Can someone explain why everyone thinks Mace is this badass lightsaber duelist. He went out in a very weak way. Blown out a window due to unlimited power. After Anakin chopped his hand off.
It’s just a classic case of “telling instead of showing”. We all have this idea in our heads that Mace Windu is supposed to be a “badass lightsaber duelist” because of meta-contextual info like Samuel Jackson’s prior career and his role in things like Pulp Fiction where he’s very intense and says awesome shit. The only actual “showing” of his skills in the Prequels is when he decapitates Jango Fett (which I admit is cool) and when he fights Palpatine and (presumably) wins. But even the Palpatine fight never registered to me as particularly compelling, because the fight choreography between an aging Ian McDiarmid and Samuel Jackson was sort of clunky and relied on strategic editing to make it appear less ridiculous.
All of this is reflective of George Lucas’ overall bad creative choices: a character like Palpatine, who represents a “wicked sorcerer” and “evil mastermind” archetype, should not be doing backflips in a nicely furnished office. He should be sitting behind his desk, adopting a Monty Burns pose, and saying delightfully evil things while dominating everyone with Force powers that don’t require him to get up.