Could I see both your and Hal 9000’s take on Palpatine’s facial transformation?
Sure. I’ve put together a comparison of Palpatine’s transformation, between the theatrical cut, Hal9000’s “Labyrinth of Evil,” and my RotS: Rebalanced edit. The original clocks in at about 2:29, Hal’s at 1:09, and mine at 1:26. I’ve included the surrounding sequence because so much of the scene relies on the motivations of the characters involved.
Hal went for a dramatic edit to emphasize Palpatine’s transformation as a deliberate and conscious choice. I really like that idea, but even after some VFX attempts to replace the cut to black in Hal’s version, I couldn’t quite get it to work the way I wanted. Instead, I tried minimizing Palpatine’s whining so that his actions have the sense of deliberation rather than frantic pleading. His second lightning attack is now just long enough to potentially cause his transformation, but short enough that he could easily be using it as a pretense for dropping his mask.
I also emphasized Anakin’s dilemma as morally-based rather than Padme-focused, as much as I could. Anakin still believes that Palpatine should stand trial, and Windu charging in and preparing to execute the Chancellor is exactly the knife edge that Anakin’s character needs to tip over. Instead of keeping Palpatine alive merely to save Padme, he does it out of loyalty to what he sees as the Republic. And of course as we know all too well, it’s the wrong choice.
I also added a compilation of the blu ray menus to the main post:
https://youtu.be/eiS2Rr68wp4