The minute I got to this part of the OP, I started to hear it in Vizini’s voice.
Aristotle?
Plato?
Yoda?
Morons.
Is Windu necessarily dead? Sure, he was in tremendous agony and thrown far out of the umpty-umpth floor window, but could he have used the Force to stabilize his trajectory and land, if not safely, at least non-fatally? Or was he injured too badly by Palpatine’s lightning?
You know what would have really changed the balance of power in the Star Wars universe? Light sabers with wrist straps.
Sorry, wasn’t saying that Windu was a wuss because he had help, just pointing out that Palpy took out even more people than Chance’s message indicated.
-Joe
You notice how these otherwise bad-ass Jedi stood around like idiots while Uncle Palpy sliced/diced three or four of them, before Mace Windu (Bad Motherfucker!) finally woke up and started fighting?
Very badly done.
I think it was supposed to be surprise…
-Joe
Well it was said pretty obviously that the Jedi’s main strength was the ability to know the future, and react to events before the happen. Palpatine’s main power seemed to be to cloud the future, both immediate and long-term. Kinda like if your brakes have been replaced with brakes that react ten seconds after you hit them. They were dead before spidey-sence that there was danger kicked in.
Thats what i thought to but if you read the behind the scenes stuff those jedi with mace weren’t just redshirts. They were badasses and they still got mowed down
Like punk-ass bitches. Hell, there were “red shirts” in Saving Private Ryan that could not have done any worse than three Jedi Masters.
in regards to anakin, it was an arm and 2 legs. as for leaving him there… as anakin said earlier, jedi don’t kill the unarmed.
Yes, but Anakin was only partially unarmed.
He still had one left. 
True, but he didn’t have a leg to stand on.
Ha. This gave me the image of Obi Wan killing him and planting a blaster on his corpse corrupt cop-style.
But a Jedi is never unarmed, even if he cannot wield a lightsaber. Clearly, the Force is a weapon all on its own.
It’s just a flesh wound.
Have at you!
That’s why the “cut yer bleedin’ 'and orf” move was invented.
I think it was more trusting that the Force had a will to make it come out on the side of Good, not understanding that the Force is about storytelling, and the story was just starting. Palpatine understood that it was an authored story of which he was just a character, but a character with the power to change the story through duplicity and lies. That was why Yoda and Obi-Wan threw the dice and tried to win both combats with one on one, rather than a double team, which should have been Palpatine first. The Jedi didn’t understand that for the purposes of the conflict in the story that they had to first come within inches of becoming extinct and plunging the galaxy into potential perpetual darkness and that there must be an example of 20 or so years of darkness to make clear what was at stake.
Palpatine was playing possum with Mace Windu, who got lucky and knocked the lightsaber out of his hands. He could have done the lighting trick a lot longer, or just rolled out the window and floated down. He was playing the conflict with Anakin as the audience, holding Padme’s safety in the balance.
The only way out of Palpatine’s long and terrible trap was by way of the traditional story: a fallen hero who is not dead must be redeemed. Luke understood that his father must be redeemed and that there was good in everyone, but I doubt that he understood it as a part of a story. Only Palpatine seems to realize that this is all a story, and he knows that no one else realizes that, and cannot conceive of Luke figuring it out. That’s why he does not think that Luke will make the ultimate sacrifice when the time comes and he has never anticipated having to kill Luke in front of Vader after Luke sacrifices his life to try to redeem Vader. Palpatine did not adequate foresee that someone could resist turning to the dark side and what that example would do to a parent. Any human child or parent would have known better, but Palpatine is only a character in the story and not really human because he understands he is only a character, while the others really believe they are human. Palpatine is a sociopath manipulating the world around him to bring about the desired outcome of the story, not realizing that people who think of themselves as real and with relations to each other cannot so easily divorce themselves from their reality.
this is the a.1 to the unarmed rule.
Maybe, although Mace Windu was the #1 badass duelist among the Jedi ( probably surpassing Yoda in that one category ), so its entirely possible he won on his own merits. Afterall he disarmed Palpatine seconds before Anakin arrived on the scene and Palpatine presumably wasn’t burning away his good looks just so he could be a more frightening boogeyman in later movies ( well, okay, that WAS what he was doing, but still… ).
Kenobi was also one of the best duelists alive at that point. That he wasn’t as great a warrior as Anakin is reflected in his choice of combat styles, which was primarily defensive in nature and not as good at bringing the pain to multiple opponents. But one on one he probably was at least the equal of Anakin on a technical level, maybe a bit better.
They probably should have tried to take out Palpatine together, simply because he had the command of the clones and the was angling for the affirmation of the senate, at least second of which would have been much harder for Anakin to achieve. But as noted the Jedi didn’t seem to be great thinkers. You all remember what Kreia said about how helpless they’d be without the Force that they lean so strongly on ;).
That’s my semi-canon-based fanwankery, anyway :D.
What frustrates me is the way Yoda gives up so easily. By this point he knows everything he needs to know about Palpatine. There’s no reason to leave him alive. He takes a serious fall during their fight, but nothing indicates that he was particularly hurt. So why leave at that point instead of continuing to fight? If you know this guy is the Sith Lord, you know he’s responsible for the massacre of all the Jedi, know he’s setting himself up as emperor, isn’t it imperative to do your most to kill him?