I've been told that Palpatine purposely lost to Mace when fighting him so Anakin would end up helping him and complete his transition to the dark side? Is this true?

This is something that really isn't going to be proven true or untrue. Interpret the fight how you like... I personally think that Palpatine's actions prove this theory to be true.

I think a more plausible reason for what happened is this way, the situation between Anakin, Windu, and Palpatine nicely parallels what happens between Anakin, Luke, and Palpatine in RotJ.

No way. Palpatine was frying himself with his own lightning. He'd never do that willingly.

He wasn't frying himself; he was just faking. The reason his face changed was because he was transitioning into Darth Sidious.

On a side note, perhaps when he looks like the Chancelor, he's using the force to change his appearence. When he was fighting Windu, he lost control over his disguise because he was focusing on controlling the lightning. Then, at that point, it was easiest to tell the senate the battle marred his appearence so he wouldn't have to bother keeping up the disguise.

I doubt it.. it's a councel filled with alien races and such, why would he disguise himself...

Because one moment he looked like a crusty old man, the next he looked like a melted crusty insomniac old man.

Sidious let Windu win so Anakin would save him, it's the only explination. Sidious gave Yoda a fight who is reputedly the best swordsman the Jedi have to offer, there's no way Mace would have beaten him unless Sidious wanted him to.

The notion of letting someone win over you and risking your neck in the process is pretty dumb. Sidious was beaten by Windu fair and square, but after seeing Anakin reacting and cutting Windu's arm he regained his confidence and was able to throw Windu out the window.

In the book and in the comments by george lucas, he has stated that palpatine let windu win because he knew anakin would save him, thats straight out of SW Insider so it probably is true. I can't remember however if the use of the force transformed palpatine into the wretched old man that he is now, but it wouldn't make much sense as we see dooku use force lighting in episode 2 and his appearence isn't altered at all. I think windu might have been relflecting the energy back into palpatine, all the more reason for anakin to aid palpatine.

I loved the part where Obi_Kwi... er, Obi Wan throws down the blaster and says, "Ugh, so uncivilized!" :p

The saber fights were flashy and cool looking, but not realistic. With a weightless blade, a fencer (like me) would have owned any jedi.

I don't think Palpatine was ever in any danger during that fight; even when he had no saber he was able to quite easily block Windu's saber using force lightning. And he could have thrown him out the window at any time. So yah, he was just doing it so that Anikan would save him.

It wasn't the use of the lightning that is beign said to have transformed palpatine. If you watch the movie (not sure if you have yet), you see that mace reflects the lightnight with his saber back into palpatine. Now, i think that this is what actually transfromed him, if you notice when he stops and it zooms really close into his face, you can see smoke comeing off him, which would result from him frying himself.

As for whether he did it on purpose, i think so. palpatine knew darn well he was hurting himself wih the lightnight and wouldn't win. It not like the fight with yoda, where yoda was absorbing it with his own power and palpatine thought he could win. He was hitting mace's lightsaber, there really isn't a limit to the power mace could reflect. And palpatine was entirely sure by that time that he could win Aniken over, aniken was already far to deeply filled with emotion to continue as a jedi. adn if Palpatine didn't win him voer, it was pretty much kaputs for him, anyway. Aniken could tell the whole academy of his true nature, and while palpatine could take five good jedi, he couldn't stand against all of them with yoda in the lead.

Anyway, that's my two cents.

read the novel.

Personally, I think Palpatine let Mace win, but I think Mace came closer to actually wining then what was comfortable for Sidious.

Palpatine could force lightning Mace all he wanted too, but Mace had a lightsaber that could hold that energy, which we could see with Yoda, that yoda wasn't using his lightsaber and could see him get tired of containing the energy.

I think Palpatine was not a very proficient fighter with a Lightsaber, preferring to focus on his force powers.

In the same section with him and Yoda, he is throwing senate pod things at him, not engaging him, preferring to strike from a distance.

Yoda was like 875 years old at that time, but once he got the force flowing through him, well... It also plays a factor that he isn't a human.
Palpatine has got to be around 75-80 at that time, and because he is a human, his body has limitations at that age.
He can have the force flowing through him, but he can't have the extent of the force where he could fight Yoda and win.

Which is why he threw pod things at him.