*OFFICIAL THREAD* Mace Windu vs. Darth Sidious Discussion v3.0

If taking a risk serves his purpose, then Palpatine will take them. Even if they could go wrong. Such as the case with the Invisbile Hand being blasted to bits and crashing into Coruscant. Palpatine took a risk fighting Mace and he lost the fight, but ultimately won.

 

What is the difference between the Invisible Hand and in his office? They both throw the Jedi off his tracks, keep them off-balance. Anakin showing up in both cases was unlikely.

 

like i said,i do admit palpatine was the best poker player ive ever seen(the biggest bluffer) but to admit he had forseen all and that he lost to Mace on purpose there is not enought good reason to make me believe that and if you want me to believe it show me proof,cause my argument have been showin the oposite so far

 

It would have been interesting if in AOTC, Mace Windu had gotten to Dooku first. Could Windu have beaten Dooku?
In GL early scripts of SW the name Mace Windu pops up a few times. Either Windu or Starkiller.

I'd have to go with GL's official word. Windu had beaten Sidious. Clearly a mistake that Sidious underestimated Windu.
He easily offed the 3 other Jedi. I can't help but think Lucas' agreed to make Samuel L. Jackson's character totally badass
and only beaten by fate i.e. Anakin's prophecy. It pretty much says the same thing in novel, Windu's "vapid" attack style or whatever.

Actually this duel may be my favorite. I like Yoda vs. Sidious too. I just love how Sidious does his monster like snarl and flips horizontally into the fray. True, McDiarmid's expressions of evil and insidiousness were kinda comical even more so with his makeup in Yoda vs. Sidious, but the acting
actually makes the scenes work thanks to McDiarmid. Yoda could have beat Sidious too, but in this case his "size" did matter. Windu was
physically stronger than Yoda and kept his lightsaber in his hands to help deflect Sidious' lightning. Sidious' weakness was his overconfidence
and underestimating the power of the good side of the Force as shown in ROTJ.

that said, Obi-Wan could beat Grevious, but could never beat Dooku? but yet beat Darth Maul? Maybe Obi-Wan in general relies too much on his lightsaber skills which were shown not be at the same level as Windu or Yoda, and would have kicked butt more using force powers. Anakin kept forcing Obi-Wan back and would have eventually beaten him with swordplay except for the cheap trick of "higher ground" - very badly done by Lucas. More believable if Anakin had fell into the lava and barely got out before it burned away his body completely.

 

i could not agree with you more

that is a very true point you got there however i have another theory on Obi Wan vs Grevious fight,since in the whole movie Grevious have been shown pretty weak compared to the clone war cartoon,dont you think Grevious was severly affaected by Mace's attack on Corruscant?
i mean some ppl tell me that Grevious was repaired befor the fight againts Obi Wan however near the time Obi Wan get to him we can still see him havin trouble breathing like chokin sometime,also he seems pretty busy doin his job since Dooku was gone he was the only one in charge so he had alot of responsability wich shown us that he never realy had the time to get repair.that i cant be sure of it but im just speculating this i would have to watch more carefely but it make me wonder why such a powerfull character of the clone wars turn out to be so weak in the movie

 

There a couple of factors in Grevious being weak in ROTS I think.

1. I agree that he was still suffering the effects of Mace's attack - this attack was really nasty it was a force crush, that affected Grevious's gut sack. Since he is still weezing throughout ROTS he was not repaired.

2. Grevious is over-matched by the top Jedi. Grevious is really cocking after killing Jedi in the Clone Wars Cartoon. Dooku warns him that Jedi such as Yoda, Mace and the other council members are not the same as the low level Jedi he has faced. By the the time of ROTS the top saber users are Sidious, Yoda, Mace and Anakin, with Obi Wan just outside that list.

my two cents

 

still Grevious did great againts some other member from the council like Ki adi mundi

 

Yes,

But the combination of lightsaber and force skills of the top players are too much for him.
He would need extra help or some plan to win.

It's little like Sidious.
As tough as Sidious is he needs a plan to deal with the Jedi. He made sure 2 of 3 toughest Jedi were off-world before he exposed himself. He took his chances he could beat the remaining one left, which was Mace. He was wrong - Mace kicked his butt - Sidious survived because of Anakin's backstabbing attack. If Yoda and Mace showed up to fight him, he would have been dead long before Anakin could have gotten involved.

 

Save the Obi-wan vs Dooku and Grievous for their respective threads.

 

Come on, I brought the subject back to Mace vs. Sidious at the end of my post.

I think I did a smooth job with that.

 

well i guess it has been proven that Mace beated Palpatine

 

He did. Look at their duel. Especially look at their saber-lock (which I started a thread on). Sideous is really struggling while Mace is more focused and actually seems to get the better of him (I think it is cut so we don't see the end of the lock).
What is funny to note is that Sideous who showed great talent in using the environment in his fight with Yoda, loses because of it in his fight with Mace. Mace distracts him with the window, and then overpowers him.

 

What is funny to note is that Sideous who showed great talent in using the environment in his fight with Yoda, loses because of it in his fight with Mace.

very true.

 

Mace won the fight because of his unexpected kick in the general direction of Sidious' face, which deprived Sidious of his sword. Kind of like the Anakin-Dooku fight, in which Anakin won by grabbing Dooku's wrists...
As of ROTS "dirty" fighting moves have entered saber combat, and I for one am fine with that.

 

Mace owned Sidious until Anakin walked in, deal with it Emperor fans, your boy got knocked down a peg from his stature in the OT movies.

 

It's all in the name, baby

 

Mace didn't win, I just watched the scene again today, and, its obvious to me that Palpatine was playing possum when he was laying against the window....its not the actual scene that convinces me Palpatine is playing possum...its immediately after...for being such a weakened, defeated old man, he sure did bounce back in a hurry....he was soooo weak he couldn't defend himself, then, a split second after Anakin cuts Maces hand off, he suddenly gets his second wind??? Nuh uh. Palpatine seems to have suffered NO exhaustion from the fight, no symptoms of tiredness...that forces me to conclude he was pretending to be a lot weaker than he actually was, for Anakin's sake. He had to force Anakin to make the choice to kill Mace, otherwise his conversion to the dark side would not have been complete. By pretending weakness, Palpatine forces Anakin to choose.

 

This is taken from UK Gossip Site popbitch.com, so should be taken with a pinch of salt, but...

"Stand by for a new 'edition' of Revenge of the Sith
UK Lucasfilm have been in contact with Ian McDiarmid's agent at ICM to reshoot the fight scene between him and Sam Jackson. Mr Lucas wants the scene re-shot as he felt Ian wasn't agressive enough. Bit late now eh? Oh.
"

 

You're absolutely right in saying that he pretended being weaker than he was, but that was AFTER he was defeated. He couldn't penetrate Mace's defense - and so he sought a new tactic - one that really did work. But Sideous lost the saber-duel, and he would have been dead had Anakin not intervened...

 

exept he didn't stop trying the lightning until after Anakin enters the room. I don't end the fight at Palpatine's losing his saber. If we are debating strictly a lightsaber on lightsaber duel, then ok, Mace wins...whether Palpatine allowed himself to lose his saber or not...by that strict definition, he loses. However, if we take the fight as a whole, on a broader scale, losing his saber was a mild loss, at best. Sidious knows he has more weapons at his disposal. He knew all along that even if Mace was a technically better lightsaber duelist, that he had tricks up his sleeve that Mace doesn't know about. Sidious knows full well that even without the saber, he is far from defenseless. For Mace, the saber is his weapon...for Sidious, the saber is only his FIRST weapon. My contention is, that Sidious did not fight as hard as he could have, on the basis that he was trying to force Anakin to make the decision to turn by killing Mace himself. If Sidious kills Mace instead of Anakin, it doesn't further Anakin's journey to the Dark Side. Only by feigning weakness, by making it seem to Anakin that he was finished, could he force Anakin to make that choice. Sidious has been pushing Anakin's buttons, stroking his ego, slowly manipulating him since he was 10 years old...He knew full well that Anakin would turn on Mace if faced with this choice, because he has been shaping Anakin's mind to make this choice. Had Sidious still shown weakness after Anakin cuts off Mace's hand, MAYBE I could believe that Mace won. But, with the spring in his step that he shows immediately after Anakin chooses, I can't help but think that he allowed himself to be "beaten" merely for the sake of Anakin. Had Anakin never shown up, removing the need for Sidious's charade, I think the fight would have turned out much differently. Sidious had a lot more reserve force strength than he pretended.

 

Yes, he had more powers - but he had nowhere to use them. The fight against Yoda is quite different as he could use the environment to his advantage. HE had the high-ground there. He could chuck pods down at Yoda, while Yoda also had to fight gravity. Mace had cornered Sideous. Sideous tried his best card - force lightning, which Mace could withstand. You speak of Mace only having the lightsaber as his weapon. I ask, why do you say that? Mace is ranked just below Sideous and Yoda in terms of strength (by most here, and by the OS). Sideous lost the fight but won the battle. His genius lay in his manipulative skills.

When all comes to all, I have to question how effective his force lightning was: Yoda could block it, and even send it back at him. And hadn't Sideous been "lucky", then he would have fallen to. Had Mace not been defenseless one hand down, he would have killed Sideous had not Anakin intervened. Against Luke, maybe he was toying, but it took an unusually long time to kill Luke with lightning...

 

Rossa83
Yes, he [Sids] had more powers - but he had nowhere to use them. The fight against Yoda is quite different as he could use the environment to his advantage. HE had the high-ground there. He could chuck pods down at Yoda, while Yoda also had to fight gravity. Mace had cornered Sideous. Sideous tried his best card - force lightning, which Mace could withstand. You speak of Mace only having the lightsaber as his weapon. I ask, why do you say that? Mace is ranked just below Sideous and Yoda in terms of strength (by most here, and by the OS). Sideous lost the fight but won the battle. His genius lay in his manipulative skills.

This is a **** good point, about the high ground. Mace had the high ground with Sidious. That's pretty important, I know GL would be thinking about that.

All I can say in defense of Sidious is that Mace won the Mace-Sids duel in the same way Sids won the Yoda-Sids duel. A lot of people, maybe most, say Sidious defeated Yoda. He did, but Yoda was still be able to fight back. Yoda left the duel thinking about the future.

There was a kind of standoff between Mace and Sidious, and Sids played off his position, the low ground. Yoda played off the low ground by retreating, so he could regroup, apparently Yoda had some kind of insight after fighting Sidious.

This whole thing got me thinking . . . both Yoda and Sids had moments on the lowground in RotS. Strange how things work out.

Ah! If only Obi-Wan came in near the end of the duel, when Sidious really had his hands full. Could've been another Han Solo - Millenium Falcon moment. You're all clear Yoda, go for the kill.

I forgot who mentioned the gossip about a possible reshoot, but in response, somehow I doubt GL would ever reshoot the Mace / Sids duel. I'd eat my hat if he did. I think a lot of fans would be for it though (not me).

 

There's actually a line right in the script that says something like "Palpatine rises with ease" (from his position in the window) making it clear that he wasn't weakened or injured. Those were lies, yes. He was tricking Anakin. However, in the lightsaber fight itself he was beaten. In the long run did Mace win the confrontation? No... because he died while Palpatine lived. However in a test of lightsaber skill, Mace won. When Palpatine tried to use his lightning, Mace deflected it back upon him. Pretending to be weak and relying on Anakin was really Palpatine's only choice to "win" (come out of the confrontation with Mace dead). If Anakin did what he was told and stayed in the council chamber Palpatine would've been killed. In that moment Palpatine himself was helpless, his survival depended completely on Anakin.

All I can say in defense of Sidious is that Mace won the Mace-Sids duel in the same way Sids won the Yoda-Sids duel. A lot of people, maybe most, say Sidious defeated Yoda. He did, but Yoda was still be able to fight back. Yoda left the duel thinking about the future.

For every light saber slash and force power Palpatine threw at Yoda he received one too (more-or-less) they were evenly matched in skill and it was only by circumstance (where he was positioned in the senate pod) that Sidious won, in the same way that Obi-Wan defeated Anakin primarily due to circumstance (he made it to shore first). In the Mace-Sidious fight however, Mace virtually ALWAYS had the upper hand. He disarmed Sidious relatively quickly. When Sidious tried to use the force, that too didn't work and it was bent back on him. A third party was what determined that battle. Anakin.

 

There is no clear proof either way that Mace won or Sidious won. It is the great debate of ROTS. BUT, when something is unclear in the movie, you go the next highest level of canon. That is the novel, ROTS. It is perfectly clear in the novel that Palpatine set Mace up. Mod Darth-Sinister is always fond of saying that George Lucas edited Stover's novel line for line. Thus, he saw that scene and agreed with it.

 

REALLY.
He WASN'T WEAKENED OR INJURED.

So, the so-called "deformations" really did not result from the lightning at all.

Yes, yes! It is the truth you see! Hmm, hmmm!