10 Things You Missed In Star Wars Deleted Scenes

If you pay close attention while watching Palpatine and Mace Windu's (Samuel L. Jackson) battle in Revenge of the Sith, in numerous shots it's clear that Palps is actually holding Anakin's lightsaber hilt, not his own.

That doesn't make much sense, right? Why would Palpatine have Anakin's hilt despite the blade itself still being Palpatine's red?

It is however explained by the fact that the Palpatine/Mace fight was severely changed during post-production, and was originally filmed with Anakin being present at the start of the duel. When he refused to fight Mace, Palpatine took his lightsaber and used it.

Lucas subsequently reshot the scene to instead have Anakin show up only when Windu has overpowered and effectively defeated Palpatine. Anakin then of course interfered by pulling out his lightsaber and slicing Windu's arm off, allowing Palpatine to kill him.

But the final version of the scene still uses many shots from the original fight, with Lucas simply changing the colour of Anakin's lightsaber from blue to red and hoping that most fans wouldn't notice Anakin's hilt. But fans being fans, of course they did.