Star Wars fans torn over how Mace Windu survived his ‘death’ in Episode 3

Samuel L. Jackson is of the opinion that Mace Windu survived the events of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith.

I’m very much not.

If you’ve watched Revenge of the Sith, you’ll know that Windu is sent flying out of a window, plummeting to his death by Emperor Palpatine after being subjected to force lightning.

Certainly, we didn’t see a body but I always felt we didn’t need to; it seemed pretty obvious what happened.

But as I said, Jackson is of the opinion that Windu survived.

An old interview clip has once again made the rounds on Reddit where the actor had the following to say: “Mace Windu is not dead, come on. There’s a long history of people in the Star Wars world with one hand, one arm, you know, and they’re still, you know, around here kicking ass. Jedis can fall from great heights without dying.”

If Windu did hypothetically survive, then I suppose the question becomes ‘How?’

Even if there was some kind of transport perfectly positioned outside, which feels unlikely, wouldn’t the force lightning have stopped Windu’s heart?

Fans have taken to Reddit to discuss their ideas.

“In a Star Wars sense, it's an easy survival situation. We've already seen that falling doesn't hurt a jedi, and losing a hand is pretty much a non issue,” wrote user slayermcb.

“Well, we've never seen a Jedi fall from that distance,” countered hyoumah83. “And Coruscant, like Nar Shadaa, seems to be built vertically. I heard Coruscant actually has a single giant city on that planet. On Nar Shadaa there is a rumour that someone falling could fall for hours. Pretty problematic even for a Jedi. But Coruscant also has lots of flying vehicles - sometimes caravans of vehicles - so there's some possibility here.”

As much as I adore Windu, I’d be pretty disappointed if he was confirmed as alive.

It would feel to me like a move made purely out of fan-service rather than what’s right for the character.

There’s plenty that you can expand within Windu’s story; his earlier years as a Jedi, for example.

But then again, Star Wars tends to fall into the ‘fan-service’ category more often than not these days so perhaps Windu’s retcon and return is only a matter of time.