8 Mind-Blowing Revelations Hidden In Rise Of Skywalker
4. Mace Windu Survived
Spurred by actor Samuel L. Jackson’s enthusiasm for his character and that character's general popularity the question of Windu's survival has hung around since Revenge of The Sith.
In the most recent film, we hear the voices of many past Jedi urging Rey on, among them most notably is Mace Windu. So, it’s clear that he did not survive up to the events of Rise of Skywalker. To be fair, he’d be pushing ninety if he had, so it's not all that surprising.
But far more interesting is that the film sets up the possibility that he may have survived the events of Revenge of The Sith. In that film, after losing a hand Mace Windu is hit with a full power blast from Palpatine’s force lightning and presumed to be dead as he flies off into the distance. However in the climax of The Rise of Skywalker we see another character, Ben Solo take a full power blast from the Emperor’s Force lightning and go flying off. The difference in the two scenes, of course, is that Solo unambiguously survived the attack, coming back to heal Rey at the end of the movie.
Now, it's true that Ben Solo is incredibly strong and skilled with the Force, but so was Mace Windu. Let's not forget that he actually defeated Palpatine in single combat and would have straight-up killed him if a certain punk didn’t cut off his hand. So, comparably-speaking, Mace Windu can probably survive anything that Ben Solo can.
This interestingly opens up many story possibilities with one pissed off Jedi master who everyone thinks is dead at large in the massive Imperial capital. One place we haven’t seen much of outside of comics during the Empire period is interestingly enough the capital planet Coruscant.
Considering that Samual L. Jackson has a working relationship with Disney and has been very publicly eager to come back as a very alive Mace Windu, the chances of something developing from this are high. My money is on a Mace Windu Disney+ series, not unlike the forthcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi series but only time may tell if that's the plan.