With as many people that are in full support of this project, there are likely a few people, at least, that are a bit skeptical of a Mace Windu standalone story, even if it’s already in development. The saving grace for this project is that it’s very likely to show Mace Windu as a young man and possibly detail his life as a Jedi on his way to finally sitting on the council. Whether or not we’ll see Samuel L. Jackson take up his role once again is hard to say since some people would like to see this as a reference point and others might want to believe that he survived his descent after being literally disarmed by Anakin and then flung out of a window by Palpatine. Even for a Jedi master, that sounds like a bit of a stretch but to be fair it would be great to see Jackson take up the role once again since he admitted to enjoying his time in the Star Wars franchise. After all, he was there for three movies and his character did last through the majority of the Clone Wars. But what kind of tale we’ll see with a young Mace Windu is hard to say since there are a lot of different ways this could go. Considering that Disney doesn’t want to use anything in the books that are considered a part of the Legends canon, it’s fair to say that things are going to be anything but what people might expect.
One thing about this that kind of bugs a lot of fans, myself included, is the ease with which Palpatine dispatched three Jedi masters before going one on one with Windu. It’s very true that Palpatine was a skilled duelist, but one didn’t ascend to the highest rank in the Jedi without being able to handle themselves in a fight, and no matter what ‘Sith tricks’ George Lucas would use to define just how Palpatine waded through them, the fight in the book was far more impressive than what we saw on screen. The hope is that anything that might come from a Mace Windu standalone movie would be something that would be a little more impressive. This is Disney after all, meaning that high expectations can be met but aren’t always since, depending on the director, people might hope for the best and get some of the worst. It’s cynical to be certain, but there’s still hope that something impressive can be done with this story since it would be fun to see how Mace came to be so powerful. This is a Jedi that was taught by Yoda after all and eventually came to rival the diminutive Jedi master.
One has to remember that Mace Windu has also skirted closer to the dark side of the Force than many Jedi and has still been able to keep from falling into the dark ways. He’s kind of a troubled soul really at times, but he’s usually composed and aware of himself to the point that he knows how to keep from falling to the dark side. As with many Jedi masters, he’s one of those that’s highly pragmatic and so bound up within the order that he somehow doesn’t see the danger coming before it’s there and can’t be easily excised. One thing that’s obvious with Mace though is that had Anakin not intervened, he would have likely ended Palpatine then and there. But one has to wonder, would the problems of the galaxy have ended with Palpatine’s death? The Sith have already been seen to be highly resilient, which is why the Star Wars story could remain focused on the Jedi and Sith in a big way since both ideologies aren’t bound to simply go away. An interesting idea to think about, and this would be the height of hypocrisy if Disney ever though to push it, would be if the future of Star Wars saw the introduction of Cade Skywalker despite the fact that he belongs to the Legends canon. Originally a descendant of Luke and Mara Skywalker, it’s interesting to think that Cade could be Rey’s descendant. Even better would be if the main villain of that particular story, Darth Krayt, who was created from a fallen Jedi that had been alive since the Clone Wars, was instead another powerful Sith that had once been a fallen Jedi. See where I’m going with this? What if Mace Windu did survive his plunge only to turn away from the light and embrace the dark side? There would be a massive need to retcon a lot of things, particularly since the Yuuzhan Vong war doesn’t sound like a possibility within the current Star Wars universe, but it does sound interesting all the same, following a story that shows Mace Windu as a young man.
Follow Us
