Star Wars Fan Digs Up Evidence To Settle The Mace Windu vs Palpatine Debate

02.03.2024 - 05:28 / gamerant.com / Samuel L.Jackson / George Lucas / Disney Plus / Ademilade ShodipeDosunmu

The Mace Windu vs. Palpatine scene debate among Star Wars fans is still going strong decades later, and one fan on social media thinks that they’ve found the smoking blaster in the case to decide which of the two iconic Force users won.

While the Star Warsprequels are a bit of a mixed bag for many fans, one of the things that every part of the fanbase agrees on is the importance and awesomeness of the duel between Samuel L. Jackson's Jedi Master Mace Windu and Ian McDiarmid's Sith Lord Sheev Palpatine, one of the most evil characters in Star Wars history. While the fight ended with overt interference from Anakin Skywalker while Windu had Palpatine at saber-point, fans have debated who had the upper hand before Skywalker's arrival.

While Mace Windu inarguably won the actual clash of lightsabers, as one would perhaps expect of the Order's most venerable swordmaster, there has always been a fair amount of belief that Palpatine feigned defeat, a viewpoint waxed stronger when Palpatine actor Ian McDiarmid weighed in on the debate. However, while even that statement left room for interpretation, Star Wars fan Extra_Carry_4359 took Reddit's r/StarWars board to give what they see as definitive proof that Palpatine secretly had the upper hand the entire time. Noting that they expect the post, plainly titled “Mace Windu didn’t beat Palpatine,” to attract a lot of downvotes, Extra_Carry_4359 provided multiple links to back up their view, most notably from franchise creator George Lucas and legendary stunt coordinator Nick Gillard.

Meanwhile, not a single official source supports the idea that Mace won “fair and square” like people on the internet claim…because he didn’t. The plan was always that Mace fell into a trap.

In addition to Lucas' confirmation that Palpatine was pretending and Gillard's blunt statement in support of Palpatine “creaming” Windu, the user also cites the Revenge of the Sith novelization and the Official Star Wars Encyclopedia,strengthening this conclusion. However, just as when one user highlighted a brutal detail in Mace Windu's death scene, fans were quick to state their case one way or another, with many disagreeing with Extra_Carry_4359 despite the evidence presented. A few users quickly pointed out that no source supersedes Lucas himself, weakening the strength of the other sources. Others disagreed with the original poster’s interpretation of the statements, leading to the debate raging on just as heatedly as ever and (predictably) not any closer to being settled.

While the original post is well-worded and does provide the evidence it posits, there is still a lot of truth to the pushback it received. Gillard's statement, the most direct and conclusive of the lot, is just an opinion held by