Star Wars: Ewan McGregor Reacts to Mace Windu Theories

One Star Wars fan theory has gone out the window for Ewan McGregor. In Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) christened Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) the Sith Lord Darth Vader after turning him against the Jedi. Promised the power to cheat death, Anakin severed the lightsaber-wielding hand of Jedi Master Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson) — and watched the cackling Emperor unleash the full force of his Sith lightning to throw Mace out the window to his death. Or did he? 

Jackson believes Windu is still alive, surviving the 20-story drop to the apparent death that birthed Darth Vader, but McGregor cut down the theory in an interview with ScreenRant. 

“No. No. I don’t think so,” the Obi-Wan Kenobi actor answered when asked about fan theories that Windu is alive and in hiding after Order 66 sparked the Great Jedi Purge, the Empire and its Inquisitors hunting down the surviving Jedi to near-extinction. “Is he? No, no, no.”

Once believed dead in Return of the Jedi, bounty hunter Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) clawed himself free from the Sarlacc pit to return in The Mandalorian and spinoff The Book of Boba Fett. Acknowledging “anything is possible,” McGregor said, “It’s not for me to say, really. I can be cheating someone out of a sequel. No, I don’t think so. I think he went out that window, and it was a long way up.” 

George Lucas’ script for Episode III describes Windu’s death scene: “As blue rays engulf his body, he is flung out the window and falls twenty stories to his death. No more screams. No more moans.”

Still, the seemingly fatal fall is challenged by Jackson. “Of course he is [alive]! Jedi can fall from amazing distances,” Jackson told EW in 2016. “And there’s a long history of one-handed Jedi. So why not?” 

Though Jackson said at the time he hadn’t had talks with the creative forces at Disney-Lucasfilm about Windu’s return, the actor revealed Lucas’ reaction to the theory: “George doesn’t have anything to do with [Star Wars] anymore. George is like, ‘I’m okay with that. You can be alive.’”

Decades after a young Boba Fett (Daniel Logan) watched Windu decapitate his father in Attack of the Clones, Morrison recently told IMDb he wants the Jedi to have survived Sith — only so he can kill Windu, finally avenging Jango Fett (also played by Morrison).

“I owe him big time for my dad. He’s done. He’s done,” the Book of Boba Fett star said. “I’ve got my eye on him. He’s top of the list, in fact.” 

Starring Ewan McGregor, Moses Ingram, Rupert Friend, Joel Edgerton, Bonnie Piesse, Indira Varma, Sung Kang, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Benny Safdie, Kumail Nanjiani, and Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader, Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi is streaming May 27 on Disney+.