Why would Palpatine propagate his deformation by continuing to generate Force lightning Some argue that he purposely disfigured himself to use as evidence against the Jedi in the Senate and that given his personality he wouldn t really mind the changes How can one make such a presumption though He s pure evil we really don t know much else about him character wise That s also part of what makes him so great he s little more than evil personified the Dark Side of the Force incarnate Its far more likely that he looked like that before the Dark Side corrupting his features over time That would explain why his face looks perfectly symmetrical as a side effect of Dark Side abuse rather than truely warped all in one shot Remember Lucas didn t create Palpatine in ROTJ thinking He s human and he looks so hideous because Mace Windu played by Samuel L Jackson in Revenge of the Sith demanded a larger role and wanted to claim responsibility for something important When approached with a question asking him why the Emperor looks the way he does sometime after the release of ROTJ Lucas answered that it was a side effect of utilizing the Dark Side for so long over one s lifetime He specifically likened it to cancer They were originally going to make the change gradual over the course of the prequal trilogy as exemplified by AOTC As you can see all of the makeup that made him look older in AOTC was not present in ROTS Reason Samuel L Jackson He had to whine and complain about having an impact and not getting killed by Clone Troopers like all of the other Jedi George got him to shut up by having a not so noble death and having it look like he beat Palpatine in a duel specific quotes from Nick Gillard in the Making Of Revenge of the Sith book indicate that Palpatine acted the whole thing out PERIOD He even stressed it to the point where he suggested Ian add SUCKER to the his dialogue Yeah right all of the smart fans know better Alright so Mace was duped but Samuel was obviously pacified Di Mace still make an impact In a way he did He revealed the galaxy the true face of Lord Sidious