Duel in the Senate

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Battle before: Raid on the Jedi Temple
Battle after: Duel on Mustafar
Duel in the Senate
Conflict Great Jedi Purge
Date 19 BBY
Place Coruscant
Result Sith victory, retreat of Yoda
Combatants
Yoda-Jedi Palpatine-Sith
Commanders
Yoda Palpatine
Strength
Casualties
None None

The Duel in the Senate is a lightsaber duel from Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Yoda, the Jedi Master, managed to enter the Chancellery Secretariat undetected, determined to kill the new Emperor, Palpatine, who was revealed to be the shadowy Darth Sidious. Inside the Chancellor's holding office of the Senate Building, the Jedi Grand Master came face to face with the Dark Lord of the Sith after making short work of his guards. Realizing that this would not be a political dispute but a battle between two masters of the Force, Mas Amedda left the office. This marked the beginning of the Duel in the Senate.

Contents

[edit] The Battle

The Emperor struck down Yoda with Force lightning and Yoda retaliated by throwing the Sith backwards with a very powerful Force push. Palpatine attempted to flee, but Yoda blocked his way and ignited his lightsaber. The Emperor realized he would have to fight the tiny Jedi Master blade-to-blade. He ignited his own lightsaber and the two engaged in a lightsaber duel.

The battle moved on to the Chancellor's Podium that rose through the retractable ceiling into the Grand Convocation Chamber. After a number of blows and parries, Sidious realizes he and Yoda are at a standstill. He acted; putting away his weapon and whirling away to a nearby senate pod. He began to release Senate pods from their moorings, swiftly and easily lifting the extremely heavy balconies into the air, often more than one at a time, then throwing them at Yoda below. All the while he laughed, high on power. It was one of the most extreme examples of dun möch ever seen.

The tiny Jedi managed to halt one pod thrown down at him, then, with great effort, spun it, and threw it back at Sidious, who jumped away at the last second. Falling and landing on a pod below, Sidious looked around for Yoda, who suddenly jumped up, appearing at its edge. With an intense bolt of Force lightning, Sidious knocked Yoda's lightsaber from his hands. Yoda, left with but his hands, blocked the force lightning. Yoda transmuted the evil electricity into an orb of Force energy that exploded both combatents apart. Sidious managed to grab the bar around the perimeter of the pod, barely hanging on. Yoda, on the bare edge of the pod, was knocked off by the explosion, falling hundreds of feet to the base of the podium.

Yoda looked up, and heard the Emperor cackling. It was at this very moment of the ultimate clash between light and darkness that Yoda finally saw the truth: he had lost before he started, he had lost before he was born. In the last millennium, the Sith had changed, grown, adapted, become new; while the Jedi Order, under Yoda's leadership, spent the same millennium merely trained to refight the last war.

Yoda understood that Darth Bane's ancient Sith Order could not be destroyed by merely a slash of a lightsaber or a shout in the Force. He understood that war was not the way to defeat darkness, because war itself had become the weapon of darkness.

With this new insight, and without any power left to continue the fight, Yoda understood that he could not fall right there. He had to share this discovery, and so he fled, crawling through the ventilation shafts and eventually dropping into Senator Bail Organa's airspeeder.

[edit] Aftermath

Into exile I must go. Failed, I have. -Yoda

 Shock troopers led by Commander Thire were not able to recover Yoda's body, and Mas Amedda was convinced that the Grand Master escaped. Emperor Palpatine had no choice but to assign Thire for the search, as he had to leave for Mustafar immediately—he sensed that his apprentice, Lord Vader, was in mortal danger.

The magnitude of damage in the Senate Rotunda caught the eyes of the Senators. Rumors circulated in the Senate that Jedi Grand Master Yoda led an attack on Emperor Palpatine himself, and the ancient Jedi Master was killed. Through Wookiee Senator Yarua, the rumor found its way to Kashyyyk, including the ears of Chewbacca and Tarfful. Eventually the rumor reached Olee Starstone and her team of fugitive Jedi.

[edit] Behind the scenes

  • During the animatics stage, Steven Spielberg participated in the production of this duel.
  • According to The Making of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Senate hovercams were meant to broadcast the duel across the Galaxy on the HoloNet. This idea was later dropped.
  • The movie does not explain the whereabouts of Palpatine's lightsaber when he starts applying Dun Möch. The following part in this description of the duel is a presumed guess on what happened during scenes.
  • In the novelization, Yoda entered the office from another direction, so no Royal Guards attempted to stop him. Mas Amedda left the office before any exchange was made. Palpatine's Force lightning was deflected by Yoda which blasted the Guards into unconsciousness instead of himself being knocked across the room. Yoda then knocked Palpatine to the floor with his physical body instead of a Force Push. At the end of the battle, the lightning energy ball did not explode. Sidious safely leapt to a nearby podium and Yoda followed. Sidious then turned around and blasted Yoda, who was still in the air, back against another podium who fell down to the bottom. Sidious was not knocked over by any blast, he was described as "a very old, very tired man" after the epic battle.
  • In the comic, the first half of the duel is a combination of scenes in the movie and the novelization. Yoda entered the office the way he did in the novel, but was blasted by Palpatine as shown in the movie. The Red Guards and Mas Amedda mysterious vanished after the battle started, and Yoda knocked Palpatine down with his body as shown in the novel. The duel in the comic ends after Yoda disarms Darth Sidious and gets blasted into the air, the podiums struggle and further engagement is omitted.
  • After being knocked across the office, whether Yoda truly fainted or merely playing weak is unclear. The Screenplay described Yoda as "stunned", while the junior novelization stated that Yoda faked it to surprise Darth Sidious.

[edit] Appearances

[edit] Sources