3. Darth Maul: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
I dont think it would be going too far to say that Darth Maul was one of the only truly awesome things about The Phantom Menace. The rest of the film was middling to poor in terms of quality, but the invention of Maul must rank as a rare reason to give any sort of praise to George Lucas. Yeah, you heard, praise him. Maul is all sorts of awesome, and the moment when he breaks out the double-ended lightsaber ranks as a defining moment in many peoples childhoods and is still seen as wicked cool (I felt ill just typing that) by older folk. The guy is set up as some sort of Jedi-murdering machine and for the most part he doesnt disappoint, easily handling a bonafide and pretty senior Jedi Master and an exceptionally competent apprentice. His badass warpaint-face doesnt do him any harm either, and you feel that its a question of when rather than if hes going to kill one of the starring twosome when the lightsabers begin to fly. Once again, he doesnt disappoint when he shishkebabs Qui-Gon, before thoroughly overpowering Obi-Wan. Its just a pity that what happens next is so ridiculous that youre actually left befuddled by it. Lets set the scene Maul has Obi-Wan entirely at his mercy, with the young Jedi dangling over a conveniently-placed one-thousand-foot drop. He could reach down and knock him off with that long lightsaber, but he chooses not to, instead biding his time for Obi-Wan to make a move. And to Obi-Wans credit, he does, and succeeds in slicing our erstwhile and totally confused Sith badass in half. It just seems odd that Maul never realised that this was exactly what Obi-Wan was going to do hell, its the
only thing he could do. Yet he just pulls off his best shocked face, rather than raising his awesome lightsaber and continue fighting. This is a man who only moments ago was swatting away frenzied attacks from all angles while having to react within milliseconds, yet he appears shocked by a manoeuvre which took a ridiculous amount of time pull off? It just seems odd, really, and provides a shockingly anti-climactic death for such a cool character, something which I never thought Id say about someone who got dropped 1000 feet
and sliced in half.