Skirmish in the Senate

Following the duel between Mace Windu, a Jedi Master, and Palpatine, the Supreme Chancellor who was secretly the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Sidious, the young Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker found himself in a state of inner conflict. He was torn between his allegiance to the Jedi and his desire to prevent his wife, Padmé Amidala, from dying during childbirth, as he had foreseen in visions.

Palpatine, who had acted as a mentor to Skywalker for many years, manipulated him by promising him the power to save his wife from death. Darth Sidious claimed that this power was only accessible to Anakin through the dark side of the Force. Having inadvertently contributed to Windu's death and seeing no possibility of returning to the Jedi Order, Skywalker felt he had no choice but to join the Dark Lord's cause. At that moment, Skywalker pledged himself to Sidious and was initiated into the Order of the Sith Lords as Darth Vader. Sidious then dispatched him to the Jedi Temple with the 501st Legion and orders to eliminate all the Jedi within. The Dark Lord also initiated Order 66, a contingency protocol programmed into the clone troopers fighting alongside the Jedi in the Clone Wars, instructing them to kill all Jedi in their vicinity. These actions effectively wiped out the Jedi from the galaxy.

Before departing the Jedi Temple, Vader used its signal beacon to broadcast a repeated message instructing any surviving Jedi to return to Coruscant. Vader intended this message to serve as a lethal trap for the few Jedi who had managed to survive the Purge. Obi-Wan Kenobi, a Jedi Master, and Yoda, the Jedi Grand Master, both survived Order 66 and detected the message from the Temple. Suspecting it was a lure for Jedi survivors, they eventually made their way back to the Jedi Temple to reprogram the beacon's message. Upon arriving, they encountered a garrison of clone troopers stationed there to eliminate any Jedi who returned as instructed by the beacon. The two Jedi eliminated the troopers and reconfigured the beacon to warn all surviving Jedi to go into hiding. As they left, Kenobi and Yoda reviewed the Temple's security hologram footage and discovered that Skywalker, Kenobi's former Padawan, had led the massacre.

Realizing they had to attempt to destroy the two Sith Lords for the sake of the galaxy, Kenobi, overwhelmed by Anakin's betrayal, volunteered to confront Sidious, while Yoda would fight Vader, as he could not bear the thought of striking down his "brother." However, Yoda knew Kenobi was not strong enough to defeat Sidious, and stated this. He decided Kenobi should try to kill Vader while Yoda engaged Sidious. Given Yoda's plan, he likely knew that if Sidious sensed Vader was in danger, he would immediately go to assist him. Reluctantly agreeing, Kenobi departed to find Vader on Mustafar, while Yoda entered the Chancellery Secretariat to face Sidious.

Within the Galactic Senate Chamber Holding Office of the Senate Building, the Grand Master confronted the Dark Lord of the Sith after using the Force to push his guards against the wall, rendering them unconscious. Yoda then remarked that Palpatine, or rather, Darth Sidious, had recently acquired a new apprentice, while sarcastically calling him the "Emperor." Sidious acknowledged his survival, and when Yoda questioned if he was surprised by it, Sidious contemptuously replied that Yoda was blinded by his own arrogance and would now face the full power of the Dark Side. Sidious then unleashed Force lightning at Yoda. Caught off guard, Yoda was hurled across the chamber and slammed into a wall. As Sidious advanced, Yoda quickly recovered and, ignoring Sidious' taunts, retaliated with an equally potent Force push that sent the Dark Lord flying over his desk. Yoda declared that Sidious's reign was over and not a moment too soon. Wanting to ensure his triumph, Sidious attempted to escape, but Yoda blocked his path, activating his lightsaber. Realizing he had no choice but to fight, Sidious ignited his own weapon after declaring that Darth Vader would become "far more powerful" than either of them, although Yoda responded by stating that that his "faith in Vader and the dark side may be misplaced". With nothing more to say, the duel began.

Their battle raged throughout the office, with neither combatant gaining an upper hand. As the fight moved to the Chancellor's Podium, the platform ascended through the retractable ceiling into the Grand Convocation Chamber itself. As the duel continued, Sidious found his movements restricted by the Podium's small size, while Yoda's Ataru style and small stature allowed him to easily maneuver around the Dark Lord. Yoda eventually managed to knock Sidious's lightsaber from his grasp, disarming him. Sidious then gained the high ground by leaping to one of the Senate pods above him. He began using the Force to hurl waves of these pods at Yoda, but the Jedi Grandmaster used his own powers to dodge from one pod to another, avoiding Sidious's improvised projectiles. As Yoda jumped about, he tried to re-engage Sidious in close combat, but the Dark Lord's attack was too intense for Yoda to close the distance.

It was at that precise moment, during a confrontation between the personifications of light and darkness, that Yoda understood the Jedi had already lost the war. Over the past millennium, the Sith had changed and evolved, becoming a new entity, while the Jedi Order, under his command, had spent the same period merely training to re-fight the previous war.

Dismissing his doubts, the small Jedi focused on an approaching pod and sent it flying back at Sidious. As the pod hurtled toward Sidious, the Dark Lord realized he had spread his powers too thin to counter the projectile with the Force. He was forced to leap from his perch to a lower pod, surrendering his tactical advantage. Yoda immediately seized the opportunity to re-engage Sidious at close range and leaped at the Sith Lord, landing on the edge of Sidious's pod and igniting his lightsaber. However, Sidious unleashed a blast of Force lightning at Yoda before he could strike, knocking Yoda's lightsaber from his hand, and forcing Yoda to use tutaminis to absorb Sidious's lightning. Sidious advanced on Yoda, steadily increasing the power of his lightning, while raising his body to target his attack above Yoda's tutaminis defense, causing the latter to weaken. Yet suddenly, Yoda mustered the strength to redirect Sidious's lightning back at him, forming the energy into a blue orb in front of him, astonishing Sidious who began to stumble backward with the force of Yoda's counterattack. But just as Yoda seemed on the verge of victory, the combined powers of both Force masters caused an explosion of Force energy that hurled them apart.

Sidious was sent tumbling to the edge of the pod, but having been at its opposite end when the explosion occurred, he was not blasted clear and barely managed to grab one of its guardrails. Yoda, however, had been standing at the very edge of the pod during the explosion, and weighed very little. As a result, the blast sent Yoda flying back to the Chancellor's Podium, situated high above the Senate floor with nothing in between but empty space. Yoda struck the Podium too hard to control his landing, and he rolled off the main portion to the edge where he desperately attempted to climb back up. His hold on the smooth edge failing, Yoda lost his grip and fell several stories to the floor. Realizing that he needed to survive if the galaxy had any hope of freedom from the Sith, Yoda chose to retreat as Sidious cackled in triumph above him. Yoda crawled through the ventilation shafts and eventually dropped into Senator Bail Prestor Organa's airspeeder, escaping into exile.

Shock troopers led by Commander Thire failed to recover Yoda's body, and Mas Amedda was convinced the Jedi Grand Master had escaped. Sidious tasked Thire and a squad of clones with searching for the Jedi, even authorizing them to destroy the Senate building if necessary. Sidious himself had more urgent matters, as his concern had grown into a near-certainty that Vader was in mortal danger. On Mustafar, the Dark Lord found his apprentice near death due to the recent duel where Obi-Wan Kenobi inflicted what appeared to be fatal wounds. However, Sidious ultimately succeeded in saving his apprentice.

The extent of the damage in the Senate Rotunda drew the attention of the Senators. Rumors spread throughout the Senate that Jedi Grand Master Yoda had attacked Palpatine and had been killed. Through Wookiee Senator Yarua, the rumor reached Kashyyyk, including Chewbacca and Tarfful. Eventually, the rumor reached Olee Starstone and her team of fugitive Jedi.

Unable to defeat Sidious, Yoda chose self-imposed exile on the swamp planet of Dagobah, where he would wait until Anakin's twins, Luke and Leia, were old enough to redeem their father from the Dark Side. Years later, on Dagobah, Yoda would train Luke in the ways of the Force. Luke would eventually rescue his father from the dark side and inspire the latter to defeat Sidious, restoring balance to the Force.

This lightsaber duel in the Senate Rotunda was created for the 2005 film, Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith. While unnamed in the film, an official Hasbro Star Wars Miniatures pack depicting the duel identified it as the Skirmish in the Senate. According to The Making of Star Wars Revenge of the Sith, Senate hovercams were intended to broadcast the duel across the galaxy on the HoloNet, but this idea was later abandoned.

In the novelization, Yoda entered the office from a different direction, so Royal Guards did not attempt to stop him. Mas Amedda left the office before any exchange occurred. Yoda deflected Sidious's Force lightning, which blasted the guards into unconsciousness instead of Yoda being knocked across the room. Yoda then knocked Sidious 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 leaped to a nearby podium, and Yoda followed. Sidious then turned and blasted Yoda, who was still in the air, back against another podium, causing him to fall to the bottom. Sidious was not knocked over by any blast, but he was described as "a very old, very tired man" after the epic battle. In the novelization, Yoda apparently does not lose his lightsaber in the battle, as he is described slicing his way through the ventilation shafts in his escape from the Senate Building.

In the comic, the first half of the duel combines scenes from the movie and the novelization. Yoda entered the office as he did in the novel but was blasted by Sidious as shown in the movie. The Red Guards and Mas Amedda mysteriously disappeared after the battle began, and Yoda knocked Sidious down with his body in a flying dropkick, as shown in the novel. The duel in the comic ends after Yoda disarms Darth Sidious and gets blasted into the air. In a DVD commentary, Rob Coleman stated that the Emperor's use of Senate pods as weapons was a metaphor for the fall of freedom and democracy brought about by Sidious's victory.

A contradiction exists between two official sources regarding whether Yoda truly fainted or merely feigned weakness when Sidious shot him with lightning and sent him flying across the office. The screenplay described Yoda as "stunned," while the junior novelization stated that Yoda faked it to surprise Darth Sidious. As the screenplay is G-canon, it is the official version.

This is among the few lightsaber duels in the films where none of the participants are injured by a lightsaber.