Such an unnecessary scene. The scaring and decrepitness of Palpatine didn't need explanation. Just say that using the dark side of the force is corrosive, and slowly kills the body.
The same with Vader. It shouldn't have been due to burns and lightsaber injuries, it should have been due to that same corrosiveness.
It doesn't matter. He was a Sith and a force user, and after the Jedi were purged, he didn't have to hide it anymore. He would, at least from the general public, but he was served by Vader, who was openly a Sith. Well, not openly Sith, Vader likely never used the word Sith, but he would use the force to choke a bitch.
But prequels are often hamfisted in their treatment of character growth over a time skip. As in, they can't have any growth or change at all from the end of the prequel to the start of the first movie, even if there's 20+ years in between the two.
No, I disagree. The sith are inherently toxic and self destructive. If they were to only depict the dark side as being a corrosive energy force then it would marginalize the self destructive behavior. Remember the sith were in charge but ultimately destroyed themselves through toxic behavior.
The dark side of the force. You rip the life out of yourself and others for power.
My head cannon is that using the light side of the force is asking. And the dark side is demanding.
That's why anger and hate lead to the dark side. Because you stop asking and start demanding. You rip the power from the wold around you, from those connected to you, and eventually from your own body.
Man this applies to like half the scenes in that movie. George wanted every single piece in the exact place they were at the start of ANH, despite the 20-year gap.
That's the problem with prequels. They have to set things up, but cannot have any change or character growth, because then they'd fail at being a prequel.
So you have pointless, this is how the thing happened scenes, when no one asked for them.
Okay. rarely you'll get a prequel that's good, but those are story driven and often have no effect either way on the later stories except to add a layer of depth.
The Star Wars Prequels, every single one of them, were not that. There was no coherent story in any of them. Just a bunch of "look at the thing" scenes.
I'm thoroughly in the "there are good ideas here, but they were let down by the poor writing and direction" camp with the Star Wars prequels. Telling a story about an idealistic young space wizard turning into an SS officer while the Republic he serves turns into a dictatorship could have been great.
I think Filoni's The Clone Wars does explore a lot more of those themes, and offers a more compelling, gradual fall for an Anakin who struggles to control his emotions. Unfortunately, it also has entire episodes centered around Jar-Jar Binks, so it can be hard to get into.