Was the death of Darth Maul in the first Star Wars prequel the biggest mistake Lucas made in that trilogy?
Probably not. Jar-Jar Binks was awful, insulting, distracting, and lowered the IQ of the story contagiously and precipitously every time he was virtually on screen. Both Anakins were intensely annoying. And the fundamental decision to have the villain be the protagonist (or the protagonist the villain) of a pulp adventure epic is to me an even more profound error in both genre and taste.
But the quick and early death of Darth Maul did remove an immediate, active, well-crafted foreground threat that could have tied the movie series together in a way that the background machinations of Palpatine and Grievous and foreground angsting of Young Skywalker simply could not do. The OP spins some fine ideas of how that could have worked — and the Prequel Trilogy would have been far better for it.
Now if only Lucas had spent so much effort on fixing that retroactively …
Originally shared by +Les Jenkins:
I have to agree. Keeping Darth Maul around for all three films probably would've made them much better in a number of ways. He was pretty badass and yet, much like Boba Fett in the original trilogy, he died kinda quickly. At least it wasn't quite as stupid as Fett's fate.
Killing Darth Maul: George Lucas’ Biggest Prequel Trilogy Mistake?
Darth Maul was one of most exciting new characters in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Ryan argues that George Lucas got rid of him too soon.
I can get behind that idea.
But he didn't die! He was brought back as a cyborg in the Clone Wars series, which also introduced his brother. And that series is canonical.
Not that that helped the movies any. Too little, too late? Or too much, too soon?
+Scott Randel Yeah, the article noted that he had been rescued (Savage Opress? Really?) But, yeah, too little, too late (for the movies).
It's pronounced "suh-VAZH." Why he would have a French name is beyond me.