For years, Sheev Palpatine shaped life in the galaxy, first as Senator of Naboo, then as Supreme Chancellor of the Republic. No one, not even the Jedi, suspected that Palpatine was only using his politician’s mask to pursue his true goals as the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Sidious.
After Darth Maul and Darth Tyranus, he took on his new apprentice Darth Vader and brought the Jedi Order to the brink of extinction.
His lightsaber hilt is special too: small and inconspicuous, so it can easily be hidden in a sleeve.
Screenshots
Behind the Scenes
The lightsaber actually only appears in a few shots in ROTS. Since in the original cut of the film Palpatine was supposed to fight Mace Windu and co. with Anakin’s lightsaber, you only see his hilt in the reshot scenes where he ignites his lightsaber. In the other shots of the duel, you can see Anakin Skywalker’s hilt with a red blade.
In the duel with Yoda, Sidious uses his real lightsaber. The hilt’s colors are slightly different here, with more black than gold elements. For a long time, the Expanded Universe explanation was that Sidious owned two almost identical lightsaber hilts. An explanation that finally became canon with his appearance in The Clone Wars wielding two lightsabers.
