PT Palpatine's appearance

This bugs me every time I watch AOTC why does Palpatine look so old and tired and frail compared to ROTS? when I first saw Episode 2 and saw how old he looked I thought well 10 years running a galaxy will do that to you. I mean compare photos of the US Presidents when they started their terms and when they left office, and I thought that was the explanation for his appearance in the OT a combination of the burden of the chancellorship and the dark side slowly eating him away.

Then we come to ROTS and he looks normal albeit with white hair but he looks pretty healthy and not old and tired anymore. Then he gets disfigured with lightning and becomes the classic emperor we all know and love or hate whatever floats your boat

so what's the deal? to me it feels like George had an idea going but then scrapped it midway through

 

His disfiguration by the lightning is an often debated topic
Was the lightning responsible for scarring his face? Or was that his true face, which he was able to "cover" with a sort of "Force mask"?
Most evidence points toward it being his true face, and its disfiguration is a result of him no longer seeing it necessary, or perhaps even useful in the moment, to have the disguise

 

That might be why he looks younger in RoTS - between AoTC and RoTS he decided his face was being ravaged sufficiently (by the Dark Side of the Force?) that it was time to start masking the damage.

 

I forgot about the masking/disfiguring debate I feel as if I've opened a can of worms now lol

 

This isn't about the disfigurement. This is about how he looked PRIOR to being disfigured in ROTS. I would say that he tried his best to look well while running the largest war the galaxy had seen in 1000 years. Also, he was contantly on the Holonet. He was basically a hero and celebritiy during the course of the war, so of course he had make up people working harder on him during the war.

I believe it was a different make up artist, though, for AOTC and ROTS. Perhaps a difference of vision? I can't help but wonder if Lucas originally envisioned Palpatine looking the way he did in the OT due to old age, rather than being hit by force lightning.

 

There was something along those lines in The Making of Return of the Jedi.

 

Yes, but I'm referring to a change of vision between AOTC and ROTS, not between ROTJ and the PT

 

It's possible that between AOTC and ROTS, Lucas came up with the "hit by Force lightning" idea -

and in order to maximise the contrast between "before being hit" and "after being hit" - he ordered the make-up artists to use less make-up on Ian McDiarmid.

 

yeah it's interesting though what his original intentions were with the Emperor in the ANH novel he is described as being forced into power by the Moffs. I had heard of the evolving beyond human thing but it's too sci fi for my taste lol the Shadows Of The Empire book implies that the Dark side is slowly eating Palpatine but that's no longer canon.

 

Lucas did decide to take SoTE's YT-2400 Outrider and put it in the ANH Special Edition though.

And TCW included the planet Falleen (the name at least), as well as the Black Sun criminal organisation.

 

In my opinion, the "mask" idea best sums up why he fluctuated in appearance so much. The upkeep was probably a difficult art and conscious struggle; he couldn't just switch on and off at his own will (that's why I'd say he still looks young as Darth Sidious in TPM and AOTC). A sudden shock of energy redirected by Mace was enough to show his true self. This is just my own explanation, of course. I also believe the "ancient evil" idea can still work in the context of the films, supported by the mask idea. The rift in Palpatine's forehead is actually larger in ROTJ than in ROTS... I believe the relevance of that was him somehow "evolving" into something new.

The makeup idea is the only other plausible explanation. Other than that, it'd look like they just goofed and backtracked on their idea of how Palpatine gains his appearance, but I'd like to give Lucas more credit than that.

EDIT: Iron_lord: It's tough to factor in where Shadows of the Empire is now, but I think it'll probably be accepted again as George really enjoyed the story (as you've shown). Being referenced in the movies also gives it a big advantage.

 

I love this new pick and choose canon lol

 

Filoni was a big fan of the EU - at least of some things in it - which is why he picked and chose stuff from it - even if he often then put his own spin on it.

 

The most obvious answer is that George did indeed change his plans regarding Palpatine's appearance: he was thinking of a slow progression from his young and healthy look in TPM to the extremely old and decrepit Emperor from ROTJ. Therefore, he did look quite old and frail in AOTC and was probably meant to look like a more extreme version of that in ROTS.

Why did Lucas change the idea? Difficult to say. It's possible that he realized that the reveal of Palpatine being Sidious/The Emperor wouldn't be as impressive if the Emperor wasn't looking as old/decrepit as in ROTJ at least. Most probably, Lucas decided that he wanted a more shocking transition from a gentle and wise "grandfatherly" figure (who looks better than in AOTC indeed) to a deformed monster (who looks much more monstruous than in ROTJ by the way).

A possible theory presented in "The Secret History of Star Wars" refers to the whole Palpatine-Mace-Anakin confrontation being something that Lucas created to substitute the original idea of Anakin siding with Palpatine because he believed in the Empire (a "rational" turn) with a more dramatic turn in which Anakin acts on impulse and wants to save Padme. If that theory is correct, that may explain the change of plans regarding Palpatine's appearance. Originally Lucas needed him to look more "human" in ROTS, older than in Clones, but still a believable lider and guide to Anakin. The revised version allowed for a more shocking change in which "the monster is unleashed". That may also explain why he looks more like a monster and less like a decrepit old man as he does in ROTJ.

One final comment though: Palpatine doesn't actually look THAT old in Clones. He does look quite old and frail in several promotional stills and posters, but in the actual film he looks slightly better.

 

I was reading about this last night. As another user mentioned already about the force lighting disfiguring Palpatine's face, the Wookiepedia article mentioned Palpatine could have disguised his face using Sith alchemy. So, when you saw his face change you saw what he truly looked like. Then he used his frail appearance to full people into thinking he was weaker than before. However, he uses his frail image as a disguise to hide his true powers.

 

one thing that always jumps at me during the Mace/Palpatine scene is that after the lightning has done its job it's clearly CG then the scene cuts to Mace then back to Palpatine and he's in the makeup. I notice it every time sorry if I ruined it lol

 

That might be because we can see more of his head. With his hood up he doesn't look that different - at least from the nose down:

RoTS:

Spoiler

RoTJ:

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

There was a lot of indecisiveness within the production of ROTS as to Palpatine's appearance. At one point, they were going to have him go back and forth between his chancellor look and his emperor look. In fact, the infamous disguise vs. disfigured by lightning issue has been given conflicting explanations by people involved in the making of ROTS.

I personally prefer what the AOTC makeup implied: that the dark side was slowly transforming his body into its ROTJ self. I've always been dissappointed that this concept was ditched during the making of ROTS.

I was under the impression that "ancient, not old" means "looks older than he really is."

 

That's how the EU tended to do it at least:

He looks like a walking corpse, Xizor thought. Like a mummified body dead a thousand years. Amazing he is still alive, much less the most powerful man in the galaxy. He isn't even that old; it is more as if something is slowly eating him.

 

That's exactly what I had in mind. Everything released prior to ROTS fits Xizor's thoughts perfectly.

 

I figure that while RoTS has its own explanation for Palpatine's forehead and eyes - his skin is still far smoother than it is in ROTJ, where it looks exceedingly crusty. That might be the Dark Side continuing its work.

 

I think the "normal" face is a disguise. The Dark Side makes its users age and turns their eyes yellow (or is this a non-canon EU explanation now?), but you can't see any of that in Palpatine until RotS.

 

In the TCW episode "The Lawless", Sidious has yellow eyes.

I think the reason that Lucas changed his mind from slow aging to rapid aging is that he didn't want people to watch the complete saga and wonder how Palpatine went from looking human to looking like Voldemort.

 

I'd say he looks younger or about the same age in ROTS as he was in TPM even

 

I know, and that implies that he has some way of hiding it, since TCW was before RotS. Maul's eyes were always yellow and he was a lot younger than Palpatine. It couldn't have just started affecting Palpatine in AotC when he had already been training as a Sith for decades.