This month marks the 20th anniversary of the release of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, the concluding chapter in the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy. The film was released on May 19, 2005, and it would end up being the final Star Wars film guided by George Lucas before he sold Lucasfilm to Disney seven years later.
Fans knew going into Revenge of the Sith that this was where we'd see Anakin Skywalker turn to the Dark Side of the Force and become Darth Vader, but a big question was what exactly happened to all the other Jedi. The film's answer was Order 66, a diabolical part of Palpatine's plan in which he would have all of the Clone Troopers who had fought with the Jedi throughout the Clone Wars suddenly turn on those Jedi and execute them. With several thousand Jedi in service at the time, it stood to reason that some would slip through Palpatine's fingers - and not just the couple we knew had to because they were still around in the Original Trilogy.
So amongst the few dozen Order 66 survivors who've been introduced in canon Star Wars stories by now, we've decided to rank the top 10 that have made an especially big impact. Some of them would only survive for a short time longer, while others managed to make it much further into the timeline - and in a few cases, their final fate remains unknown. Regardless, all of these Jedi at least lived on to fight one more day after Palpatine declared "Execute Order 66."
Some ground rules: The criteria for this list is that these characters had to have spent some time, prior to Order 66, under the jurisdiction of the Jedi Order, whether their final rank was Padawan, Jedi Knight, Jedi Master, or even simply those among the very young Jedi Initiate. So that means we're not counting Force-users like Maul (nor his former Master, Palpatine himself). Nor would it include then-young Force wielders like Jod Na Nawood who never were officially taken in by the Jedi Order and certainly never stepped foot in the Jedi Temple, even if they received a modicum of training from a Jedi.
That being said, we did have some inner angst about whether Asajj Ventress should make it on here. After all, she spent over 20 years alongside a Jedi, Ky Narec, who declared her to be his Padawan as he trained her in the ways of the Force while he was stranded with her on the planet Rattatak. Yet, during that time, Ventress never traveled to Coruscant or encountered any of the Jedi Council, nor any other Jedi, prior to Ky Narec's death. That, plus her turn to the Dark Side as Dooku's apprentice, makes her a bit of a murky element in regards to her official Jedi status. So consider her an honorable mention. Though speaking of that, let's also deal with…
Ranking the Jedi Who Survived Order 66
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