Darius Angel

Chosen answer: It is explained that in a duel between Asajj Ventress and Anakin Skywalker, Ventress manages to strike Anakin across the face, she does this to prove that she could kill him at will (she claims she could have as easily beheaded him) Anakin defeats her however, forcing Ventress to flee.

Darius Angel

Chosen answer: Powerful force users seem to have some degree of control over their bodies even after death. In the later series, Luke's wife Mara Jade Skywalker only allows her body to disappear when her killer, and nephew Jacen Solo arrives at her funeral as a clue. Thus it appears that a powerful force user can simply choose if they wish their body to disappear.

Darius Angel

Answer: Towards the end of the movie Yoda tells Obi Wan that Qui Gon has learned the path to imortality and offers to teach this to Obi Wan. In the Clone Wars TV series we see the journey Yoda takes to learn this power. The power to become one with the force is a power you have to learn as opposed to being achievable to all Jedi. Both yoda and Obi Wan has the years between ROTS and ANH/ESB to fine tune and master this power. It is possible that Darth Vader, having seen Obi Wan become one with the force, spent the following years after A New Hope, studying and learning this skill by himself, hence how he was able to appear as a force ghost towards the end of Return of the Jedi, but not quite skilled enough to dissapear on cue.

Chosen answer: Plagueis taught Palpatine everything he knew, even his knowledge of midi-chlorian manipulation (though Palpatine could not master the skill) and roughly ten years before the events of The Phantom Menace, Palpatine and Plagueis attempted to create a super-being via midi-chlorian manipulation which inadvertently resulted in Anakin's conception (Plagueis theorised the conception was the Force "striking back" for their unnatural use of it) Thus inadvertently Palpatine is indeed responsible for Anakin's conception.

Darius Angel

Answer: Palpatine was using relatively weak (but still painful) bursts of lightning on Luke as a means of torture, wanting Luke to suffer before he died. When he attacked Windu, he used powerful bursts of lightning, trying to kill him and thus ravaged his own body by the reflected attack. Or as some sources indicate, the "damage" was Palpatine's true form, which he had been hiding with the force, and reverted to this form to sell the act that he was "too weak" as he expressed.

Darius Angel