{"id":45307,"date":"2014-09-17T09:18:09","date_gmt":"2014-09-17T15:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/17\/darth-maul-we-hardly-knew-ye-but-should-have.html"},"modified":"2014-11-06T07:53:51","modified_gmt":"2014-11-06T14:53:51","slug":"darth-maul-we-hardly-knew-ye-but-should-have","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/17\/darth-maul-we-hardly-knew-ye-but-should-have.html","title":{"rendered":"Darth Maul, we hardly knew ye (but should have)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Was the death of Darth Maul in the first Star Wars<\/i> prequel the biggest mistake Lucas made in that trilogy?<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Now if only Lucas had spent so much effort on fixing that<\/i> retroactively …<\/p>\n

Originally shared by +Les Jenkins<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/a>
\nKilling Darth Maul: George Lucas’ Biggest Prequel Trilogy Mistake?<\/a><\/span>
\nDarth 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.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading “Darth Maul, we hardly knew ye (but should have)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,372],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-star-wars-media-movies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":129201,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/19\/some-zaniness-that-never-made-it-in-to-the-star-wars-prequels.html","url_meta":{"origin":45307,"position":0},"title":"Some zaniness that never made it in to the "Star Wars" prequels","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 19-Dec-15 11:45pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Including the secret answer to the Ep. 1 plot point that was never mentioned after that: what was behind Anakin Skywalker's virgin birth.Yeah, best just to back away from that one. 7 Insanely Bad Ideas Cut From 'Star Wars' At The Last Second | Cracked.com Darth Maul, the only cool\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":129286,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/26\/tolkien-star-wars-and-being-trapped-in-history.html","url_meta":{"origin":45307,"position":1},"title":"Tolkien, Star Wars, and being trapped in history","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 26-Dec-15 11:37am","format":false,"excerpt":"There are no happily-ever-afters with history. The world churns forward, and the evils defeated (one hopes) in one generation rise up in different ways in the next. We hope things get better, and try to make it that way, but, like the poor, war and conflict and disaster and greed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2611,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/05\/29\/so_whats_darth.html","url_meta":{"origin":45307,"position":2},"title":"So, what’s Darth Vader up to?","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 29-May-02 7:54am","format":false,"excerpt":"David Prowse, who played the guy inside the black armor in Star Wars Episodes IV-VI, weighs in on Episodes I-II. He has some good comments. \"Some of the acting was...","rel":"","context":"In "Media & Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Media & Culture","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":22956,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/03\/unblogged-bits-mon-3-oct-11-2330.html","url_meta":{"origin":45307,"position":3},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Mon. 3-Oct-11 2330)","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 3-Oct-11 11:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... sassythought:Justice League of Peanuts by ~corinoteclol,... - Poor Charlie Brown ... Dear Emma B - This is a fantastic \"letter to a kid\" on a scientific topic. 2012 Subaru Impreza: First Drive - Was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":129620,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/02\/01\/the-real-darth-vader-burned-helmet.html","url_meta":{"origin":45307,"position":4},"title":"The "real" Darth Vader burned helmet","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 1-Feb-16 9:50pm","format":false,"excerpt":"David Prowse has the Real Goods (fished from the Return of the Jedi pyre itself). Not sure what Kylo Ren is mooning over, but ...(Hadn't realized the helmet was fiberglass, vs. plastic. Interesting.)(h\/t +Les Jenkins) Image of the Day: The actual Darth Vader melted helmet from Return of the Jedi\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":129535,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/21\/wheres-rey-and-other-murky-merchandising-mysteries.html","url_meta":{"origin":45307,"position":5},"title":"Where's Rey? (and other Murky Merchandising Mysteries)","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 21-Jan-16 1:45pm","format":false,"excerpt":"If this \"anonymous source\" at Lucasfilm is correct, and the dearth of Rey-oriented toys, games, clothing, etc. was driven from Lucasfilm\/Disney itself, that would be deeply irritating. Of course, the Disney merchandising execs have a mindset of Boy Stuff (Pirates!) vs Girl Stuff (Princesses!), but it's still gobsmacking that a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45350,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45307\/revisions\/45350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}