PT Analysis of Mace Windu's plan to overthrow Palpatine

But would it be an assassination?
Palpatine had resisted arrest twice and kille three Jedi and tried twice to kill Mace.
How many chances should Mace give him before he can use lethal force?

As for order 66, I doubt the senate knew about it nor could they give it.
So that would not happen and since the clone army would still obey the Jedi, the senate has no means to act against them. For now.

It would be a mess, a bad one, had Mace killed Palpatine.
Worse than what happened?
That is debatable.

And Mace was an idiot for not questioning Anakin more closely or taking a few minutes to warn the other Jedi and come up with a better plan that "Let's go in there, sword drawn."

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

And people are still solely blaming Mace Windu and ignoring Yoda's own decision to kill Palpatine.

What else could Anakin have told Mace other than he believed Palpatine was a Sith Lord?

 

It was a well deserved victory for Sidious IMO as was order 66 I applauded the great sith for his manipulations and masterclass in getting people to dance to your tunes. Mace did everything rashly and exactly how the sithy boy wanted without any real thinking now basically giving Siddy all the excuses to call Jedi Treason and execute order 66 against this corrupt murderous criminals who pose as peacekeepers. When the Jedi have been so dumb over 10 years the sympathy kinda evaporates and you cheer the bad man lol

 

Mace's plan??? This is laughable.

Mace is playing with marbles while Palpatine is playing chess.

This whole outcome has been set in motion way before the Opera Scene. Every Palpatine move has made the Jedi do what he wanted them to do.

Palpatine put Anakin on the Jedi Council KNOWING the Jedi will not give him the rank of master and know they will ask Anakin to spy on him causing a rift between the Jedi.

Palpatine wants Anakin to capture Greivous KNOWING the Jedi will send Obi-Wan instead causing more of a rift.

Palpatine tells Anakin that the Jedi are evil and will act like a Sith at the end KNOWING the Jedi will try to kill him.

Mace wanted to arrest him so Palpatine BOOM lightning to begging and then cue the Jedi saying what the Sith said earlier in the movie...."He's too dangerous to be kept alive"

Palpatine has spread every Jedi out of Corusant especially the 2 most powerful Yoda and Obi-Wan. Mace had no choice but to bring the other 3 who were also powerful.

But Sidious already won way before the 4 Jedi entered .....all he need was Anakin to finally choose.

To think Mace could have ended all his plans is LAUGHABLE!!! Pay attention to the dialogues, foreshadowing and expositions.

Please stop using GL's words out of context. Because he also said Palpatine was kidnapped by Greivious. But we all know different don't we?

Thank you JJ Abrams for showing the Mace fans how a handicapped Palpatine can easily disarm and freeze the Mighty Dyad. If he can come back from an exploding Death Star...Mace poses no threat.

Sorry NOT SORRY..... BUT Palpatine is just way smarter and way more powerful!!


"Everything that has transpired has been done so according to my design." ~Emperor Palpatine

Mace fans: No way!!

TROS and all the dialogues: Hold my beer!!

 

Mace was missing one critical piece of information: Palpatine intentionally told Anakin that he was in fact Sidious.
Mace was rushing to catch Sidious off guard before Sidious could spring his trap, not knowing he was walking into that very trap.

 

Mace believed he had enough muscle to arrest Palpatine. That would have factored in to his decision to arrive at Palpatine’s office, and confidence in his own ability. If his accomplices lasted longer than 5 seconds things could have been different, but they weren’t.

 

As was said, Palpatine flat out tells Anakin that he is a Sith and then lets him go.
The Sith Lord that has been very good at staying hidden for over 10 years just ups and tells a Jedi who he is and then lets him go.
Yeah, nothing fishy here.

If he had asked a bit more then he would know that Palpatine is aware that Anakin will tell the Jedi and he did not try to stop him.
So taking a moment to think would not be unwarranted.
This could be a trap.

There is also the issue of proof, if it is just Anakin's word against Palpatine then would that work in court?

Then there is the issue of the clone army, warning the other Jedi about that is also sensible.

Sure if Mace decides to recall some Jedi to Coruscant then Palpatine would likely hear about it and he could pull order 66 sooner.

What Mace could have done is to bring along a few senators and inform Palpatine that Griev is dead and the war is soon over and ask that he honor his promise to give up his extra powers.
If Palpatine refuses, in front of some senators, that might give Mace something.
Or talk with some senator that he trusts, like Bail, and tell him what he has learned.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

Yoda confronted Palpatine with the knowledge that a battle would break out. He didn't set out to kill a defenseless adversary, as Mace Windu was about to do.

 

The thing is, the Jedi had no right to demand Palpatine give up his emergency powers, or step down from office, as Mace said they were going to do. Those are political actions instituted by the Senate, not legal actions. The Senate granted the powers, thus the Senate would determine when he had to give them up. Most likely, it would be when an armistice had been declared and hostilities actually ended, not just when the Separatists had suffered a setback. If Palpatine refused to give up his powers, then the Jedi could conceivably be called in, if the Senate determined that Palpatine had violated the law and was committing a crime.

To be blunt, the Jedi panicked and went after Palpatine at the first opportunity and on the flimsiest of pretexts. On reflection, this is interesting when compared to Yoda telling Luke not to rush off to Bespin to save his friends. Yoda knows what happens when you go off half-cocked.

 

If Mace had a few trusted senators go in to demand that Palpatine honors his promise now that the war was over, that would give him an edge.

 

LOL nah

Mace would just bring those senators to their deaths.

And Palpatine would just have MORE evidence about the Jedi Plot.

"After Master Windu assassinated the senators, he turned his lightsaber on me using his Jedi powers that left me scarred and deformed. Thankfully, Anakin Skywalker did not follow the Jedi rebellion and saved my life."

 

I just want to ask everyone, well not everyone but many of you . . . why ignore Yoda's attempt to murder Palpatine later in the film? He didn't even try to arrest the Sith Lord, just kill him. Yoda's act was just as much of a mistake as Mace's earlier attempt to first arrest Palpatine and later kill him. Is it because Yoda was first introduced in the Original Trilogy and is considered sacred ground . . . as a character?

 

Dont forget Yoda violated a little boy, anakin, in The Phantom Menace. This would later be mirrored in The Force Awakens when Kylo violates Rey.

 

Would what Yoda attempted be murder?
Palpatine has declared war on all the Jedi and killed a lot of them, even small children.

Could Yoda arrest Palpatine? And even if he had, what good would that do?
Yoda is a wanted criminal and would get shot on sight by the clones.
And who could Yoda hand Palpatine over to? The senate? They had just supported Palpatine declaring himself emperor.

Yoda's actions can be questioned sure.
Would it be be better if he and Obi-Wan went together to first take out Vader/Anakin? Possibly.
They could try and find some of the surviving Jedi and debate what they could do.
But Yoda options are limited, if he wants to take out Palpatine, direct force is pretty much the only option right now. And doing nothing will mean more suffering for the galaxy as a whole.

So to me it is very clear that Mace had more options than Yoda and his actions are more questionable and it has nothing to do with him being introduced in the PT.
He could have taken a few minutes to contact Yoda and make a plan and also warn the other Jedi.
And his logic of why he goes from arrest to kill makes no sense, that Palpatine controls the courts.
Mace knew that when he went to his office so that has not changed.
It would make more sense if Mace said "Look how powerful he is, there is no prison that can hold him."
Or "If I lower my guard and try to arrest him, he could kill me."
About the only advantage Yoda has is that Palpatine wasn't expecting him. But he did expect Mace.

Not so sure about that.
If five or six senators came along, if Palpatine attacks, Mace could just order them to run away.
And if Palpatine tries to target the senators first then he is open to attack from the Jedi.
And if he deals with the Jedi first, then the senators can get away.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

Defenseless? He knew he was the Sith Lord.

Defenseless my butt.

 

If Mace couldn't defend 3 Jedi Masters who were also armed then those defenseless Senators would have died before or shortly after those 3 Jedi Masters. All 4 Jedi couldn't even find an opening attack while Palpatine was slicing and dicing them to death.

 

Mace would not be trying to defend those Jedi master, he would assume that being Jedi masters, they could defend themselves.
They had about as much success in doing that as Bambi trying to fight Godzilla due to them using the ancient Jedi defense of "Standing there and letting your opponent kill you."

And would Palpatine go for the senators first? They would likely be behind the Jedi so Palpatine has to go through the Jedi first.
And while he took out three quite quickly, Mace took longer.

Also, Palpatine left himself wide open for an attack more than once during his fight with Mace but Mace didn't take advantage of that for some reason.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

How do you know he was out to kill him, and not just to merely incapacitate him?

 

Maybe this should be it’s own thread but I am now very curious in an alternative universe where Yoda successfully eliminates Palpatine. Does everyone just go back to being the Republic like the whole “first galactic empire” thing never happened?

 

They would have to discuss things in a committee

 

Mace was trying to ARREST the Supreme Chancellor, and Sidious resisted arrest. The arrest was based on information that he was a Sith Lord and therefore himself behind the known Sith Lord Count Dooku. (At first the Jedi simply say Dooku has joined the Dark Side, but by ROTS they know he is a Dark Lord of the Sith) Considering his role in fomenting a war he ostensibly tried to avoid, it is easy to accuse him of treason. When he responded to this arrest with force (wrongly calling it treason, because he is a lying Sith Lord) he opened the way for Mace to potentially respond with lethal force. That doesn't mean Windu was in a position to take him out legally, but it does mitigate the wrongness of his momentary willingness to override procedure when the Dark Lord might not have been susceptible to capture. Palpatine had also just slain three Jedi knights, when he could have gone with them to a cell and used his legal rights to charge them with false arrest if he could support the case.

 

As usual, Yoda has an excuse for his mistake and Mace does not. It never ends. This has been going on for almost two decades now - namely Mace as the scapegoat of the Jedi Order. It never ends.

 

OK, how ‘bout instead of Mace leading senators to Palpatine, he had Anakin install a security droid somewhere in the office to record Palpatine? That way, if and when Palpatine reveals to Anakin that he’s the Sith Lord, they have proof? Doubly so if Mace confronts him and Palps attack.

 

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the EU came up with the idea of Vaapad for Mace Windu.

Whether it was Lucas’ intent or not, Samuel L. Jackson plays Mace Windu with an angry demeanor in certain scenes.

When Yoda confronts Dooku or Palpatine he seems more confident and collected.

When Mace starts raising his voice about Palpatine and the facial expressions he makes and the fact that he shrugs off Anakin’s objections, he comes across as someone succumbing to anger.

Maybe this was a case of Sam playing the character as he saw fit and George didn’t correct him.

Maybe it was not George’s intention to have Mace come across as giving into anger, but that’s how it comes across.

The scene is even paralleled with ROTJ where Vader protects Palpatine from a strike by Luke. In both instances something bad is happening and a Jedi gives into anger to try and stop it, with Anakin/Vader protecting him.

And there is just such an ingrained correlation in Star Wars that anger is of the Dark Side and is bad. In the beginning, Anakin establishes that killing unarmed prisoners is not the Jedi way. When Mace and Ki-Adi discuss overthrowing Palpatine and seizing control of the Senate, Yoda warns that it will lead to a dark place.

The whole Anakin-Mace-Palpatine thing is foreshadowed as being a very dark thing. Anakin sees himself as doing the right thing, but it’s fueled by selfish motives.

While Mace tries twice to arrest Palpatine and has faith that the Senate can decide his fate, but after the lightning he all of a sudden dismisses the Senate and decides that he’s going to kill Palpatine, which isn’t exactly a bad idea, but it still comes across as Mace giving into anger as the war carries on, while in TPM he was far more stoic.

Had Anakin remained behind, then Mace would have killed Palpatine. He may have had to face legal repercussions for that, but things would have been fine. And had Mace listened to Anakin and arrested Palpatine and warned the other Jedi, I do think that the Jedi could have contained Palpatine.

But Anakin didn’t listen to Mace and Mace wasn’t listening to Anakin and I see it as two hot heads that don’t trust one another acting impulsively.


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