Current Events > Mace Windu beat the fuck out of Palpatine while Yoda failed

(+) Yeah! (+)

"Oh, I'm too..weak."

Two seconds later.

"PPOOOWWWERRRR!!!!!!!"

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ViewtifulGrave posted...

Here Lucas makes clear.

https://youtu.be/ykvWxwsCQ1M

Why did Mace go from wanting to arrest him to wanting him dead?

Uh maybe because he just killed two other masters in less than a second, and tried to fry Mace with lightning hands. Seriously how do you detain someone with that kind of power?

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Emperor seemed like he lost on purpose just to let Anakin turn to the dark side. He definitely could've just murked Windu right there >_>

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Why did he even say "Unlimited power"? What did that have to do with anything? It was like an action movie one-liner but it was completely unrelated to anything. Like if Arnold had told Bennett to watch out for the sharks or something instead of letting off some steam.
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DeadBankerDream posted...

Why did he even say "Unlimited power"? What did that have to do with anything? It was like an action movie one-liner but it was completely unrelated to anything. Like if Arnold had told Bennett to watch out for the sharks or something instead of letting off some steam.

To flex

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Do you really think Mace heard his flex while he was being electrocuted? If he had said a cool one-liner instead Maybe he could have made Anakin think he was a badass.
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DeadBankerDream posted...

Why did he even say "Unlimited power"? What did that have to do with anything? It was like an action movie one-liner but it was completely unrelated to anything. Like if Arnold had told Bennett to watch out for the sharks or something instead of letting off some steam.

Just so that the last thing Windu thinks is that he got killed with some lame-ass line lol

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Socrawheeze posted...

If the big bad of a 6 movie franchise almost gets killed by some scrub nobody knows anything about halfway thru the final movie, it makes him look very lame and weak

Lol Mace is outright stated to be the best lightsaber duelist in the entire Jedi Order. He wasn't just some scrub nobody lol

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NeonOctopus posted...

Emperor seemed like he lost on purpose just to let Anakin turn to the dark side. He definitely could've just murked Windu right there >_>

Lucas said that only 3 people could kill Palpatine and thats Yoda, Mace, and Anakin.

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ViewtifulGrave posted...

Lucas said that only 3 people could kill Palpatine and thats Yoda, Mace, and Anakin.

Why does Lucas think his movies are video games where the person with the higher strength auto wins?
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DeadBankerDream posted...

Why does Lucas think his movies are video games where the person with the higher strength auto wins?

What makes you think he said that?

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Mace also has basically a light saber style that is unique to himself... specifically designed for him to be a fucking killer.

Tartakovski's Clone Wars shows Mace kinda clowning Grevious who killed dozens of Jedi before meeting Mace Windu.

Note - I realize a lot of that stuff isn't Disney Canon now, but at the time of creation it was with Lucas involvement, so that goes into an analysis of it.

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If Mace is the best duelist in the order why was his duel with Palpatine the dumbest looking of the trilogy.

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Darmik posted...

If Mace is the best duelist in the order why was his duel with Palpatine the dumbest looking of the trilogy.

Because he won quickly and then was attacked by a trusted friend?

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Darmik posted...

If Mace is the best duelist in the order why was his duel with Palpatine the dumbest looking of the trilogy.

Because no one expects the Emperor to know Horn Drill

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Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

Because he won quickly and then was attacked by a trusted friend?

I'm talking about him slowly flailing against a fellow old man who fights by poking and making derpy expressions.

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Darmik posted...

I'm talking about him slowly flailing against a fellow old man who fights by poking and making derpy expressions.

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CM_Ponch posted...

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Palpatine had to make it seem like he was weak and frail to play his part. Were he to ever tip his hand to anyone about him being a Sith he would have failed. Mace Windu was enough to subdue him and Yoda fought him to a near draw. The Jedi Order would have easily annihilated him had he tipped his hand.

Plus it was his actor kinda chewing the scenery a bit and being over the top evil old man. He admitted as much.

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I dont know where the light saber forms are ever mentioned in Canon, I highly doubt Lucas came up with any of them...

But Mace did use his own form that allowed him to tap into the dark side and anger that his opponents were using, basically a form where the stronger his opponent was, the stronger he became. Thats why he could win.

Obi-Wan was probably the only Jedi that could beat Mace (and the perfect counter for Anakin, who was similar to Mace) because he was the greatest master ever of the most basic light saber defensive form. He is like an extremely annoying opponent in Smash or a fighting game that runs away and goes for the time out every time

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Bleuets posted...

Emperor lost on purpose.

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AngelsNAirwav3s posted...

But Mace did use his own form that allowed him to tap into the dark side

This is false and I'm almost positive I've corrected you on this before.

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I'm poking fun but yeah I do think it's lame when creators are all "Hey see this guy who did jack shit? He's actually the best. I just didn't get around to showing it. Maybe some other people will do that for me."

There were three movies that could have shown Mace as a cool badass but it just didn't happen. His only duel is a silly meme where people doubt that he even legit won because the closest thing he does that's impressive is blocking lightning with his lightsaber before he gets thrown out of a window. To add salt to the wound Anakin immediately gets crowned a Sith Lord and Mace is never mentioned again.

It's even worse for the other jobbers who also get fleshed out in EU stuff that basically picks up the slack of all three movies.

It actually kinda cracks me up that people brought up Jango as an amazing achievement because Han Solo literally beat the better version of him with his eyes closed.

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Socrawheeze posted...

Right, we are talking about his reputation going into this fight. Which is nonexistent. He was a nobody showing up to smoke the final boss

His reputation is that of Jedi master. The prequels are bad, but this just makes you sound like you hate the concept of show-dont-tell, and need to have exposition crammed down your throat to come to very reasonable conclusions.

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RebelElite791 posted...

This is false and I'm almost positive I've corrected you on this before.

This is from the guidebooks:

The practitioner of Vaapad would accept the fury of their opponent, transforming themselves into one half of a superconducting loop, with the other half being the power of darkness inherent in the opponent.

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AngelsNAirwav3s posted...

This is from the guidebooks:

The practitioner of Vaapad would accept the fury of their opponent, transforming themselves into one half of a superconducting loop, with the other half being the power of darkness inherent in the opponent.

Pretty sure all this sort of stuff isn't canon anymore and is considered Legacy.

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AngelsNAirwav3s posted...

This is from the guidebooks:

The practitioner of Vaapad would accept the fury of their opponent, transforming themselves into one half of a superconducting loop, with the other half being the power of darkness inherent in the opponent.

The RP books are questionably canonical - more not than are - and Vaapaad being aggressive =/= using the dark side

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Palpatine thought each fight would be easier. I don't think losing one of his lightsabers or suffering disfiguring injuries was part of the plan.

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But lets say Palpatine did kill all three Jedi Masters. How's he gonna explain that to Anakin.

Then again he didn't need to explain anything as is. But you could argue he had Anakin pretty much screwed when he made him responsible for Windu's death and Anakin was feeling a little bit risky that day and decided to try out the Sith and genocide thing.

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I couldn't give a rat's ass about what Lucas said. If he didn't manage to show it in the movies he created, he blew his chance. The scene in the movie isn't really clear - we can't tell if Palpatine lost on purpose or not, there's just not enough info to tell.
It's quite clear that one Anakin arrives, his strategy changes to feign weakness rather than fight back. Before that, we know that Mace had the upper hand, but we don't know if Palpatine had played all his cards yet. Quotes from Lucas or weaker ex-canon lore about lightsaber stances are entirely irrelevant. Lucas had a whole six movies of communicating the potential of both Mace Windu and Palpatine, and this is the result. Take it or leave it.

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ViewtifulGrave posted...

Lucas straight up said that Mace won that fight.

Lucas is really, really full of shit tho

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Lucas also said that the Force is actually tiny little microscopic beings called Whills and your midichlorian count dictates how well you can control them but we'll just pretend that was never a thing.

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ImAMarvel posted...

I still maintain that Gennedy Clone Wars was legit one of the highlights of the entire franchise

Hard agree!

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Darmik posted...

I'm poking fun but yeah I do think it's lame when creators are all "Hey see this guy who did jack shit? He's actually the best. I just didn't get around to showing it. Maybe some other people will do that for me."

There were three movies that could have shown Mace as a cool badass but it just didn't happen. His only duel is a silly meme where people doubt that he even legit won because the closest thing he does that's impressive is blocking lightning with his lightsaber before he gets thrown out of a window. To add salt to the wound Anakin immediately gets crowned a Sith Lord and Mace is never mentioned again.

It's even worse for the other jobbers who also get fleshed out in EU stuff that basically picks up the slack of all three movies.

It actually kinda cracks me up that people brought up Jango as an amazing achievement because Han Solo literally beat the better version of him with his eyes closed.

Yeah but Han is the most powerful force user in the whole series.

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What I always found more egregious was all the Jedi Masters who accompanied Mace to arrest Palpatine get fucking one-shotted. Made them look like Padawan-learners

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I love all the people in this topic who are like, "I don't care what the creator of Star Wars said about his own creation!"

Then why the fuck would you care what anyone else put there ever has to say? I'm not saying I think George Lucas is an incredibly smart man or even did right by Star Wars all the time... but it was his creation and at the very least the 6 films are his. Any questions about it are his to answer.

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Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

I love all the people in this topic who are like, "I don't care what the creator of Star Wars said about his own creation!"

Then why the fuck would you care what anyone else put there ever has to say? I'm not saying I think George Lucas is an incredibly smart man or even did right by Star Wars all the time... but it was his creation and at the very least the 6 films are his. Any questions about it are his to answer.

Any questions about it, should they not be answered by the films, are open. In the same way that JK Rowling deciding post publication that Dumbledore was indeed gay, or that Hermione could have been black, etc., is bullshit. If you don't want something to be left to interpretation, put it in the text.
Likewise, if you can't support your reading with things that are shown to us in the text, then you can't support it. You can still believe it, and no one can take it away from you, but it doesn't magically become "canon" if it was not, in fact, included in the material that counts as canon.

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scar the 1 posted...

Any questions about it, should they not be answered by the films, are open. In the same way that JK Rowling deciding post publication that Dumbledore was indeed gay, or that Hermione could have been black, etc., is bullshit. If you don't want something to be left to interpretation, put it in the text.
Likewise, if you can't support your reading with things that are shown to us in the text, then you can't support it. You can still believe it, and no one can take it away from you, but it doesn't magically become "canon" if it was not, in fact, included in the material that counts as canon.

So what you're saying is that once a movie is made, it's set in stone and the creator no longer has any say in his/her work? Why shouldn't they be allowed to clarify something that wasn't clear, or add on any details?

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YugiNoob posted...

So what you're saying is that once a movie is made, it's set in stone and the creator no longer has any say in his/her work? Why shouldn't they be allowed to clarify something that wasn't clear, or add on any details?

Oh it certainly isn't set in stone. They can make revisions, like Lucas did in the '90s. Tolkien did that several times with his books, for example. They could add additional material in an "extended edition" or "director's cut" version of the movie. They can make a sequel to clarify things.

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But I mean why do they need to spend millions to make another movie just to clarify something like that? Like the Dumbledore being gay thing. It makes no sense for J.K. Rowling to write another book just to have him come out of the closet when she could simply say that hes gay to clear the air.

Im wondering why that means nothing to you. When the person who literally created the work in question confirms something, why is your opinion that its suddenly not canon.

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My opinion is essentially "The death of the author" here. What matters is the text, let it stand for itself. If the author wanted something to be perfectly clear, they had every opportunity to make it perfectly clear. If it's not perfectly clear, then just suck it up and acknowledge that it's up for interpretation.

With regards to this particular topic, it's a minor detail of the movie. It doesn't need to be settled. Lucas is infamous for obsessing over tying up every single loose end he can find, and it genuinely makes the franchise a lot worse. Just let the damn thing be, let fans have rivaling interpretations that both fit. That's absolutely fine.
With regards to Rowling, I think it's actually a strong case for why "The death of the author" is a useful principle. What she did was essentially try to capitalize on a social issue, which sucks. If she had actually wanted Dumbledore to be a gay character, she could have made that clear in the text. If she wants to encourage queer readings of her books, she could have encouraged queer readings of her books rather than try to enforce one particular interpretation as the correct one.
Another case for death of the author as a useful principle is something like Dragonball, where the author admittedly doesn't remember his own work. Then what's canon? It's perfectly possible for an author to change his mind during the course of writing something, and it would be possible to also make conflicting statements.

Just go by what's in the text. It's a very simple and easy principle, and it doesn't allow authors to get away with trying to "fix" their broken shit or update their story to fit modern notions of what's acceptable or not. If Lucas wants to make Star Wars worse by tying every loose end there is, at least let him spend tons of money doing it.

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The thing is that Lucas isnt fixing or updating anything like Rowling. Hes clarifying. Hes not changing anything to appeal to the current climate; hes turning a subjective matter into an objective one. Its not like hes changing names because theyre offensive or making characters gay or anything. Hes just clearing up the air.

And although its a minor detail, it being settled does no harm.

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YugiNoob posted...

The thing is that Lucas isnt fixing or updating anything like Rowling. Hes clarifying. Hes not changing anything to appeal to the current climate; hes turning a subjective matter into an objective one. Its not like hes changing names because theyre offensive or making characters gay or anything. Hes just clearing up the air.

And although its a minor detail, it being settled does no harm.

Clarifying is "fixing" something that was previously unclear. I agree that what he's probably not doing it for the same reasons as Rowling, but I don't really think it matters. Death of the author remains a useful principle, and I'll take what he says as an opinion on the text rather than "canon".
Another reason why this is practical is that he's not the sole author of the movie. Yes, he's the writer, director (and editor, right?), but there are also other contributors here, like the actors. If they act in a way that, to me, looks like something, then GL saying it's actually something different doesn't matter. It's what's on the screen that matters.

And I also agree with you that it doesn't do much harm settling a minor issue like this. What harm it actually would do is potentially setting a precedent for turning to GL statements instead of looking at the actual movies when there's a dispute. But yeah, I'm against taking his word for it on principle, rather than having any especially strong feelings about this scene in particular.

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Mace is the stronger lightsaber duelist and was in better physical condition.
Yoda is the stronger force-wielder, and was in worse physical condition.

Yoda is not a God. He was never shown to be omnipotent.

It makes sense that Mace would kick Palpatine's ass in lightsaber duel relative to Yoda.

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Smackems posted...

Lucas is really, really full of shit tho

All he did was confirm what was already in the movie. Mace won the duel and Palpatine hams it up when Anakin shows up.

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Darmik posted...

I'm poking fun but yeah I do think it's lame when creators are all "Hey see this guy who did jack shit? He's actually the best. I just didn't get around to showing it. Maybe some other people will do that for me."

There were three movies that could have shown Mace as a cool badass but it just didn't happen. His only duel is a silly meme where people doubt that he even legit won because the closest thing he does that's impressive is blocking lightning with his lightsaber before he gets thrown out of a window. To add salt to the wound Anakin immediately gets crowned a Sith Lord and Mace is never mentioned again.

It's even worse for the other jobbers who also get fleshed out in EU stuff that basically picks up the slack of all three movies.

It actually kinda cracks me up that people brought up Jango as an amazing achievement because Han Solo literally beat the better version of him with his eyes closed.

good post Darmik

scar the 1 posted...

Clarifying is "fixing" something that was previously unclear. I agree that what he's probably not doing it for the same reasons as Rowling, but I don't really think it matters. Death of the author remains a useful principle, and I'll take what he says as an opinion on the text rather than "canon".
Another reason why this is practical is that he's not the sole author of the movie. Yes, he's the writer, director (and editor, right?), but there are also other contributors here, like the actors. If they act in a way that, to me, looks like something, then GL saying it's actually something different doesn't matter. It's what's on the screen that matters.

And I also agree with you that it doesn't do much harm settling a minor issue like this. What harm it actually would do is potentially setting a precedent for turning to GL statements instead of looking at the actual movies when there's a dispute. But yeah, I'm against taking his word for it on principle, rather than having any especially strong feelings about this scene in particular.

scar the 1 posted...

Clarifying is "fixing" something that was previously unclear. I agree that what he's probably not doing it for the same reasons as Rowling, but I don't really think it matters. Death of the author remains a useful principle, and I'll take what he says as an opinion on the text rather than "canon".
Another reason why this is practical is that he's not the sole author of the movie. Yes, he's the writer, director (and editor, right?), but there are also other contributors here, like the actors. If they act in a way that, to me, looks like something, then GL saying it's actually something different doesn't matter. It's what's on the screen that matters.

And I also agree with you that it doesn't do much harm settling a minor issue like this. What harm it actually would do is potentially setting a precedent for turning to GL statements instead of looking at the actual movies when there's a dispute. But yeah, I'm against taking his word for it on principle, rather than having any especially strong feelings about this scene in particular.

Although I understand your feeling that the creators word is another opinion rather than the end all decision after publication, its not really something that I go along with. For the sake of ending this civilly, I believe it would be in the best interest for us to agree to disagree, wouldnt you say?

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Can we all agree that Palpatine wasn't in 100% control of either duel?
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Yoda, Windu and Palpatine were top 3 force users. Palpatine losing was legit.