The might of Mace Windu...

OK!

Before the release of Episode III, many fans did not believe Mace Windu was that much of a Jedi, and few ranked him among the best. His powers seemed to be generally considered to be equal to Obi-Wan's (not more), despite his higher rank and greater experience. When I or other Mace fans claimed he was among the very best, it was often rather rudely rebutted. His victory over Jango was often described as little more than luck. Many sincerely believed a thirteen year old Boba to be more than capable of taking him out.

Now we do have the answer. Now we know how good Mace Windu really is. Check the book known as The Making of Revenge of the Sith, and you will find Lucas himself saying "You have to be either Yoda or Mace to compete with the Emperor." So to all who said he was no more powerful than Obi-Wan, I can say they didn't understand squat and failed to pick up obvious hints of the contrary. Their opinion doesn't match Lucas' on the matter, so they are plain wrong. Unfortunately, many fan dumbasses still flaunt their ignorance on various Star Wars forums by ranking Obi-Wan above Mace Windu in combat skill.
Also, if Mace is competition for the Emperor in combat, how can his victory over Jango be mere LUCK? Jango, as great as he is in combat for being a non-Force user, hasn't been shown to be a better fighter than Obi-Wan, which is far below the Emperor level of combat skill, which Mace is apparently on. Possibly, he was lucky in the sense that his attacks are limited in range and that he couldn't have attacked Jango while Jango was in the air, so the jetpack needed to be wrecked for Jango to be defeated. However, lucky that he could defeat Jango combat skill wise...I think not?

However, the ongoing denial that Mace beat Palpatine got to take the cake. You merely have to take a look at The Making of Revenge of the Sith or the script of the movie to see that Palpatine's defeat was NOT feigned. Yes, Palpatine exagerrated his weakness at the end, but nothing indicates that he threw the entire fight and everything indicates the contrary.
Some fans are just eager to defend their preconceptions about the relative powers of characters, and will grasp at straws to prevent their power ladder from being shaken up.
It would be laughable if it weren't so sad.

Strilo edit: Let's be careful to discuss the films not the fans. Some of these comments cross the line and discuss the fans.

 

Whether he deliberately allowed Mace to knock him down is unclear. I'd guess he probably didn't....

HOWEVER, Palpatine DID know that Anakin was coming and knew that even if he couldn't defeat Windu, he would be able to with Anakins help. I think he realised the danger of the Jedi coming for him, so he made sure that one way (killing them himself) or another (with Anakin's help) he would succeed.

However, I'd imagine it would be a lot harder to convert Anakin if he was beating Mace & didn't seem to be the victim. It would be interesting to see how he would have gone about doing that if he hadn't been knocked down.

Mace is a great and powerful Jedi. I'm glad he finally did something worthwhile in this film. He may possibly be a better dualist than Sidious, but that's not the only weapon in a Sith's arsenal.

Mace was doomed.

 

i've only seen rots once so far, but from what i remember about the duel between mace vs. sids, after sids is disarmed he gets this look on his face like "uh-oh" and scrambles away. why would he do that unless he was generally surprised by mace's skill? he didn't need to put on a show. anakin wasn't there yet, so he didn't need to pretend he was being attacked. there was no way mace was going to let his guard down, no matter how helpless palpatine made himself appear. so really, he must have really been afraid of losing just then. i believe that maybe sids had a few chances to take out mace and didn't take them, to extend the battle long enough for anakin to get there. but i think he was genuinely surprised by mace getting the upper hand for a moment. and i always knew, from the moment i saw mace sitting next to yoda that he wasn't someone you'd want to mess with. i mean, samuel l. jackson played him. if he wasn't a complete badass, they could've gotten chris tucker or one of the wayans brothers. i'm sure that george lucas had guys clamoring to be in this movie, and he chose sam jackson. not will smith. not wesley snipes...sam jackson. enough said.

p.s. oh yeah. plus, he had a purple lightsaber! who else had a purple lightsaber?? no one. mace was the only jedi with a pimped-out purple lightsaber. i'm surprised his jedi robe didn't have a fur collar and pinstripes. mace was a pimp, and would slap obi wan if he got out of line. and obi wan would thank him.

 

^ you ain't NEVER lied, playa!!!!!!!

 

I agree with lord_danlac, Mace is a pimp and up there with Yoda. I would go as far as saying he was better then Yoda in combat. Maybe not as wise, but in fighting I think Mace was the best of the Jedi.



Master Jimbo

 

I think Mace was definitely the best combatant out of all the Jedi.

 

I am in total agreement. Throughout the PT, Mace had always been reserved as possible. And I am so glad that before his character story arc ended, he was finally given some time to unleash and show us the power. The power to make the sith master crawl away in fear and hold his hands up to block his face.

[image=http://www.sgtfretsurfer.com/Grilled-Sarlacc/19_sm.jpg]

In addition to his legendary power, he was also very wise. I always saw Yoda and Mace as equals, but more importantly partners and friends. Some people view Mace as being mean, but he was looking out for the Jedi and the best for the Republic. He was a hero until the end.

[image=http://www.sgtfretsurfer.com/Grilled-Sarlacc/part10-18.jpg]

 

Of course Shaft is a badass jedi who beat Palp in the fight, one because he is better with a saber and secondly the emp was over confident

 

Mace wasn't so wise in AOTC. He was constantly proven wrong or contradicted. For example, he completely underestimated Count Dooku. He thought that just because he was once a Jedi, he wouldn't kill anyone. Secondly, Mace thinks that they should inform the Senate that the ability of the Jedi to use the Force has been diminished (because they couldn't detect the clone army). Yoda flatly contradcts Mace here, telling him that if the Senate knew this, their adversaries would multiply. Finally, Mace's rescue attempt on Geonosis failed. Yoda and the clones bailed him out big time.

I think Mace was wise in TPM and ROTS, but definitely not AOTC.

 

DuBlanc, those are unfair criticisms. You can't say that just because Mace turned out to be wrong on an issue, that he wasn't wise.

He said the logical thing on the Dooku isse: Dooku wasn't likely to be the one behind the assassination. And he wasn't very likely to have done so. Padme just makes a baseless accusation with no evidence. Mace looks at the facts and comes to the most logical conclusion possible. For instance, if someone had claimed last year "The Lakers will beat the Pistosn in the NBA playoffs, they're the better team" that would've been the safe bet. That's what most people thought would happen. Now, is that what happened? No. But does that mean that the people who thought the Lakers would win don't know about basketball? No, it just means that something unexpected happened.

Or once again, most experts and intelligence agencies around the world were under the impression Saddam Hussein had WMDs. Now it turned out that he didn't, but that doesn't man that those people aren't really experts, or intelligent. It just means that something unexpected/unpredictable happened. Padme accusing Dooku makes about as much sense as accusing Ralph Nader of orchestrating the 9/11 attacks.

As to the second issue, Yoda just gave a different opinion. There was no hard "proof" he was right. In fact, it could be argued that had Mace wanred the Senate about the Jedi's diminishing powers, and the presence of the Sith lord, then the Jeid could've explained their attakc on Palpatine in ROTS, instead of being framed as traitors.

Finally, it was obvious that the rescue attempt at Geonosis was going to need back-up. Mace basically stated from the get-go that he was gather whoever he could in an attempt to hold off Dooku from killing Obi-wan. There were 200 Jedi versus tens of thousands of battle droids. No matter who was leading those few Jeid, be it Yoda, Mace, or anyone else, they would've lost against those odds. And had no one went, Anakin and Kenobi would've died. Mace held the fort until Yoda was able to bring reinforcements. That's called division of labor and intelligent strategy. That's not at all proof that Yoda is "better" than Mace.

 

All right, Strilo, maybe my post was a little bit over the top and went a little to far in the critisism of some fans, but you gotta expect some annoyance from a someone who gets a lecture about credibitity (or lack thereof) and objectivity due to a supposed bias (because I am a Mace fan and have Mace as my avatar) while those responsible for said lectures deviate from Lucas' apparent opinion on the matter (by ranking Obi-Wan over Mace as a fighter) and therefore fail in objectivity more miserably than I ever have. If your opinion is different from Lucas' in a Star Wars matter (and therefore objectively wrong), you aren't really in any position to lecture others for their supposed biases as some of these people do.

 

MACE is the 2nd baddest jedi in the galaxy!!!

 

Who do you place above him dri-ma-kadi?

 

Mace is the most powerful Jedi in combat...he succeeded in a fight where Yoda could not. Mace is the man...this film was very convincing to that point.

Another thought to stir the pot is that if Palpatine HAD succeeded in actually killing Mace in the fight before Anakin's arrival, he could have told Anakin he was defending himself from the Jedi, and Anakin seeing that he had defeated Mace might have indicated to Anakin that perhaps the Dark Side IS the way to go... it was stronger than the strongest Jedi.

 

I will admit Mace was probably the best swordsman, but Yoda was better in the force.

However Luke owns all

 

its strange though that he is only suppsoed to be 40 years old, thats pretty young for a jedi master, especdailly the seneior member. Not only that, but wasn't his padawan also on the jedi council. He must've been one quick teacher...

 

I'm sorry, but I think Luke would have got his ass handed to him by Mace, Obi, Anakin, or Palps w/saber.

 

I may be biased because of my avatar as well, but I thought that Lucas established that Mace was on par with Yoda. Yoda may have been more adept at the force and Mace was more adept with the light saber. Being on par with Yoda is pretty badass by anyone's definition. But you have to go with the source and if Lucas says so, then you have to go with it. Agree with the Councilor I do.

 

Based on the scenes they share. I always thought this was how Lucas showed us Mace was on a par with Yoda.

They seem to discuss things on equal footing.

I think where the arguement comes from is in Mace's style of fighting. Nick Gilliard said he tried to come up with something but then just went well he's Sam Jackson.

While Ewan is extremely fast as Obi-Wan, Liam Neeson was almost as good (although Qui-Qon was more a thinker than a warrior type Jedi), Hayden and Ray Park all made their charcters look good. Yoda was CGI'd and C. Lee's Dooku was CGI subbed.

We saw SLJ do most of his moves in the arena and he's not as fast. He's fluid in his movement and this is how they pass off Mace's fighting style. As being efficient. Kick ass. Least amount of moves to take you down. No fancy lightsaber spins or multiple strikes when one will do.

Where I think Mace fans lose out. Is in the EU (and mainly I refer to the Clone War Cartoons) he comes across as a bad-ass. Perhaps if the films had shown him force crushing Grevious lungs or some of the light-saber throws you see in the games (they used one for Yoda) non-Mace fans may have respected him more.

Plus it doesn't help he's negative attitude wise, in most of the council meetings.

 

BTW, I don't know if ANYONE in the Star Wars films relished being IN THEM more than Sam Jackson. He ASKED to be in them, he ASKED for the purple lightsaber color, he is a HUGE SW fan and loves movies in general, and he got on with George VERY well.

Positively like a kid turned loose in Toys r Us alone at midnight

 

Well what about Ian McDiarmind?
I had heard he really enjoyed being in STar WArs

 

I bet he did! He's the ultimate bad guy, and actors love to play villains

But Sam has been very outspoken about SW and his love for it as compared to the quieter, more reserved Ian.