i don't want to go about beating around a dead bantha but after reviewing the sequence of the transformation on dvd i discovered something interesting when viewing the scene in slow motion within chronological order in one shot we see palpatine's face becoming the sidious of the ot followed by more lightning to the face after a few close ups on a conflicted anakin the camera focuses back on palpatine who is still in a transitional state but is lacking the details present in the previous shot it is as if the sidious face is showing through once as the lightning is interacting with the skin and then fading away and then finally breaking through again as the palpatine face melts away and sidious says he's too weak to continue if palpatine was indeed literally deformed by the lighting why did his face go from normal to sidious to semi normal and back to sidious again if the lightning wounded him wouldn't the wounds stay instead of suddenly disappearing and re appearing watch your dvds you'll see it i have a few screen shots that i can provide to show you what i am referring to by the way both this and the regular wikipedia article fail to make any mention of sidious' strange voice after he rises from the window sill and before he puts on his hood in the commentary lucas said he added synthesized effects to the voice to make the true sidious drip a bit more menace that's all well and good but there must be a within universe explanation for it