What is the point of Mace Windu in the movies?

Like, what is his purpose in the narrative? I thought at first he was meant to embody the rigidity and dogma that contributed to the Jedi's complacency that allowed Palpatine to play them like a fiddle, but apparently that's wrong since I was downvoted a lot when I wrote that in a recent comment. I haven't found any commentary on him by Lucas, so I thought I'd ask this sub what it is that I'm missing.