I have the Dorling-Kindersley Star Wars Visual Guide of the OT, which came out in 1997, and there it says the Emperor looked the way he did due to his lifelong immersion in the Dark Side.
After watching TPM I expected there to be a progression of his Dark Side corruption becoming more evident with each passing entry, and I was sorely disappointed when ROTS establishes that actually it was due to Mace Windu deflecting Force Lightning back at him. So stupid.
I recall the official SW website came up with some bullshit explanation that actually Palpatine was using the Force to project a non-corrupted looking version of himself. Yeah right.
I think it was a mistake bringing McDiarmid back for the prequels. No shade against his acting ability, but Palpatine really needed to have been played by a much younger actor to drive home the severity of his dark side corruption. James Marsters I feel would’ve been the perfect choice.
Nah, McDiarmid was fine in the prequels. My only real pet peeve is how Lucas chose to portray Palpatine’s Dark Side corruption, as it should have been a gradual thing instead of the idiocy of having Force lightning deflected back at him.
Ian McDiarmid has the rare distinction of playing a character’s younger self years after playing an older version of the same character, which I think is pretty neat.
If Palpatine’s physical corruption had been shown gradually throughout the films, the Jedi would have noticed. Seeing the Chancellor of the Republic slowly become more deformed over the years would naturally raise suspicions. If Lucas had gone this route, it would have made the common complaint that “the Jedi are idiots because they don’t notice things” much stronger, amplifying it tenfold.