The REAL REASON Why Yoda Couldn't Defeat Darth Sidious - Explain Star Wars

In the end, things did not go as planned for Jedi Master Yoda against Sidious however why was this the case, what is the Real Reason why Yoda didn't end up defeating Sidious...

[chayse]

No matter how strong, not even Yoda or Sidious could penetrate plot armor.

[elementaljedi]

I don’t get why people hate Yoda flipping around when they know that he couldn’t fight like other due to his size.

[luke]

Yoda was unable to defeat sidious due to the powerful being known as plot armour, who in order to preserve its friend continuity, stopped either Yoda or sidious from killing the other

[drwfigureadventures]

They fought to a stalemate... in fact Yoda had out-duelled Sidious (Sidious has been disarmed) and the reason the fight ended was because of placement. When Yoda absorbed the Force lightning, BOTH Yoda and Sidious were flung backwards; however, Yoda was on the edge of the Senate pod and so fell, while Sidious was blocked. Yoda has out-duelled Sidious.

[timeshark]

Because episode 4 was already a thing.

[stone]

Tbf, I believe Yoda was kicking Sidious' ass in the duel, (at least in lightsaber combat) but Sidious ended up winning because, even though Yoda ended up rebounding Sidious' force lightening, the fall he suffered caused him too much damage for him to continue. As you said Bessy, force valor has it's limits and I think it just ran out towards the end of the fight. Yoda tried to beat him quickly, but because of Sidious' mastery, it was a drawn out fight.

[DanielTorres-kixn]

No actually that's not even true what was said in this video. The novelization says yoda pushed palpatine to his limits forcing him to drop his light saber. And then palpatine knocked yoda s light saber out of his hand with force lightning. Which is why they didn't fight with sabers at the end.

[ssonicdeafmonkey]

I think it was just the luck of the draw. The force lightning explosion propelled Yoda farther than Sidious because he's smaller.

[parley]

I think Yoda did actually win in lightsaber combat by disarming sidious. Then the battle of force powers ended in a stalemate and he realized he had to flee in order to make sure other jedi could be trained.

[wstritt]

Never will understand why everyone always craps on Yoda. He won in the books, he won in the movie, and so did Mace. Yet somehow Palpatine is better lol.

[babyfaceaviator]

Yoda was shorter therefore did not have the high ground.

[theblasteffect]

I saw the thumbnail and thought this was an episode of Robot Chicken lmao

[DarthHegemon]

Ever wonder what Yoda did on Dagobah to combat boredom? What did he do to make the...Day Go Bah? Ehh?

[TheCludo]

It seemed yoda did not have the high ground

[TwoFace-fn]

Do you guys think we will see Luke use force valor of the last jedi?

[toastedtarts]

You could watch the fight scene and see sidious’ face. There was fear. Sidious may have been stronger but only slightly and the dark side is like steroids that give a lot of strength but wear the user down so sidious is like an old man too and literally in one of the movies also had a cane. Sidious didn’t win. If one was dead then the other would be winner.

[alcostello]

If Yoda didn’t fall from the blast of him deflecting the force lighting (at which point he held the upper hand) he would have continued on to win.

[MrLordlexx]

He did NOT lose the lightsaber duel, he actually won. Force power duel ended in a stalemate with Yoda lighter stature pushing him further in the force explosion between the two.
At this point Yoda could not be curtain of the final outcome but knew threw his trials with the Shaman of the Whills (Clone Wars) that he was needed to train the future Jedi Grand Master. He decided that day to remain in exile until the day he was needed again

[GarrettTheViking]

And to add to your point, Sidious was at his most powerful that day. He had just caused the destruction of the Jedi and the Dark Side in Palpatine was at its strongest. As powerful as Yoda is, he couldn't compete with Darth Sidious's Force power and lightsaber skills. Sidious actually used a form of Force Valor to allow himself to fight as well, because of his age, but judging by the duel with Mace Windu, I think that Palpatine's Force Valor lasts longer than Yoda's. And Palpatine also wasn't nearly 900 years old either. "When 900 years old he reaches, fight as well he will not."- Yoda (If he were to comment on the age difference between him and Sidious)

[oscarlover]

Full In-Depth Analysis Of Yoda Vs. Sidious(Part 1):

Yoda seems to just come in out of nowhere, proceeding to knock out the Red Guards fairly easily(I wonder if he attacked any other Guards/clone troopers or maybe he just snuck into the building the same way he left it, using those internal tunnels?). Palpatine seems surprised by his survival, while Mas Amedda seems to be weary of the whole situation. In regards to Yoda and Sidious's exchange of words, yes, Sidious was right in that Yoda/the Jedi Order were arrogant, but Yoda”s words here are not arrogant to me per se: His spirit was already near broken by all the deaths of the Jedi and the Sith”s victory. He went into the fight knowing that he needed to be confident since he already had a low morale: you can see it in his face throughout the film. How would you go into that fight if you were in Yoda”s position? Admit your faults to your worst enemy and crush your moral even more? Or go in as confident as you can? His later taunt to Sidious about leaving may be a little arrogant, but it was true: Sidious was being extremely cocky and confident prior to Yoda force pushing him and then afterwards, he just decides to leave. It”s an accurate observation.

Anyway, I can fault Yoda for not being prepared for Sidious”s first force lightning attack: Palpatine was raising his hands slowly enough that it was obvious what he was about to do. Yoda should have been ready to deflect it. Instead, he looks shocked. Maybe it”s just the speed and strength of the lightning or that he had never encountered a Sith that could use both hands to conjure it? Count Dooku only uses one and Yoda is certainly not taken aback by it. Either way, he should have realized what Sidious was about to do and even if he didn”t, call on either his lightsaber or his hand to defend himself.

I do not believe Sidious knocked him out though. My opinion is that Yoda was playing dead at that point and was not knocked unconscious. The script states that Palpatine moved towards a "stunned Yoda", but that does not definitively mean that Yoda was definitely knocked out- It merely is a description of the image that we're seeing on screen, not the internal thoughts/strategies of the characters. Personally, I can tell Yoda is not unconscious, given how his mouth and facial expressions are when he is on the ground. It makes sense that he wanted to lure Sidious into a false sense of confidence by pretending to be unconscious, instead of getting up right away and giving Sidious the chance to attack him again. Even with Sidious's face showing signs of displeasure as Yoda got up, you can still see that he was going to continue to gloat about his victory right before Yoda catches him by surprise with the force push. This clearly is a wake-up call to Sidious, who realized that even with all he had accomplished in the past few days, Yoda's powers are still extremely potent, his strength rivals his own, and that he could not risk being defeated after everything had just fallen into place for him. So he logically decides to flee. Yoda stops him of course, causing Sidious to show even more fear. Yoda points out his hypocrisy, ignites his lightsaber, causing Palpatine to concede to the fact that he has to face him. Then he more or less tells him that the power of the dark side will continue to grow stronger with Darth Vader alive and intact. Yoda sternly counters this belief and both prepare for attack. Their lightsaber duel begins. Now, I know some believe that Sidious believes that he has Yoda beat at one point in their saber duel and then snarls in anger when he turns out to be wrong, but I personally don't believe this. Sidious is merely just glorying in his own power and psychotic nature as he attacks his oppenent. Then, Yoda blocks his move and growls at him as he breaks the saber block. Sidious returns the growl with a vicious swipe and snarl. My main point here is that Sidious may be gaining confidence as he realizes that he can more then keep up with Yoda, but I don't think that we can infer too much into this particular exchange, since he often goes back and forth between sadistic enjoyment and brutal anger in combat.

There's a small cut here and we can only guess what happens, but I think Yoda somehow drives Sidious into the pod, who then decides to move the fight into the Senate Arena in order to provide the option to escape and to give him more of an advantage. . Yoda jumps after him and they begin to fight in the Chancellor's Podium with Yoda beginning to overwhelm Sidious with the strength of his lightsaber attacks and his size being an asset in such a tight, enclosed space.

Here comes one of the worst decisions ever made in the history of film when the movie decides to cut to Obi-Wan Vs Anakin and then having us see Yoda presumably leaping from the chancellor's podium and onto a Senate pod several levels below Sidious, who has somehow managed to get away from the C.P, gotten into a Senate pod row relatively higher then Yoda's, and also has two Senate Pods prepped and ready to be thrown at Yoda. Pretty irritating huh? Well, we have the original script as well as the junior novel to help us fill in the blanks, so I'll try to move on from here(The official novelization does not really help us here at all, given how vaguely poetic the language is. There aren't enough step by step specifics in it to fully determine what happens at this point). Anyway, it's clear that Yoda was making Sidious's job hard in the lightsaber duel, "causing him to almost go over the edge"(Original Script). Then, "the Dark Lord drops his lightsaber"(O.S). Before Yoda can kill him however, Sidious attacks him with force lightning again. Yoda knows better then to not be prepared for that at this point and blocks the lightning, causing it to repel itself onto Palpatine instead. Here, Yoda is at a significant advantage, almost to the point of victory, with the original script saying "it appears that the Dark Lord is doomed". We're unclear though if he is causing this to happen by blocking the lightning with his lightsaber, or using his hands deflect it. Then, the script says that Yoda declares to the Emperor "Destroy you I will, just as Master Kenobi, your Apprentice will destroy" . Then, "YODA jumps to a lower senate pod". The J.N matches this description up to a point, but it only states "the lightning bent, arcing back towards the Emperor", never that he is doomed. On the contrary, it states in full that "The Sith Lord only redoubled his attack. Hurling Force lightning, the Emperor backed away, to the very edge of the platform. Following him was like walking against hurricane winds. Never had Yoda faced one so strong in the dark side. Before he came within reach, a particularly strong blast knocked Yoda out of the pod", causing him to be "plunged over the edge". Then, "he landed much sooner then he had expected, in an empty Senate pod floating below the Chancellor's".

From these two sources and from what we see in the film, I'm going to assume that this is what happened at this point: Yoda almost caused Palpatine to fall, which threw him off his focus and caused him to drop his lightsaber as Yoda continued to attack him. Then, Palpatine retaliated with Force Lightning and Yoda deflected it using his lightsaber, using the force to cause the lighting to be sent back to the Emperor. Here, both sources contradict each other too directly to infer anything major from them, but from what we see in the film, I think Palpatine purposefully stopped the lightning attack using all of his strength(causing Yoda to be thrown back by the sheer force of the attack being ceased, then using the Force to stabilize himself and prevent him from falling from the Podium), used the force to jump to the Senate Pods, leaping from level to level until he obtained the high ground. No doubt he considered fleeing at this point, but then he recognized his advantage, saw Yoda following him, and lifted two Senate Pods into the air using the force, preparing to throw them at his opponent the moment he landed.

I'm going to stop here, but let me know what you think of my analysis so far!