Yoda’s an idiot. But that’s not his fault; it’s Lucas’s fault. It’s not hard to write the scene so that his retreat makes sense; you just have to have a couple dozen clone bodyguards show up and force it. Lucas sometime in tthe last few decades forgot how to set up a coherent story. I blame the French.
Actually, in this one case, I’d have to say that Lucas painted himself into a corner - Yoda had to go into hiding AND Palpatine had to live… that’s the problem with 'after the fact written prequels that want to shoehorn in every fanwank/service/action figure without regaurd to actually having a clue how to write one that actually delivers" and I blame this squarely on Lucas.
Palpatine is a lot more powerful than Yoda. Yoda says that much in ROTJ. Kenobi would have been about as useful to Yoda in that fight as he was in Annakin’s final confrontation with Dooku. Once Yoda realized how powerful Palpatine was (much more formidable than Dooku, whom Yoda toyed with in TPM) he thought that the best plan was to hope Kenobi had been successful and find whatever other stray Jedi they could and come up with a plan.
That’s not quite what “Into exile I must go” means. :rolleyes:
Why does everyone think Yoda was toying with Dooku? Sure, Dooku’s levitation tricks and electricity tricks didn’t work on Yoda because Yoda was powerful enough to handle them, but the swordfighting was not one-sided. There’s no reason for Yoda to toy with Dooku, and plenty of reason to bring the conclusion. Dooku does have to cheat to get away (putting Obi-wan and Annakin in trouble), but he wasn’t getting hacked slowly to bits by Yoda.
I agree that Yoda wasn’t quite toying to Dooku, but I don’t think he went full-bore, either. If I recall aright, he suspected that Dooku might have a master of his own and wanted him alive, not dead; and he also was splitting his energies between winning the battle and keeping his two subordinates alive.
Yes, that’s what I think was going on. Plus, Yoda liked Dooku, him being a former padawan and all.
This is probably wrong, and I am in no way an expert on Star Wars canon, but I always thought of Yoda as absolutely dedicated to the ideals of the force. One the most important tenants of the force was a need for balance. I think Yoda understood that Palpatine needed to win, and he needed to gain power in order for balance to be achieved. The Jedi had been supreme for too long, but the force had decided their time had passed and was working to achieve balance in the Universe, so the pendulum swung the way of the Sith. Yoda was the only one who understood this, which is why he let Palpatine go and went into his own self imposed exile.