The Force was strong at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on Friday.
Star Wars castmates Hayden Christensen and Samuel L. Jackson surprised fans when they showed up at a special 20th-anniversary screening of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.
Christensen first took the stage at the historic Hollywood cinema while wielding a red lightsaber, telling the crowd that he had “so many amazing memories of making” the final Star Wars prequel, in which Anakin Skywalker embraces the dark side as he becomes Darth Vader and aids Palpatine in his hostile takeover of the Galactic Republic.
“I see a lot of lightsabers out here,” Christensen said to the audience. “I see a lot of red lightsabers, which truth be told is my personal favorite lightsaber color.”
He was then interrupted by the voice of an unseen visitor. “Hold on, Skywalker,” Jackson said from off stage. “This party ain’t even over.”
Christensen then introduced his former costar. “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage Mace Windu himself, Samuel L. Jackson.”
Jackson seemed thrilled by the audience’s thunderous applause. “This is so, so, so awesome,” he said. “Twenty years later, I can hardly believe that we’re still as popular — as happenin’ — as we are. I haven’t seen Hayden in a while, but so, so, so happy to come back, see him, and see all of you at the same time. Thank you all so much. We had a great time making the film down in Australia. We were hangin’ out, doin’ stuff.”
The Pulp Fiction star then joked about the final scene for his Star Wars character, Jedi Master Mace Windu, who meets his untimely end after unsuccessfully trying to arrest Palpatine and getting hurled out a window in Coruscant.
“I hope you enjoy the effort that went into this and watching me do my ‘I move almost all backwards’ fight with Palpatine,” Jackson said. “Before my unexpected exit. And for the record — Mace lives!”
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That last quip harkens back to Jackson’s insistence that Windu could still return for a new Star Wars project, with him declaring “he’s not dead!!!” in an Empire story in 2024.
Jackson has expressed interest in reprising the role for a Disney+ series, and his voice can be heard in an audio cameo as Windu’s unseen ghost in 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker. But despite the frequency of resurrections within the Star Wars universe, Windu remains canonically dead — for now.
At the end of their appearance at the El Capitan, Jackson and Christensen told the fans in unison, “May the Force be with you.”
Christensen recently revealed that he will return to play Anakin once more in Ahsoka season 2. He previously reprised the role on the show’s first season, as well as on the 2022 series Obi-Wan Kenobi.
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