How Mace Windu Could Have Survived 'Revenge Of The Sith'
When Grogu sent out his Force message from the ancient Jedi temple on the planet Tython, many wondered who would come to answer it. Among the obvious choices like Luke Skywalker or Ahsoka Tano was one particular name popping up time and time again: Mace Windu.
But how could this be? He got his hand cut off by Anakin Skywalker, then hit by Force lightning from Darth Sidious and finally thrown out of a window, falling down from one of the tallest buildings on Coruscant. By all means, Mace Windu must be dead, right? Right?
When Samuel L. Jackson made his personal plea to George Lucas to give him a role in the then upcoming prequel trilogy of the Star Wars saga in the mid 1990s, and then learned that he would get to play one of the most important members of the Jedi Council, he additionally asked for two things: a lightsaber that would set him apart from all the other Jedi, and not to go out like a punk. When Palpatine finally took over, he had all Jedi killed and proclaimed his Empire.
Jackson ultimately got both his wishes, with the unique purple lightsaber and a death that was nothing like that of the other Jedi who had come to Palpatine’s office to arrest the chancellor: Kit Fisto, Agen Kolar, and Saesee Tiin got smashed by the Sith Lord within seconds, but Windu had Sidious actually beaten, deflecting his Force lightning back onto him, deforming his face and leaving him begging for his life. If only Anakin had not shown up at this moment…
Ever since the release of Episode III, there have been rumors and mumblings that the Jedi Master did survive his fall and was still out there somewhere in the galaxy. Jackson himself has said several times that he personally thinks that Mace Windu survived. Back in 2016, he stated that Jedi are able to survive falls from great heights, carry on with only one arm, and hide from the preying eyes of the Empire.
.@starwarsgirl1 #IMDbAskSamJackson pic.twitter.com/aSZ0uwHUpz
— Samuel L. Jackson (@SamuelLJackson) June 25, 2016
And all this could very well be true, especially for a Jedi of Windu’s power. For all we know, there could have been a ledge only a few meters below Palpatine’s office on which he could have landed safely. And especially the Star Wars universe offers a lot of examples, where people survived having one hand cut off, like Luke Skywalker or Anakin himself. Darth Maul survived being chopped in half and falling down into a bottomless shaft. Anakin himself got both arms and legs cut off, burnt to a crisp, and still survived somehow. And Sidious was thrown into the reactor shaft of a space station that exploded shortly after and still returned. Luke Skywalker survived being hit by Force lightning much longer than Windu. So why couldn’t Mace Windu have survived Sidious’ assault?
As Jackson said, the decision to kill the Jedi off came from George Lucas himself, and at the time of production of Revenge of the Sith, he surely meant for Windu to be dead. Later on, Jackson told Lucas about his belief that Windu didn’t die on this day, and the Star Wars creator didn’t object: “I’m okay with that. You can be alive.”
Of course, the days when Lucas gets to decide whom to bring back from the dead are gone, ever since his sale of Lucasfilm to Disney, but George was also okay with the idea that Boba Fett didn’t die in the sarlacc pit, and the notorious bounty hunter made his mighty return in season 2 of The Mandalorian.
So far, Mace Windu has not returned in the flesh to the Star Wars universe in stories following Revenge of the Sith, neither in books, nor in comics, nor in movies, or television. The Jedi Master (or rather his voice) had a brief cameo at the end of The Rise of Skywalker, when he was one of the voices who talked to Rey on Exegol (and Jackson did provide this line). This obviously means that he was dead, but on the other hand, there are 50 years between the events of Episode III and Episode IX, and Mace Windu wasn’t a young padawan back then. So it seems quite logical that he could have died during those years, simply of age.
Ultimately, Jackson’s reasoning for Mace Windu having survived Episode III and then going into hiding much like Yoda or Obi-Wan isn’t too out there, and some fans would surely love to see a return of the Jedi Master with the stern face, not only for the love of Jackson, but simply to find out what had happened to the man who sensed “a plot to destroy the Jedi,” when it was already much too late.
Source(s): Screen Rant