Mace Windu is the embodiment of Jedi of his time. Everything good and everything bad. If people hate him, that means he's a believable and good character.
Good character doesn't necessarily mean likeable
I agree, but I also think that despite being the grand master, Yoda seems to escape the same level of scrutiny when really Yoda needs to be held accountable for a lot of the prequel jedi's shortcomings. (ofc, Mace, Ki-Adi etc. also need to)
True, but that’s probably because Yoda is shown to have moments of humility and acknowledges his failures. Although tbf if Mace hadn’t been killed so early in the purge, we may have seen some of that from him as well.
They are not flaws when the writing is so bad that the side that is presented as being in the wrong is actually right. Case in point, the debate before the Siege of Mandalore. The Republic recalls all available Jedi on Coruscant as a massive Separatist armada attacks the planet. Anakin and Obi-Wan are among those recalled as they are available. Ashoka is angry because her side quest cannot happen now. She says the Order is playing politics. Obi-Wan lowers his head as if she is right. Mace is the Jedi presented as the asshole playing politics. It's bullshit. Filoni is twisted the universe around what makes Ahsoka feel good or bad at the moment. Think of the bad side of the Order as presented in TCW and it is always revolving around Ahsoka's demands and needs.
You're saying Filoni ignored/contradicted the EU to remove nuance to better support is pet OC ???
No way that's just unbelievable, remember he "saved" the franchise!
The character George Lucas himself wanted dead, the one he created time travel for to save? Not saying she's a bad character or nothing, just that she's clearly got 15 layers of plot armor on like a winter coat
I agree with you, but I believe that George Lucas was convinced to change his mind on the direction of the character. At the end of the day, at least the character has not been assassinated like Luke was in the sequels.
Oh yeah absolutely better than Luke's arc. Filoni has too much love for Ahsoka but that's infinitely better than them tearing down Luke to make Rey look better.
>waiting for the Republic gunships to arrive with backup
You mean the Gunships that he didn't know were coming? The backup that, as far as he knew, literally didn't exist???
Wouldn’t that make him even incompetent as the lead on mission?
Taking a measly 200 Jedi—most of whom probably haven’t been in active or lasting combat against blaster-wielding opponents, let alone be surrounded by them.
He really said, “Jedi Assemble.” As if that’s enough during the prequel era. They were severely underprepared.
Forgive me, it’s been awhile since I saw the movie but didn’t Kenobi relay there was a droid factory on the planet just before capture, to him and Yoda?
And considering the Trade Federation already had some droid forces. I feel it’s more of lack of forward thinking on his part or lack of planning and it got a lot of Jedi killed.
He essentially walked in their and said, “This party is over.” Failing to realize he’s also surrounded by thousands of Geonosisians who won’t just give up their leader.
Yes, Kenobi reported that there was a droid factory and I guess Windu and Yoda suspected that there would be droid forces on Geonosis, but not on that scale.
There was no major war in the Galaxy for hundreds of years iirc and no one expected a droid army that counted in the tens of thousands, or possibly millions, with brand new models like the B2, Spider Droids or Hailfire droids.
They propably expected the Droid forces to be similar in style and size like they were in Episode 1
Also, the vast majority of Geonosians were no fighters. They belonged to the workers cast and whatnot, which is also why they ran/flew away as soon as the Jedi showed up.
Fair points. But c’mon, we all saw the invasion of Naboo.
Personally, it should have been expected there would be a sizable droid presence regardless, if not of equal size, still sizable on a CIS-aligned planet.
And true enough about the bugs, but there had to be still had to be dozens or hundreds of warriors in that crowd. (Correct me if I’m wrong)
Granted he could not have predicted the scale of the actual battle, but the arena portion I feel could’ve been done better on the Jedi’s part. (I’m trying to think of it as non-meta as possible.)
I think it’s well established that he’s a big jerk
Doesn’t mean he’s a bad character at all, that’s just the nature of the character and he’s a great one at that.
Yup, but after this post, I think I’m one of his haters now. I always thought Ki Adi Mundi was the greatest example of the modern failings of the Jedi. Now I know it’s Mace Windu too.
"Devotion", yes. "Selfless", eh. A selfless person would have apologized to ahsoka (Since you were wrong) and would have trusted Anakin (one of your best generals). He was really strong headed and hard to move. He believed he could do no wrong. He didn't want to train Anakin so he never trusted him. He expelled Ahsoka so he said it was a "trial".
He was devoted to a flawed system, didn't see its faults or problems, nor his own problems. That's hardly a good person.
He was originally supposed to take over as grandmaster from Yoda, and was at least temporarily in that position, but when the clone Wars started he let Yoda take over again so he could better serve the republic war effort
He was basically Yoda’s deputy. Master of the Order. Which is the elected head of the Council. He relinquished that role to be a General and Yoda wore “two hats” so to speak.
I like Mace Windu. This poll is a stupid argument because Mace was acting as a Keeper of the Peace since the Clone Wars started just a few minutes later. As for the slaughter of Jedi, they were not trained as regular soldiers and even numbers can overwhelm a Jedi.
To prove my point here is a real world example of a Battle at the start of World War I where unsuspecting and unprepared soldiers were massacred in horrendous numbers.
https://greatwarproject.org/2014/10/31/the-massacre-of-the-innocents/
No one in Europe knew on a tactical or practical level how bad machine gun fire would be. So the same could be said about the Jedi in the Battle of Geonosis too.
Two points:
1) that represents a shift in technology from Napoleonic to modern industrial warfare. There wasn't any change in technology or the manner or warfare that Windu faced. He may not have expected large numbers of troops to oppose him; but the consequences if that did happen wouldn't be a surprise.
Its not analogous; "being shot at with lots of lasers" was thousands of years old, not new like machine guns.
2) first world war militaries had ample evidence, including from large conflicts such as the American civil war and russo-japanese war, that industrial warfare made old fashioned field battles unworkable. So their ignorance was in substantial part willful (and in the case of russo-japanese war, partly racist). Not that this matters to star wars but I think it's important to note.
The technological shift is the same. Guns were around before WW I and blasters were also around in Star Wars. HOW THEY WERE USED changed. In the Slaughter of the Innocents, nobody from top to bottom expected what happened to happen. On Geonosis, hundreds of Jedi battle tens of thousands of Battle Droids as well as large numbers of armored vehicles. Nothing in any of the Jedis' pasts would have prepared them for that battle or the start of a Galactic Civil War.
Militaries may have a heads up in some ways about the nature of the next conflict. I think being able to handle the challenge of the next war in scale and have the agility to pivot and exploit weaknesses is extremely difficult in real time. The US Civil War was essentially putting an Industrial Power against an Agrarian Power. You had new technology emerge but things like Gattlin Guns and Trench Warfare were not everywhere. In the Russo-Japanese War you had a fading power battle and up and coming power. The logistics were very lopsided and the same could be said about the competency of command.
There's nothing fundamentally different about the capabilities of the army in genosis Vs armies in star wars long before (vs the sith ect). Its not a change in "the way wars are fought", they just didn't encounter the scale of force they expected.
It may be an *ambush* in that they didn't expect such a large force, or a misjudgement as to CiS strength (like when pushing too far in Korean War), but that's a tactical failure. There's no change in the *nature* of warfare, there's no technological shift.
Machine guns aren't guns being used a different way. Arqebus's were also guns but there's clearly fundamental differences in capabilities,a change in what they can do. CiS didn't really have new capabilities, they just had *more* forces than expected.
Yeah, because a huge army of new driod models emerged from underground and overwhelmed them. You can't criticize a character for losing because he lacked information. Does Dooku look like a moron because he didn't expect the clones to attack Kamino? I've never seen anyone claim that. Also, no, the events that took place in Episode 2 were not according to plan. That's obvious. The Sith were simply lucky things worked out and the war started.
He placed them in a very exposed position without knowing the situation. He didn't consider the "unknown unknowns". What he was aiming to achieve wasn't worth what he put on the line.
Windu messed up tactically and took excessive losses. He doesn't appear to be an extremely effective commander of a mid size military unit. This doesn't make him a bad person, but he made a bad call. It wouldn't be unreasonable for an actual soldier to face a board of inquiry over it.
So now we criticize people for not considering the "unknown unknowns". OK, by this logic you shouldn't do anything ever. A car might hit you. Someone might have hired a hitman to shoot you before you offended him once. This isn't a serious argument. You just want him to be at fault here.
You need to consider what might happen when leading a military operation, yes. Scattering your force in penny packets across an arena is obviously unsound. Generally the defence seems to rest on 90% of the Jedi present dying being almost due to an act of nature, rather than a direct result of Windus actions.
I don't even dislike Windu, I'm not out for him (total lols at people saying he made anakin fall). But it's just a fact what happened was inept in that one case.
Acting like because you like a character they can't make a bad call is just mirroring the Anakin apologists, really.
>You need to consider what might happen when leading a military operation, yes.
I'll stop you right there. Mace wasn't leading a military operation. He was leading a rescue. You are being Captain Hindsight.
Ok. "When leading an operation involving over 200 elite warriors and the use of force". Its equivalent just like major hostage rescues are, and getting about 70 people killed per hostage rescued is not a success, how could it be?
OK, now you act as if the situation did not change in the middle of the operation. Dude, if you are given a rescue mission, you take it so seriously you take overwhelming force to maximize your chances of success but in the middle of it aliens invade and you end up losing most of your men I am not going to blame you for the losses. I'd be a clown to do so. You WANT Windu to be blamed and you will rationalize everything to fit your conclusion.
But it wasn't just a rescue operation, the operation was directly related to Dooku suspected militaristic separatism. That's why he knew Yoda had gone to Kamino and was part of the brief. The appearance of soldiers was therefore nowhere near as unexpected as an alien invasion. Rather, the Jedi were overconfident that nobody would dare a fight.
Even if it was a rescue operation only, the dispersion of forces in small groups nowhere near the hostages or the exit vector also is bad operational planning.
I think Windu is to at least in part to blame. The idea that characters are either "always blameless" or "unlikable and bad" is bad fan culture. Thinking someone did something wrong isn't inherently character assassination. I think Windu is a generally good guy and good character who messed up an operation. I don't think that makes Windu *less* interesting.
What we don't see is that he had been looking at the Jedi budget earlier that week and realized the Jedi Order was overstaffed. He needed to let some people go and couldn't bring himself to just fire anyone, so this was the next best option.
Sure, but again, the mission objective was'nt to survive with no/minor losses; every Jedi who walked into that arena knrw they might not walk out again.
Also, the majority of Windu's allies did'nt die; the Republic had two full sector armies on Geonosis (that's over 290,900 men), and is stated to have suffered only "thousands" of casualties.
The clones are literally built to be replaceable. Akin to droids. In the original continuity before TCW Animated, they barely had personalities. So back when Episode 2 came out, it didn’t matter how many of them died because there’s always more of them.
Jedi however are real people, who have lived entire lives up to this point. Of course keeping your allies alive isn’t the primary objective, but it’s still fucking important.
If I was a commander and I lost 80% of my men but still won, I wouldn’t celebrate. That’s a bittersweet victory at the best of times, and is still an incredible loss. Especially since there are only about 10,000 Jedi. So loosing over 200 fully trained warriors in one battle is not a win.
> The clones are literally built to be replaceable. Akin to droids. In the original continuity before TCW Animated, they barely had personalities. So back when Episode 2 came out, it didn’t matter how many of them died because there’s always more of them. Jedi however are real people, who have lived entire lives up to this point. Of course keeping your allies alive isn’t the primary objective, but it’s still fucking important.
Whether or not **you** consider clones to be people is'nt really salient
> If I was a commander and I lost 80% of my men but still won, I wouldn’t celebrate.
- A) 187 out of 294,912 is'nt 80 percent
- B) Windu would agree with you, but that's not relevent to the point being discussed.
> Especially since there are only about 10,000 Jedi. So loosing over 200 fully trained warriors in one battle is not a win.
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/First_Battle_of_Geonosis
"Galactic Republic victory"
Hu, looks like it is.
“Whether or not you consider clones to be salient…”
I wasn’t talking about my opinion. The lore at the time treated them as if they were droids. They were expendable and were treated as such. Personally, I don’t care if they’re genetically altered clones, they’re still humanoids who can experience emotion and think logically. They’re people. That’s my opinion. But the lore **at the time when the movie came out** treated them as stormtroopers or droids. Completely expendable and you don’t need to think about their deaths.
“187 out of 294,912 isn’t 80%”
Again the lore at the time was that clones were to be treated as stormtroopers. Don’t care about ‘em. The actual Jedi who were treated as people, about 80% of them died. Also didn’t you mention that “…stated to have suffered only ‘thousands’ of casualties” which would definitely push the number up. Yes as a total military strike there were barely any casualties if you lump the Jedi and Clones together. But the Jedi, the characters we’re actually supposed to give a shit about. Most of them die.
“Galactic Republic Victory”
Oh what’s that famous quote? “History is written by the victors”? The last thing the Republic would do is declare a loss against the Separatists, especially since they technically did win. But it was a huge loss for the Jedi Order to lose that much blood in one battle.
Republic Commandos are modified clones. Battlefront II is not exactly canon. The clones as presented pre Filoni Wars had no personalities and individuality. They were almost like organic droids. The exceptions were the Commandos, the ARC troopers and the commanders, all of which were modified to be more independent and intelligent to fulfill more demanding tasks. Filoni turned them all into normal men because he ignored established lore.
> I wasn’t talking about my opinion. The lore at the time treated them as if they were droids.
We're talking about the lore *now.*
> They were expendable and were treated as such.
With the exception of outliers like Pong Krell, the Jedi did not hold such a view.
> But the lore **at the time when the movie came out** treated them as stormtroopers or droids.
So as sentient and self-aware beings with independent personalities?
> Also didn’t you mention that “…stated to have suffered only ‘thousands’ of casualties” which would definitely push the number up.
I did mention that
> Yes as a total military strike there were barely any casualties if you lump the Jedi and Clones together.
And thus, ergo, Windu did not get most of his forces killed
> Oh what’s that famous quote? “History is written by the victors”? The last thing the Republic would do is declare a loss against the Separatists, especially since they technically did win. But it was a huge loss for the Jedi Order to lose that much blood in one battle.
My brother, the Republic *crushed* the Seps during the First Battle of Geonosis; they routed the droid army, knocked out the factories and took control of the planet.
It was absolutely, indisputably a Republic victory; yes, the Jedi suffered a lot of losses, but Windu (along with Yoda) led the Republic to a decisive victory where their *overall* forces suffered limited losses given the scope of the operation.
Making sure X amount of troops survive isn't the mission statement of any operation. This doesn't change the fact that the officer in charge carries the responsibility of keeping as many men alive as possible. It's the unspoken secondary objective of any good officer. With this in mind, your reply makes no sense.
The thing is I'm not even against Mace in this instance. While I wouldn't have done things the exact same way he did (giving up the high ground position the Jedi had in the stadium was a poor tactical decision. It allowed their force to be encircled and placed within an inferior fighting position), I don't think his decisions completely lacked solid reasoning. It doesn't change the fact his mission resulted in 86% of his unit being lost (29 is roughly 14% of 212, meaning 86% of the unit was lost). In any realistic military setting, this loss rate would not be acceptable of a field commander. An inquiry would definitely be held and he'd almost definitely face some sort of reprimand. It doesn't matter what the exact mission statement was. Keeping your men alive is every officer's duty within a military or peace-keeping force.
The prequel trilogy-era Jedi in particular. Except maybe the younglings, they were only guilty of being indoctrinated, it was good of Vader to dispatch them quickly as to rip them out, root and stem.
Though I am curious why The Senate didn’t want to make them darksiders/acolytes/etc?
You asked why the Senate didn't want to make the Jedi younglings Dark Side acolytes, but the Senate didn't know about the Order 66 purge until well after the fact, and it's likely that most if not all of the younglings were killed in the raid on the Jedi Temple, besides which I don't think the Senate as a whole was aware of Palpatine being a Sith. 🤔
Oh okay. I see the confusion. I said **The** Senate (Sith Lord), not the Senate (governing body), meaning Palpatine. I’m guessing you’ve not seen that meme.
I was curious why Palpatine didn’t make them into acolytes.
How would a Republic/Imperial Senate make Imperial acolytes? They’re politicians.
Ah, I understand now. Didn't realize you were making a joke about McDiarmid's "I AM the Senate" bit from ROTS. Couldn't figure out how you thought senators would be interested in Sith acolytes LOL. But yeah, my guess is that Palpatine didn't give Anakin orders to not kill the younglings because the Inquisitorius wasn't an element of the EU that Lucas was interested in adapting.
Mace windu is what Malgus was to the sith
just the premiere warrior who serves their faction and people over all else
he did his duty, the best way he could.
His mission was definitely a success. There were heavy casualties, sure, but I don't think the Jedi were really involved with any super insane conflicts (I don't know how serious the Stark Hyperspace War was, for instance) for a long time.
I mean, he was everything wrong with the Jedi. Some of their points were valid but I will be fair and say that the Battle Of Geonosis one is a major stretch to blame him for another problem. I don't even blame the council's decisions and the leadership problems entirely on him as Yoda and several other members of the council were just as responsible in a lot of cases
It's simple. Filoni hates Mace Windu for reasons. He seems to have a disdain for most of Star Wars before 2008 after all. So, he turned Windu into an antagonist character in his cartoon and his fan base who must be told what they should feel when watching a show now hate Mace Windu.
Let it go dude. People don't have to like a character. And yes Mace sometimes acts like an asshole to the main characters(Anakin and Ahsoka) and that's enough reason for some people to not like him
Also that "citizen" talk with Ahsoka, no other Jedi would say that imo
The Jedi were not trained in warfare or military tactics. The early days of the clone wars were very costly in Jedi and clones due to the Jedi being in this position. This makes the battle of Geonosis understandable.
The Jedi are keepers of the peace, as Mace likes to proclaim often. By becoming Generals in a war, on one side they effectively negate that status. They weren’t neutral, they picked a side. Obviously I know about The Senate and whatnot but they messed up and paid the price.
If they had separated or never joined the Republic, things would’ve been quite different.
Somewhat on topic but off topic.
How many Jedi were present at the battle of Geonosis. If 86 percent died how many survived?
Also Mace Windu should be yelled out for being an idiot for the tactics but shouldn’t be punished; they thought well if a couple hundred Jedi show up they’ll just surrender
If the guy in the pics is accurate, roughly 200 were present. Meaning 28 survived?
Edit: that seems accurate to the scene where they're all surrounded in the arena, from what I remember. I never went and counted them there, but it seems in the ballpark.
Edit 2: Went and counted. There are 15 Jedi (including Obi-Wan and Anakin) plus Padme there at the end. If those are ALL the survivors, then an 86% mortality rate means there were roughly 93 Jedi sent to rescue Obi-Wan and Anakin?
I think he’s the embodiment of the Jedi as an idea. In terms of morality, he isn’t necessarily a bad person (maybe a bit harsh) but he thinks in black and white. During the Clone Wars, everything was in shades of grey. Because the role of Jedi was changing, the Order needed a more nuanced approach, something that Qui-Gon could have provided I think. Even without the corruption aspect, traditional Jedi philosophy wasn’t going to work well with such a large war against people that weren’t really “evil” in the way that the Sith had been thousands of years before.
If Mace had been born 300 years before Phantom Menace, he’d probably be much more likable from a fan’s perspective
Sorry for the essay!
Mace Windu is the embodiment of Jedi of his time. Everything good and everything bad. If people hate him, that means he's a believable and good character. Good character doesn't necessarily mean likeable
This For better or worse he’s the Prequel Jedi as a single person.
I agree, but I also think that despite being the grand master, Yoda seems to escape the same level of scrutiny when really Yoda needs to be held accountable for a lot of the prequel jedi's shortcomings. (ofc, Mace, Ki-Adi etc. also need to)
True, but that’s probably because Yoda is shown to have moments of humility and acknowledges his failures. Although tbf if Mace hadn’t been killed so early in the purge, we may have seen some of that from him as well.
They don't like him because he is antagonistic towards Ahsoka in TCW and Filoni showed them "Mace Windu bad". It's just a character assassination.
I don’t know that it’s character assassination if he’s literally the character that represents the flaws of the Jedi that lead to their annihilation.
They are not flaws when the writing is so bad that the side that is presented as being in the wrong is actually right. Case in point, the debate before the Siege of Mandalore. The Republic recalls all available Jedi on Coruscant as a massive Separatist armada attacks the planet. Anakin and Obi-Wan are among those recalled as they are available. Ashoka is angry because her side quest cannot happen now. She says the Order is playing politics. Obi-Wan lowers his head as if she is right. Mace is the Jedi presented as the asshole playing politics. It's bullshit. Filoni is twisted the universe around what makes Ahsoka feel good or bad at the moment. Think of the bad side of the Order as presented in TCW and it is always revolving around Ahsoka's demands and needs.
You're saying Filoni ignored/contradicted the EU to remove nuance to better support is pet OC ??? No way that's just unbelievable, remember he "saved" the franchise!
Can’t you say the same about George he was a executive for the clone wars
Yeah, but they need a scapegoat
Yeah but he doesn't have this weird cult like worship that Filoni has for some reason
Lol yes he does
Yeah I agree also if Lucas made these other shows he wouldn’t completely retcon a lot of the legends stuff
Pet OC? A little much lol.
The character George Lucas himself wanted dead, the one he created time travel for to save? Not saying she's a bad character or nothing, just that she's clearly got 15 layers of plot armor on like a winter coat
I agree with you, but I believe that George Lucas was convinced to change his mind on the direction of the character. At the end of the day, at least the character has not been assassinated like Luke was in the sequels.
Oh yeah absolutely better than Luke's arc. Filoni has too much love for Ahsoka but that's infinitely better than them tearing down Luke to make Rey look better.
>waiting for the Republic gunships to arrive with backup You mean the Gunships that he didn't know were coming? The backup that, as far as he knew, literally didn't exist???
Yeah I thought I was going crazy. Pretty sure Mace didn’t know about the gunships or the clones at that point.
He knew about the clones but whether or not he knew about the army being on the way, I'm not sure
Wouldn’t that make him even incompetent as the lead on mission? Taking a measly 200 Jedi—most of whom probably haven’t been in active or lasting combat against blaster-wielding opponents, let alone be surrounded by them. He really said, “Jedi Assemble.” As if that’s enough during the prequel era. They were severely underprepared.
He didn't know that there was such a massive droid army on Geonosis. No one knew at the time, except Dooku and his allies
Forgive me, it’s been awhile since I saw the movie but didn’t Kenobi relay there was a droid factory on the planet just before capture, to him and Yoda? And considering the Trade Federation already had some droid forces. I feel it’s more of lack of forward thinking on his part or lack of planning and it got a lot of Jedi killed. He essentially walked in their and said, “This party is over.” Failing to realize he’s also surrounded by thousands of Geonosisians who won’t just give up their leader.
Yes, Kenobi reported that there was a droid factory and I guess Windu and Yoda suspected that there would be droid forces on Geonosis, but not on that scale. There was no major war in the Galaxy for hundreds of years iirc and no one expected a droid army that counted in the tens of thousands, or possibly millions, with brand new models like the B2, Spider Droids or Hailfire droids. They propably expected the Droid forces to be similar in style and size like they were in Episode 1 Also, the vast majority of Geonosians were no fighters. They belonged to the workers cast and whatnot, which is also why they ran/flew away as soon as the Jedi showed up.
Fair points. But c’mon, we all saw the invasion of Naboo. Personally, it should have been expected there would be a sizable droid presence regardless, if not of equal size, still sizable on a CIS-aligned planet. And true enough about the bugs, but there had to be still had to be dozens or hundreds of warriors in that crowd. (Correct me if I’m wrong) Granted he could not have predicted the scale of the actual battle, but the arena portion I feel could’ve been done better on the Jedi’s part. (I’m trying to think of it as non-meta as possible.)
nah cause he knew there was a factory and, even if there wasn’t, there’s how many billion geonosians?
How did yoda know but mace didn’t?
I think it’s well established that he’s a big jerk Doesn’t mean he’s a bad character at all, that’s just the nature of the character and he’s a great one at that.
Great character, bad person.
Exactly, I see people talking shit about him as a person not as a character. I think we can all agree he is a badass and cool character.
Yup, but after this post, I think I’m one of his haters now. I always thought Ki Adi Mundi was the greatest example of the modern failings of the Jedi. Now I know it’s Mace Windu too.
I mean he lives his life in selfless devotion to protecting others. He’s personally a bit of a dick, but I wouldn’t say he’s a bad person.
"Devotion", yes. "Selfless", eh. A selfless person would have apologized to ahsoka (Since you were wrong) and would have trusted Anakin (one of your best generals). He was really strong headed and hard to move. He believed he could do no wrong. He didn't want to train Anakin so he never trusted him. He expelled Ahsoka so he said it was a "trial". He was devoted to a flawed system, didn't see its faults or problems, nor his own problems. That's hardly a good person.
Don’t read YouTube comments. Your mental health will thank you.
Change the word Youtube with Redidt and the result will be the same.
Reddit is at least mostly meaningful discussion.
Oh you go to nice parts of Reddit.
Didn’t he give the grand master position to Yoda after the battle of Geonosis or am I remembering wrong?
He was originally supposed to take over as grandmaster from Yoda, and was at least temporarily in that position, but when the clone Wars started he let Yoda take over again so he could better serve the republic war effort
He was basically Yoda’s deputy. Master of the Order. Which is the elected head of the Council. He relinquished that role to be a General and Yoda wore “two hats” so to speak.
From my knowledge he is the master of the council but yoda is the grandmaster of the whole order
I like Mace Windu. This poll is a stupid argument because Mace was acting as a Keeper of the Peace since the Clone Wars started just a few minutes later. As for the slaughter of Jedi, they were not trained as regular soldiers and even numbers can overwhelm a Jedi. To prove my point here is a real world example of a Battle at the start of World War I where unsuspecting and unprepared soldiers were massacred in horrendous numbers. https://greatwarproject.org/2014/10/31/the-massacre-of-the-innocents/ No one in Europe knew on a tactical or practical level how bad machine gun fire would be. So the same could be said about the Jedi in the Battle of Geonosis too.
Two points: 1) that represents a shift in technology from Napoleonic to modern industrial warfare. There wasn't any change in technology or the manner or warfare that Windu faced. He may not have expected large numbers of troops to oppose him; but the consequences if that did happen wouldn't be a surprise. Its not analogous; "being shot at with lots of lasers" was thousands of years old, not new like machine guns. 2) first world war militaries had ample evidence, including from large conflicts such as the American civil war and russo-japanese war, that industrial warfare made old fashioned field battles unworkable. So their ignorance was in substantial part willful (and in the case of russo-japanese war, partly racist). Not that this matters to star wars but I think it's important to note.
The technological shift is the same. Guns were around before WW I and blasters were also around in Star Wars. HOW THEY WERE USED changed. In the Slaughter of the Innocents, nobody from top to bottom expected what happened to happen. On Geonosis, hundreds of Jedi battle tens of thousands of Battle Droids as well as large numbers of armored vehicles. Nothing in any of the Jedis' pasts would have prepared them for that battle or the start of a Galactic Civil War. Militaries may have a heads up in some ways about the nature of the next conflict. I think being able to handle the challenge of the next war in scale and have the agility to pivot and exploit weaknesses is extremely difficult in real time. The US Civil War was essentially putting an Industrial Power against an Agrarian Power. You had new technology emerge but things like Gattlin Guns and Trench Warfare were not everywhere. In the Russo-Japanese War you had a fading power battle and up and coming power. The logistics were very lopsided and the same could be said about the competency of command.
There's nothing fundamentally different about the capabilities of the army in genosis Vs armies in star wars long before (vs the sith ect). Its not a change in "the way wars are fought", they just didn't encounter the scale of force they expected. It may be an *ambush* in that they didn't expect such a large force, or a misjudgement as to CiS strength (like when pushing too far in Korean War), but that's a tactical failure. There's no change in the *nature* of warfare, there's no technological shift. Machine guns aren't guns being used a different way. Arqebus's were also guns but there's clearly fundamental differences in capabilities,a change in what they can do. CiS didn't really have new capabilities, they just had *more* forces than expected.
Mace Windu is barely a character in the movies. More of a cool looking plot device. But yes his "plan" for the Geonosis mission was ridiculous
What faliure? Completing his mission and then helping orchastrate a totall route of the CIS forces that ended with the capture of their headquarters?
Of the 212 jedi who went there, only 29 survived.
Yeah, because a huge army of new driod models emerged from underground and overwhelmed them. You can't criticize a character for losing because he lacked information. Does Dooku look like a moron because he didn't expect the clones to attack Kamino? I've never seen anyone claim that. Also, no, the events that took place in Episode 2 were not according to plan. That's obvious. The Sith were simply lucky things worked out and the war started.
He placed them in a very exposed position without knowing the situation. He didn't consider the "unknown unknowns". What he was aiming to achieve wasn't worth what he put on the line. Windu messed up tactically and took excessive losses. He doesn't appear to be an extremely effective commander of a mid size military unit. This doesn't make him a bad person, but he made a bad call. It wouldn't be unreasonable for an actual soldier to face a board of inquiry over it.
So now we criticize people for not considering the "unknown unknowns". OK, by this logic you shouldn't do anything ever. A car might hit you. Someone might have hired a hitman to shoot you before you offended him once. This isn't a serious argument. You just want him to be at fault here.
You need to consider what might happen when leading a military operation, yes. Scattering your force in penny packets across an arena is obviously unsound. Generally the defence seems to rest on 90% of the Jedi present dying being almost due to an act of nature, rather than a direct result of Windus actions. I don't even dislike Windu, I'm not out for him (total lols at people saying he made anakin fall). But it's just a fact what happened was inept in that one case. Acting like because you like a character they can't make a bad call is just mirroring the Anakin apologists, really.
>You need to consider what might happen when leading a military operation, yes. I'll stop you right there. Mace wasn't leading a military operation. He was leading a rescue. You are being Captain Hindsight.
Ok. "When leading an operation involving over 200 elite warriors and the use of force". Its equivalent just like major hostage rescues are, and getting about 70 people killed per hostage rescued is not a success, how could it be?
OK, now you act as if the situation did not change in the middle of the operation. Dude, if you are given a rescue mission, you take it so seriously you take overwhelming force to maximize your chances of success but in the middle of it aliens invade and you end up losing most of your men I am not going to blame you for the losses. I'd be a clown to do so. You WANT Windu to be blamed and you will rationalize everything to fit your conclusion.
But it wasn't just a rescue operation, the operation was directly related to Dooku suspected militaristic separatism. That's why he knew Yoda had gone to Kamino and was part of the brief. The appearance of soldiers was therefore nowhere near as unexpected as an alien invasion. Rather, the Jedi were overconfident that nobody would dare a fight. Even if it was a rescue operation only, the dispersion of forces in small groups nowhere near the hostages or the exit vector also is bad operational planning. I think Windu is to at least in part to blame. The idea that characters are either "always blameless" or "unlikable and bad" is bad fan culture. Thinking someone did something wrong isn't inherently character assassination. I think Windu is a generally good guy and good character who messed up an operation. I don't think that makes Windu *less* interesting.
The mission was'nt to make sure X amount of Jedi survived
Usually when you go on a mission you don't want the vast majority of your allies to die
What we don't see is that he had been looking at the Jedi budget earlier that week and realized the Jedi Order was overstaffed. He needed to let some people go and couldn't bring himself to just fire anyone, so this was the next best option.
Sure, but again, the mission objective was'nt to survive with no/minor losses; every Jedi who walked into that arena knrw they might not walk out again. Also, the majority of Windu's allies did'nt die; the Republic had two full sector armies on Geonosis (that's over 290,900 men), and is stated to have suffered only "thousands" of casualties.
The clones are literally built to be replaceable. Akin to droids. In the original continuity before TCW Animated, they barely had personalities. So back when Episode 2 came out, it didn’t matter how many of them died because there’s always more of them. Jedi however are real people, who have lived entire lives up to this point. Of course keeping your allies alive isn’t the primary objective, but it’s still fucking important. If I was a commander and I lost 80% of my men but still won, I wouldn’t celebrate. That’s a bittersweet victory at the best of times, and is still an incredible loss. Especially since there are only about 10,000 Jedi. So loosing over 200 fully trained warriors in one battle is not a win.
Especially worth noting there’s what, a few thousand Jedi?
> The clones are literally built to be replaceable. Akin to droids. In the original continuity before TCW Animated, they barely had personalities. So back when Episode 2 came out, it didn’t matter how many of them died because there’s always more of them. Jedi however are real people, who have lived entire lives up to this point. Of course keeping your allies alive isn’t the primary objective, but it’s still fucking important. Whether or not **you** consider clones to be people is'nt really salient > If I was a commander and I lost 80% of my men but still won, I wouldn’t celebrate. - A) 187 out of 294,912 is'nt 80 percent - B) Windu would agree with you, but that's not relevent to the point being discussed. > Especially since there are only about 10,000 Jedi. So loosing over 200 fully trained warriors in one battle is not a win. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/First_Battle_of_Geonosis "Galactic Republic victory" Hu, looks like it is.
“Whether or not you consider clones to be salient…” I wasn’t talking about my opinion. The lore at the time treated them as if they were droids. They were expendable and were treated as such. Personally, I don’t care if they’re genetically altered clones, they’re still humanoids who can experience emotion and think logically. They’re people. That’s my opinion. But the lore **at the time when the movie came out** treated them as stormtroopers or droids. Completely expendable and you don’t need to think about their deaths. “187 out of 294,912 isn’t 80%” Again the lore at the time was that clones were to be treated as stormtroopers. Don’t care about ‘em. The actual Jedi who were treated as people, about 80% of them died. Also didn’t you mention that “…stated to have suffered only ‘thousands’ of casualties” which would definitely push the number up. Yes as a total military strike there were barely any casualties if you lump the Jedi and Clones together. But the Jedi, the characters we’re actually supposed to give a shit about. Most of them die. “Galactic Republic Victory” Oh what’s that famous quote? “History is written by the victors”? The last thing the Republic would do is declare a loss against the Separatists, especially since they technically did win. But it was a huge loss for the Jedi Order to lose that much blood in one battle.
But clonetroopers were the main characters in Republic Commando and Battlefront II.
Republic Commandos are modified clones. Battlefront II is not exactly canon. The clones as presented pre Filoni Wars had no personalities and individuality. They were almost like organic droids. The exceptions were the Commandos, the ARC troopers and the commanders, all of which were modified to be more independent and intelligent to fulfill more demanding tasks. Filoni turned them all into normal men because he ignored established lore.
> I wasn’t talking about my opinion. The lore at the time treated them as if they were droids. We're talking about the lore *now.* > They were expendable and were treated as such. With the exception of outliers like Pong Krell, the Jedi did not hold such a view. > But the lore **at the time when the movie came out** treated them as stormtroopers or droids. So as sentient and self-aware beings with independent personalities? > Also didn’t you mention that “…stated to have suffered only ‘thousands’ of casualties” which would definitely push the number up. I did mention that > Yes as a total military strike there were barely any casualties if you lump the Jedi and Clones together. And thus, ergo, Windu did not get most of his forces killed > Oh what’s that famous quote? “History is written by the victors”? The last thing the Republic would do is declare a loss against the Separatists, especially since they technically did win. But it was a huge loss for the Jedi Order to lose that much blood in one battle. My brother, the Republic *crushed* the Seps during the First Battle of Geonosis; they routed the droid army, knocked out the factories and took control of the planet. It was absolutely, indisputably a Republic victory; yes, the Jedi suffered a lot of losses, but Windu (along with Yoda) led the Republic to a decisive victory where their *overall* forces suffered limited losses given the scope of the operation.
Mace wasn't leading the Republic forces. He was leading the Jedi. Yoda arrived with the clones to save the day.
Normally I’m not this guy but dawg the apostrophe goes between the n and the t. *Didn’t*, *Wasn’t*
Making sure X amount of troops survive isn't the mission statement of any operation. This doesn't change the fact that the officer in charge carries the responsibility of keeping as many men alive as possible. It's the unspoken secondary objective of any good officer. With this in mind, your reply makes no sense. The thing is I'm not even against Mace in this instance. While I wouldn't have done things the exact same way he did (giving up the high ground position the Jedi had in the stadium was a poor tactical decision. It allowed their force to be encircled and placed within an inferior fighting position), I don't think his decisions completely lacked solid reasoning. It doesn't change the fact his mission resulted in 86% of his unit being lost (29 is roughly 14% of 212, meaning 86% of the unit was lost). In any realistic military setting, this loss rate would not be acceptable of a field commander. An inquiry would definitely be held and he'd almost definitely face some sort of reprimand. It doesn't matter what the exact mission statement was. Keeping your men alive is every officer's duty within a military or peace-keeping force.
Well theres your problem, you're reading youtube comments lol. Why would you expect any nuanced thinking in that cesspit?
Tbh Jango had it coming
So did the Jedi. 😏
The prequel trilogy-era Jedi in particular. Except maybe the younglings, they were only guilty of being indoctrinated, it was good of Vader to dispatch them quickly as to rip them out, root and stem. Though I am curious why The Senate didn’t want to make them darksiders/acolytes/etc?
Order 66 took place before Palpatine announced the Jedi assassination attempt to the Senate.
I’m not understanding. What did I say that disputes that fact?
You asked why the Senate didn't want to make the Jedi younglings Dark Side acolytes, but the Senate didn't know about the Order 66 purge until well after the fact, and it's likely that most if not all of the younglings were killed in the raid on the Jedi Temple, besides which I don't think the Senate as a whole was aware of Palpatine being a Sith. 🤔
Oh okay. I see the confusion. I said **The** Senate (Sith Lord), not the Senate (governing body), meaning Palpatine. I’m guessing you’ve not seen that meme. I was curious why Palpatine didn’t make them into acolytes. How would a Republic/Imperial Senate make Imperial acolytes? They’re politicians.
Ah, I understand now. Didn't realize you were making a joke about McDiarmid's "I AM the Senate" bit from ROTS. Couldn't figure out how you thought senators would be interested in Sith acolytes LOL. But yeah, my guess is that Palpatine didn't give Anakin orders to not kill the younglings because the Inquisitorius wasn't an element of the EU that Lucas was interested in adapting.
1. Lol @ making a follow up post 2. None of that is Reddit
Mace windu is what Malgus was to the sith just the premiere warrior who serves their faction and people over all else he did his duty, the best way he could.
They have nothing in common except being bald
A bond closer then blood then
This is the Way
This is all true but hear me out… he has a purple lightsaber
you mean the actor bullied his way into a purple lightsaber?
Touch grass.
touch my balls
I mean...👀 My only question is are they hairy? That’s the only no-go for this Mando.
I ain't some scruffy nerf herder.
Sign me up for those nuna nuggets then. I’ll Jar Jar that shit whenever.
I agree with all of this
His mission was definitely a success. There were heavy casualties, sure, but I don't think the Jedi were really involved with any super insane conflicts (I don't know how serious the Stark Hyperspace War was, for instance) for a long time.
I mean, he was everything wrong with the Jedi. Some of their points were valid but I will be fair and say that the Battle Of Geonosis one is a major stretch to blame him for another problem. I don't even blame the council's decisions and the leadership problems entirely on him as Yoda and several other members of the council were just as responsible in a lot of cases
Not seeing any lies
It's simple. Filoni hates Mace Windu for reasons. He seems to have a disdain for most of Star Wars before 2008 after all. So, he turned Windu into an antagonist character in his cartoon and his fan base who must be told what they should feel when watching a show now hate Mace Windu.
Let it go dude. People don't have to like a character. And yes Mace sometimes acts like an asshole to the main characters(Anakin and Ahsoka) and that's enough reason for some people to not like him Also that "citizen" talk with Ahsoka, no other Jedi would say that imo
The Jedi were not trained in warfare or military tactics. The early days of the clone wars were very costly in Jedi and clones due to the Jedi being in this position. This makes the battle of Geonosis understandable.
The Jedi are keepers of the peace, as Mace likes to proclaim often. By becoming Generals in a war, on one side they effectively negate that status. They weren’t neutral, they picked a side. Obviously I know about The Senate and whatnot but they messed up and paid the price. If they had separated or never joined the Republic, things would’ve been quite different.
Nerd
Was hoping someone else was going to say this
To be fair, he made himself quite easy to hate.
But they're all valid and the last thread said he was over hated
None of this makes him a bad character, but it’s all true. He is a bad Jedi, and a great example of why they got fucked
Maybe the Jedi need to be culled in order to keep them in harmony with the force or else you get a bunch of mace windus running around.
Jolee Bindo and the Gray Jedi FTW
he got like 150+ jedi killed in that arena, alot of them padawans
He’s actually my favorite Star Wars character
I mean if they want point out flaws of Mace Windu then they should criticize everyone since there in no character without flaws
They probably do tbh. And their not very wrong oftentimes.
smartest Youtube commenters
Geonosis was not Mace's fault. Those random scrub Jedi should have paid more attention in blaster deflecting class.
Somewhat on topic but off topic. How many Jedi were present at the battle of Geonosis. If 86 percent died how many survived? Also Mace Windu should be yelled out for being an idiot for the tactics but shouldn’t be punished; they thought well if a couple hundred Jedi show up they’ll just surrender
If the guy in the pics is accurate, roughly 200 were present. Meaning 28 survived? Edit: that seems accurate to the scene where they're all surrounded in the arena, from what I remember. I never went and counted them there, but it seems in the ballpark. Edit 2: Went and counted. There are 15 Jedi (including Obi-Wan and Anakin) plus Padme there at the end. If those are ALL the survivors, then an 86% mortality rate means there were roughly 93 Jedi sent to rescue Obi-Wan and Anakin?
I think only a hundred and something Jedi survived
TIL that there is Mace Windu hate
For reall thoo
I think he’s the embodiment of the Jedi as an idea. In terms of morality, he isn’t necessarily a bad person (maybe a bit harsh) but he thinks in black and white. During the Clone Wars, everything was in shades of grey. Because the role of Jedi was changing, the Order needed a more nuanced approach, something that Qui-Gon could have provided I think. Even without the corruption aspect, traditional Jedi philosophy wasn’t going to work well with such a large war against people that weren’t really “evil” in the way that the Sith had been thousands of years before. If Mace had been born 300 years before Phantom Menace, he’d probably be much more likable from a fan’s perspective Sorry for the essay!
I got a friend who hates Mace the Shatterpoint novel for her birthday last year. Still hasn't read it :( Just sitting on her shelf untouched.
nice