Yoda v Sidious: Battle of the Wizards.

On almost any other day, I believe Yoda would have won. But the Force was definately not with the Jedi during ROTS. Their ability to use the Force has dimished since, at least, AOTC. Plus, after Order 66 and the fall of Anakin, I think Yoda knows that he is not destined to defeat Darth Sidious. He knew that, after a thousand years of waiting, the Sith had played them. They couldn't even sense the Sith Lord in front of them, and the "planets were aligned" in favor of the Dark Lords.

Psychologically, and even spiritually, Yoda had lost before he even entered Palpatine's chamber. But he had to at least try.

 

I dont know why people have a hard time understanding why the fight between them went the way it did. Its a LOT more than just "palps had the high ground" or "it was just destiny" or "i guess it was a draw" -No! It wasnt any of thoes things. Its a little more than just destiny. It vividly explains in the novelization of ROTS that yoda realized that the jedi have been training for the last 1000 years to fight the last war, the "old sith". While the sith have reinvented themselves and gotten so much stronger and wiser the jedi have gotten almost "spoiled" in a way,too sure of themselves and arrogant after there victory over the sith 1000 years ago. so What yoda realized at the end of that fight and also why he ran away was that he could not beat palpatine in a strait fight without going through what the sith went through first and reinventing the jedi by training luke the "right way" or "the new way" if you will.

Living to fight another day by taking what he learned from that fight AS WELL AS the mistakes of the past and training an "untainted" person like luke to never make the same mistakes and have a better understanding of the force, better than the arrogant and tired jedi order that died out because of there mistakes. Thats exactly what luke does when he indeed finds a way to combat the darkness that palpatine mastered so well, by mastering the light! Mastering it better than the jedi of the old republic by throwing away his lightsaber and refusing the dark just the way he did in his finest moment in ROTJ.

When you think about it like that than it shows the OT in a new light giving luke an EVEN MORE important purpose because not only is his destiny what we all alredy know but now he is also tasked to "reinvent" his new jedi order (after ROTJ) with the "new" or "smarter" training that yoda teaches him in TESB and not make the same mistakes of the past. It also adds more importance to all the training scenes between luke and yoda in TESB rather than being redundant things about the force that we have already herd in the PT.

Its this explanation that gives vader his "badassness" or what ever you want to call it and sets him apart from all the other sith we have seen because at this point in the story its just him and the emperor and they are the ultimate sith and ultimate power in the galaxy. Too powerful for even yoda to stop because its now about more than just matching up the best of the jedi vs. the best of the sith, its DEEPER! Its luke being the "only hope" for the galaxy because he alone can reinvent the jedi with both yodas new training and following his own path to the light without being seduced to the dark.

Thats what the yoda/sids fight was about. It was a big learning experience for yoda giving him the knowledge needed to save the jedi and the galaxy. He even says to luke in ROTJ "do not underestimate the powers of the emperor" hes basicaly saying "don't make the same mistakes i did before i fought him".

 

I think the force of the lighting knocked Yoda over but he was playing possum as far as it hurting him.The PT showed us that the lightning attack isn't really a big deal.

 

Tell that to Windu!

[image=http://www.stardestroyer.net/ROTS/Windu-2.jpg]

 

I can't see your picture but the only times the lightning was ever really effective was in a 2 vs 1 with an injured Mace.



You can stop it with a lightsabre,a weapon that every jedi has.GL's telling us it's not really a big deal power.It would have been quicker and easier for Palp to use lightning against all the Jedi coming for him,but he knew they where all aware of this power and none where injured,which seems to be the only time lightning is really all that useful.

 

We see Mace having great difficulty repelling the force lightning of Sidious with is Vapaad saber style. He pleads with Anakin to intervene and help him.

Was it a ploy on the part of Sidious that he stops his attack? Was he just acting defenseless to gain Anakin's sympathy, playing up to his need to save Padme. I think Ian's eyes tell us the answer, shifting between Mace and Anakin as he pleads his case for life. Mace will die, one way or the other. How he dies will determine Anakin's fate. Anakin chose, and chose poorly.

Vader pays the ultimate price for saving his son from the Emperor's wrath, enduring a lightning blast so extreme, so powerful that his bones illuminate through his armor (just as Windu's glows through his skin).

EU Luke suffers painful long-term effects from his fateful force lightning encounter with the Sith Lord.

 

He does...? I know he had some problems in Truce at Bakura, but I cannot remember any further mention of side-effects.

As for the Lightning, I feel Sids could probably have kept going. he stopped because he knew that Anakin was the key. He had the power to kill Palps right there, but he knew he was also that Anakin was Palpatines friend... Sidious was a good judge of character, and knew that if Anakin thought that Sidious was telling the truth about being too weak, he would side with him. Of course, as soon as he does, Sidious shows he wasn't as weak as he made out, but by then it is too late.

 

Mace used effort just like yoda did to repel the force of the lighting but he repelled it with no after effects.Mace doesn't plead for any help.Mace beats Palp,GL says so,boot to the face,strained look on his face during the duel and scared crab walk retreat with noone else in the room.It's tough to tell cause there's so much bad acting going on but it looks like to me a defeated palp fearful for his life seeing the change in Anakin and knowing he has a chance to live.Palp makes a very similar scaried face when Vader picks him up Iin Jedi.


Vader was already injuried and beat down not to metion he was a cyborg.


After a tough duel movie Luke takes a massive prolonged blast quickly recovers and shows no after effects.

The only time the lighting is really effective is vs injuried people,unarmed people and in Anakin's case much like Luke he was inexperienced with the Sith's ways.But then in there rematch in Sith,Dooku doesn't try lighting at all because he knows both Anakin and Kenobi know of the power and are armed with there sabres.

 

Palpatine thought it was going to be a one-sided fight and got scared when Yoda pushed him away that far. I am sure they have Anti-TK abilities if not, if they can move such a large object like a spaceship, a human body is meaningless to that power. So Yoda pushing him back and "overcoming" that defense made Sidous, think twice and NOT underestimate your opponent.

If you are at war you would want odds in your favor... I mean, if Anakin was so powerful why did he take a full battalion of clones into the Jedi Temple? Wasn't he supposed to be bada$$? Well.. he wanted the odds in his favor and that is not being overconfident and NOT being stupid. Well.. why then when Palps wants to flee is out of character?? He has a full EMPIRE... He has the whole Empire behind him to get to Yoda.... I guess its a very Sith/Sidious way of fighting. I would too... I wouldn't risk the success of thousands of years of planing to ONE DUEL!!!! HECK NO... So its not out of character.

The other thing people don't see and it's the great symbolism of the senate site is that, again, Sidious is attacking Yoda with the Republic... Hey look at me... I have the republic in my hands and I will crash it down on to you.

Why wouldn't Maul run from a fight??? Same reason Anakin didn't either. He needed to impress his Master... Sidious doesn't need to impress anyone. Run and fight another day, just like Yoda did when he thought he didn't have a chance... Sidiuos didn't want to risk it so he tried to flee... I rather have a full battalion of clones behind me.

Take care people.. post away.

 

I really enjoyed that battle , seeing Yoda in the most epic battle of his life was pretty exiting.
And I was glad to hear the duel of the fates theme on that one.

 

I think Yoda and Palpatine are probably more or less evenly matched but . Yes Palpatine throws down Senate booths at Yoda like snowballs but Yoda made one stop that was being propelled by Sidious so in other words he could muster enough strength to not only stop the pod but also hurl it back at Sidious and he can not only absorb Sidious' lightning with his bare hands but can muster enough strength to launch a counter attack which incidently blew the two apart . After that Yoda hit alot of stuff on his fall so that weakend him but more importantly Palpatine now had the high ground and as the duel between Obi-Wan and Anakin shows the Jedi/Sith with the high ground has a clear advantage .

As for Sidious trying to escape earlier he knows that Yoda could potentially beat him , as could Mace Windu I believe , had Anakin not intefered Mace could have killed Sidious . I don't think Sidious was faking that .

It's an interesting subject which Jedi and Sith are stronger . I believe Sidious is the strongest Sith ever , Yoda is about evenly matched as the strongest Jedi at the time of ROTS . It seems Windu is very close to Yoda .

Now it's widely known that if Anakin had not been maimed by Obi Wan he would have become more powerful than any Jedi or Sith , Palpatine was right in that aspect but from what I heard Lucas say now Vader only has about 80% of Palpatine's power .

So of coarse that leads to the question if that means that Luke was over that 80% seeing that he could defeat Vader . Well who knows but we do know that the only Jedi that has demonstrated that he can absorb Sidious Force lightning with his bare hands is Yoda , Mace could do so only with a lightsaber . Its likely Luke could have done so with his lightsaber had he not thrown it away but clearly he could not with his bare hands , it actually seems that Luke is fairly ignorant of Force lightning and never expects that Palpatine could have this ability , in fact it seems few Jedi ever see it coming . Yoda gets taken by surprise that way and it seems Windu didn't exactly expect Palpatine to use it either .

As for Palpatine's more energetic behaviour in ROTS compared to Return of the Jedi , obviously by the time of Return of the Jedi Palpatine has also been weakend by age somewhat as he is seen walking with a cane , not as much as Yoda who dies of old age but he's getting there . The same might be said for Vader who's age is probably also starting to creep up on him a bit , maybe this is how the younger Luke could defeat him , plus Vader was in a confused state so it's to be presumed that his connection to the darkside was already waning in his duel with Luke before the emperor and so it can be assumed his power when using it to fight .

Anyway sorry for the long post , just some of my opinions .

 

Mace defeated Sidious fair and square in the sabre duel. How their respective Force abilities would've panned out remained unanswered as the duel was determined by Anakin's choice to side with the Sith. Anyway...

I think the Yoda Sidious duel was very much played out as an even match. We see both participants dominate at times. When they were eventually blown apart during their Force exchange, Yoda happened to fall further. That's about all the difference I could see in it. The novelisation's a good read, but I'm not swayed that much by anything that doesn't appear in the films. If Lucas had felt that strongly about Yoda being outmatched by Sidious, he would've put something in the film to make that clear.

 

Yes I feel he same way , Yoda was just more unlucky in how he fell . Yoda was just too weakend by the fall he took to continue to fight Sidious at that time . Sure with some rest he could have recuperated but chances are if he had stayed he would have been discovered before .

 

With respect to the conversation about the power of Force lightning, I don't think the power of Force lightning is consistent throughout the movies. What I mean to say is that there seems to be a lot more power behind Palpatine's lightning than Dooku's. Obi-Wan blocks Dooku's lightning with no apparent phyical effort. Mace has to strain in order to block Palpatine's lightning. Yoda catches Dooku's lightning in his hand with very little apparent physical effort. He strains to catch Palpatine's and never does catch it with complete success. The first time, he doesn't catch it at all. It knocks him over. The second time, he cannot deflect it without losing his balance and falling. So, my point is that we cannot accurately assign a certain degree of power or danger or seriousness to Force lightning. It depends on the Sith Lord using it.

 

I agree. Sidious is a LOT more powerful then Dooku, and thus can use a stronger Dark Side Lightning.

 

That's obvious , the more powerful the dark side user the more powerful the Force lightning will be and seeing that Palpatine is so powerful only Yoda that we know off could absorb it with his bare hands and other powerful Jedi like Mace Windu can absorb it with their light saber under heavy strain .

 

Proximity also seems to have something to do with the strength of the lightning. Yoda, when blocking Palpatine's lightning, seemed to struggle more as Palpatine moved closer, and when they got too close the force of it sent both flying backwards. Also, when Luke first gets zapped he pretty much just falls over, but as Palpatine moves in closer he starts to scream and writhe in pain a lot more.

When Dooku uses lightning he only uses a single handed blast from a greater distance. It's logical that Palpatine's is stronger, but I also don't feel that Dooku used it to its full effect. He seemed to be showing off with it more, while Palpatine was using it as a weapon.

 

Possible and it doesn't really seem that Dooku was necessarily trying to kill in AOTC .

 

Dooku likes too play with them before killing someone.

 

Dooku's dark side powers are nowhere near Palpatine's. I personally wish they hadn't even had Dooku use Force lightning.

 

I think Jerec was as strong as Dooku.

 

Even if Yoda is rock solid in his stance and his feet have perfect friction for the surface, Palpatine simply has more mass to apply torque to Yoda's lightsabre which must inevitably turn him, put him off balance, tip him over. Because of Yoda's low body mass, it makes sense in terms of physics that he must be agile and orbit his opponent like an electron. However, not just for defensive reasons as seen with how far he flew from the first bolt of lightning, but more importantly to achieve the same momentum of striking power as a larger, slower opponent. (Momentum = mass * velocity). He has to move at a certain velocity so that his own smaller lightsabre can impart a linear force or rotational torque that is equivalent to the more massive Palpatine's at slower speeds.

When Yoda slows a descending Senate pod and starts spinning it, I pretty much want to say, "Are you even listening to the soundtrack?" This is at the height of the DOTF horn section, and the image does not match their kinetic power. To smell what the horns are cooking, Yoda should have summoned some motherload kept for rainy days and immediately shot the thing straight back up. And THEN be exhausted as per the general equation that the Dark side commands much power and endurance. I bet a fan edit could snip that right out, as there's no dialogue.

 

Dooku's lightning is pansy lightning. Anakin's good to get up and fight within a few minutes of getting zapped-Luke's on his arse and hardly able to move after a single bolt from Palpatine in ROTJ.


[image=http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y137/Chrlsgain/7201CountDooku.jpg]

 

lol quite true Yoda seems to very easily be able to absorb and deflect Dooku's force lightning with his hands but with Palpatine he has to put all of his power into it .