Plebeian]

Would've been cooler if it were corruption from the dark side in the pursuit of ultimate power, but guess that's what happens when you get lightning shot back at your face.

 

[Euler.L.]

The actual main problem with the prequels is that they are written with some kind of "canon" in mind, so everything that happened in the prequels must be properly put in little boxes.

Despite the fact the only reason why Darth Vader looks like he does is because of purely asthetic reasons. The same goes for the emporer.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

The actual main problem (...)

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Nah.

The prequels have far worse problems than that.

 

[Soapbox Killer]

The lightsaber altered/amplified the properties of the lightning, thus having a different effect than when Luke got electrocuted

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I thought about this and it almost works. There is a "certain point of view" aspect to it. I don't know why his voice changed too but that is not a deal breaker.

It's Canon that the emperor designed the suit to easily break when electrocuted by him

hope everything is okay in the hospital btw

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Thanks bro


Wife had kid #6 thats why I was in there.

 

[genjiZERO]

Just one of the many ways the prequels took something that needed no explanation and gave it an explanation. I never ever thought as a kid that the Emperor looked disfigured. He just looked ugly and hella old. If they'd just have given the dude who plays him yellow contact from the beginning it would have sufficed perfectly.

Also.



Why does Vader die from lighting and a chopped hand?

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You're over thinking it. Vader dies because the only thing keeping him alive was his attachment to the Dark side. He dies because he loses that attachment.

 

[Laserdisk]

Just one of the many ways the prequels took something that needed no explanation and gave it an explanation. I never ever thought as a kid that the Emperor looked disfigured. He just looked ugly and hella old. If they'd just have given the dude who plays him yellow contact from the beginning it would have sufficed perfectly.



You're over thinking it. Vader dies because the only thing keeping him alive was his attachment to the Dark side. He dies because he loses that attachment.

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Yes!


No!

 

[Soapbox Killer]

You're over thinking it. Vader dies because the only thing keeping him alive was his attachment to the Dark side. He dies because he loses that attachment.

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This seems to be in opposition to every other thing said in this topic. You could be right since I don't know but the thing about the suit keeps him alive and it gets zapped and clunks out makes sense to me.

 

[genjiZERO]

This seems to be in opposition to every other thing said in this topic. You could be right since I don't know but the thing about the suit keeps him alive and it gets zapped and clunks out makes sense to me.

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Everyone is trying to give it a realistic or plausible interpretations. That's perfectly fine of course. Realistic literary interpretations can give very interesting results in some contexts. But if you look at this movie as it came out in 1983 Vader dying from a malfunction in his form fitting iron lung probably isn't what George Lucas had in mind.

Much of the mythos in Star Wars is based on Western pop notions of Zen (and Daoism) popularized in the 1960s (read DT Suzuki if interested). The whole point of Buddhism is to end the karmic cycle by loss of attachment to the world. Darth "More machine than man" Vader is the literal embodiment of attachment. He is "corrupted and evil" because he's so attached to life that he uses perversly artificial means to keep himself alive. In addition to being a Daoist paradigm the Dark side is metaphysical representation of this attachment. By choosing Luke over the Emperor Vader finally gives up attachment, but can no longer survive because of it.

Again, an electrical malfunctioning is perfectly plausible from a realistic point of view, but I think what I've written is more likely to gave been going on in George Lucas's mind when he was writing that scene.

 

[The Masked Mufti]

The original concept was that over the course of the prequels Palpatine would wither slowly, in Episode 2 they gave him some ageing makeup and prosthetic wrinkles around the eyes. Then George decided he needed the full ROTJ look for nostalgia bait purposes, so Palpatine suddenly looks younger in ROTS than he did in AOTC and you have this random transformation that is very awkward to explain. I think the official explanation is that it's revealing his true self, but that doesn't make much sense. Neither does the lightning melting his body, because Luke absorbed a similar dose with no after effects.

It also looks absolutely terrible, they did a really bad job matching how he looked in ROTJ and didn't seem to care that the makeup they went with highlighted McDiarmid's fuller face and made the Emperor look obese.

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None of it makes sense. Maul and Dooku weren't disfigured by being dark side users. Anakin took a small dose from Dooku and didn't have any disfiguration, and as you said, Luke tanked a large amount without any problems.

 

[Ushojax]

None of it makes sense. Maul and Dooku weren't disfigured by being dark side users. Anakin took a small dose from Dooku and didn't have any disfiguration, and as you said, Luke tanked a large amount without any problems.

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I think the concept of excessive dark side use turning you pale, withered and ghoulish is fairly well established in the SW world. Dooku and Maul just weren't as hardcore as Sheev.

The way he aged between TPM and AOTC made it clear that he was on a gradual journey towards his ROTJ look.

That's like 25 years before ROTJ and he looks just right. Shame George threw it out for a terrible monster mask.

 

[Soapbox Killer]

Everyone is trying to give it a realistic or plausible interpretations. That's perfectly fine of course. Realistic literary interpretations can give very interesting results in some contexts. But if you look at this movie as it came out in 1983 Vader dying from a malfunction in his form fitting iron lung probably isn't what George Lucas had in mind.

Much of the mythos in Star Wars is based on Western pop notions of Zen (and Daoism) popularized in the 1960s (read DT Suzuki if interested). The whole point of Buddhism is to end the karmic cycle by loss of attachment to the world. Darth "More machine than man" Vader is the literal embodiment of attachment. He is "corrupted and evil" because he's so attached to life that he uses perversly artificial means to keep himself alive. In addition to being a Daoist paradigm the Dark side is metaphysical representation of this attachment. By choosing Luke over the Emperor Vader finally gives up attachment, but can no longer survive because of it.

Again, an electrical malfunctioning is perfectly plausible from a realistic point of view, but I think what I've written is more likely to gave been going on in George Lucas's mind when he was writing that scene.

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I like this.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

He looked healthier at the start of ROTS because the dark side was getting stronger thanks to the "success" of his Clone Wars and evil masterplan

 

[Failburger]

So the Jedi only accepts beautiful people?
What happen if you're just don't fit the traditional beauty standard? You're just fucked? No Jedi for you, go straight to Sith?

Man, the Jedi Order is fucked up.

 

[jelly]

I wonder how he will look in the next film, monster mask or ROTJ look. I guess he can force ghost how he wants to look...

 

[Ushojax]

He looked healthier at the start of ROTS because the dark side was getting stronger thanks to the "success" of his Clone Wars and evil masterplan

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George, is that you?

 

[Soapbox Killer]

I wonder how he will look in the next film, monster mask or ROTJ look. I guess he can force ghost how he wants to look...

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He'll look like a healthy Smoke and the world will burn.

 

[El Bombastico]

Looking for logic in the prequels is just gonna give you a headache

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