doubleofive said:

xhonzi said:

Why do you think that Yoda and the Emperor were never implied to have lightsabres in the OT?

Why do you think that changed in the PT?
In the OT, they were the masters of the Force and that's all they needed.

But haven't we all arrived at that conclusion BECAUSE they didn't use lightsabers? Between the two options, I think it was a more unusual thing to see them without lightsabers. If they had been filmed with sabers originally, I don't think people would be wondering why Lucas didn't film them without.

It is hard to unlearn what you have learned. Seeing Yoda and the Emperor with lightsabers in the classic trilogy is tough for me to imagine, but that is just because me brain is trained that way. I don't have the experience of seeing it the other way.