Phantom Menace and bad writing

[Havok]

I guess Shane had a shitty villain in Jack Wilson (played by Jack Palance). He only had a few lines, and all he did was shoot a hog farmer in the street.

And you know what, that's still more that what Darth Maul did. By killing the hog farmer half way through the movie (he kills him by baiting him into pulling his weapon first, so Wilson has an excuse to shoot him) Jack Wilson establishes himself as a bad guy not to be messed with. In comparison, Darth Maul stands around in the back ground has one line of dialogue (far less dialogue than Jack Wilson) and only does something significant (killing a main character) at the very end of the movie, just a few minutes before his own death.

Excuse me? Did Darth Maul not attack the Jedi in the middle of the movie? Fight the movie's hero to a stand still and was only thwarted by his friends coming to save him? Maul was prepared to keep fighting, while the hero was visibly spent, shaken and worried.

Perhaps you should go watch the movie again before spouting off about things you apparently don't know about.

[stormthebeaches]

Excuse me? Did Darth Maul not attack the Jedi in the middle of the movie? Fight the movie's hero to a stand still and was only thwarted by his friends coming to save him? Maul was prepared to keep fighting, while the hero was visibly spent, shaken and worried.

Perhaps you should go watch the movie again before spouting off about things you apparently don't know about.

Yeah, he fought Qui-Gon halfway through the movie. This scene still failed to make his character particularly menacing. If he had killed Qui-Gon during this scene then he would become a truly menacing figure.

Although it still doesn't make any sense why he attacked the Jedi.

[Havok]

Uh, because they had and were protecting the Queen.
And this whole argument is predicated on YOUR OPINION. I found Maul plenty menacing. Just not all the fleshed out as a character.

[Anguirus]

Yeah, this is more or less utter nonsense. When I first saw Episode I Darth Maul was certainly an imposing threat to the lead characters in my mind. I was surprised when Obi-Wan BEAT him. If you disagree, fine, but you clearly aren't going by anything other than gut feeling.

I wasn't scared of Darth Maul, but I have also never in my life been scared of Darth Vader.

[stormthebeaches]

Uh, because they had and were protecting the Queen.
And this whole argument is predicated on YOUR OPINION. I found Maul plenty menacing. Just not all the fleshed out as a character.

I was trying to point out how the comparison between Maul and Wilson was flawed. Wilson did something significant halfway through the film (kill a character). Maul doesn't really do anything significant until the end of the film when he kills Qui-Gon. Maul had the menacing look down perfectly, but he failed to back it up by doing anything significant until the end of the film (he attacks Qui-Gon but that is hardly significant since Qui-Gon escapes without a scratch on him).

Throughout the film Maul is basically the guy who stands around in the background, has one line of dialogue, and fights Qui-Gon until Qui-Gon escapes. This not enough to build him up as the badass mofo Lucus is trying to make him be. Maul needed more scens of him being villianous. Even a quick scene of him tearing through some redshirts would have greatly added to him.

[Jim Raynor]

The superhuman hero of the film, who had effortlessly cut his way through numerous Trade Federation droids, was unable to best him in single combat. Later, the Jedi are shocked by the attacker's powers, noting the survival of the Sith and how their enemies are operating around them in secrecy. It's clear that Qui-Gon is powerful and that Maul is at least his equal (and later proven to be even more powerful).

It's understandable to think that Maul should've had more lines, even though I don't agree that he needed them (I thought he was effective as Palpatine's living weapon). But I have never heard anyone say until now that he wasn't sufficiently badass.

[stormthebeaches]

It's understandable to think that Maul should've had more lines, even though I don't agree that he needed them (I thought he was effective as Palpatine's living weapon). But I have never heard anyone say until now that he wasn't sufficiently badass.

Maul didn't need more lines. He worked fine as the silent badass type. What he needed was a body count higher than 1 (and his only kill was at the very end of the film).

[Channel72]

In terms of the story, Darth Maul had the same role as Vader; that is, to act as the strong-arm Sith enforcer of Sidious's will. The difference, of course, was that whereas Vader had a backstory and character all of his own, Maul was nothing more than a weapon. And honestly, that's not necessarily a problem. I mean, Maul's role was essentially the same as Schwarzenegger in The Terminator, or the Alien in Alien; these sort of villains are more like mindless forces of nature than people with understandable motives and goals. These villains represent a different sort of threat than personality-driven villains like Vader or Palpatine, and under the right circumstances they work very well as antagonists.

But I also think stormthebeaches has a point, in that Maul was underutilized in the film. However, the way I see it, this isn't necessarily that big of a problem. (This could have been fixed easily with a single scene establishing Maul's badassery before he confronts Qui Gon on Tatooine.) But what I do think is a problem is that it's difficult to make sense of any of Maul's actions in terms of the wider plot. I've laid out the case for this countless times already in this thread, so I won't repeat myself. Suffice it to say, the plot barely provides any reason at all that Maul should even be on Naboo, let alone that the two Jedi and Maul should have an epic lightsabre fight at the end.

[Havok]

Uh, because they had and were protecting the Queen.
And this whole argument is predicated on YOUR OPINION. I found Maul plenty menacing. Just not all the fleshed out as a character.

I was trying to point out how the comparison between Maul and Wilson was flawed. Wilson did something significant halfway through the film (kill a character). Maul doesn't really do anything significant until the end of the film when he kills Qui-Gon. Maul had the menacing look down perfectly, but he failed to back it up by doing anything significant until the end of the film (he attacks Qui-Gon but that is hardly significant since Qui-Gon escapes without a scratch on him).

Throughout the film Maul is basically the guy who stands around in the background, has one line of dialogue, and fights Qui-Gon until Qui-Gon escapes. This not enough to build him up as the badass mofo Lucus is trying to make him be. Maul needed more scens of him being villianous. Even a quick scene of him tearing through some redshirts would have greatly added to him.

Says fucking you. As I already pointed out, Maul almost defeated the hero of the movie in one on one combat and he was only saved by his friends. And in doing so reveals an enemy so scary to the Jedi, that they don't even want to believe it. Hardy an insignificant encounter.
He also does far more than Boba Fett does in TESB, who in fact literally just stands around looking menacing.
Maul also actually kills one of the heroes. A feat that ONLY Darth Vader accomplished in any of the other movies and that was because the hero LET HIM.

If you want to make the argument that Maul was weak character wise, then fine, I agree, but to say that he was not a menacing presence is just asinine.

[Darth Wong]

But I also think stormthebeaches has a point, in that Maul was underutilized in the film. However, the way I see it, this isn't necessarily that big of a problem. (This could have been fixed easily with a single scene establishing Maul's badassery before he confronts Qui Gon on Tatooine.)

How is it that millions of people had no trouble seeing Maul as a menacing character without being beaten over the head with it, as you seem to think is necessary? It seems like you want Lucas to carefully spell everything out for the audience, as if they're all retards.

But what I do think is a problem is that it's difficult to make sense of any of Maul's actions in terms of the wider plot. I've laid out the case for this countless times already in this thread, so I won't repeat myself. Suffice it to say, the plot barely provides any reason at all that Maul should even be on Naboo, let alone that the two Jedi and Maul should have an epic lightsabre fight at the end.

Yes, but you've also established that you think any reason must be spelled out in exhaustive detail, as if Palpatine's plan is a perfect crystal 3D puzzle into which every piece must fit perfectly. That's how stupid villain plots are written, like the one in "Dark Knight" (let's face it, critics only masturbated furiously over The Joker because Heath Ledger came up with the brilliant sympathetic marketing ploy of dying before the film came out).

In reality, good plans are robust and can adapt to a number of things going wrong. They will have set priorities and assets in place to achieve goals, but it's impossible to predict everything in advance. Palpatine just wants to make Valorum look useless and impotent, by creating problems that he knows Valorum can't solve. He tells the Trade Federation whatever they need to hear, in order to embolden them so that they will create these problems. Every one of the actions you claim has no explanation can fit into this overall framework. Including Maul being on Coruscant: he's obviously there to keep the Jedi from assassinating the leaders of the Trade Federation or otherwise finding a way to resolve the situation before Palpatine could ride to the rescue. He failed, but Palpatine managed to adapt to that too. Where's the mystery?

Why do you keep acting as if various plot developments are a mystery, when they're in fact very easy to explain?

[Darth Yan]

I believe that's what TvTropes calls a Xanatos Gambit. You create two plans; one that is obvious and doesn't need to succeed, and one that is subtle, and which you need to succeed. Plan a masks plan b (when the heros rush to thwart plan a, you initiate plan b and quietly achieve your real goal). The trade federation invasion would have been plan a, and palpatine discrediting Valorum and becoming chancellor was plan b. the jedi thwarted plan a, which distracted them enough for palpatine's real plan (plan b) to take effect. Very effective ploy.

[adam_grif]

The Xanatos Gambit is where the heroes thwart the villain's plan, but it turns out that them thwarting the plan was the actual plan, and that their thwarting somehow achieved their actual goals. Additionally, it's set up in such a way that either their original plan will succeed and they will win in some respect, or their plan will be "foiled" and their greater objective will be achieved.

The way you've described it is that it's just some kind of distraction to mask your real plans, when the key element is actually that the protagonists are doing your work for you.

[Channel72]

How is it that millions of people had no trouble seeing Maul as a menacing character without being beaten over the head with it, as you seem to think is necessary? It seems like you want Lucas to carefully spell everything out for the audience, as if they're all retards.

I'll agree that Maul has a very menacing on-screen presence. But the problem is that the movie invests a lot of tension and drama in his character, more than the character is really setup to carry. I mean, for God's sake, Maul is the centerpeice in an epic lightsabre fight, complete with a grandiose, operatic sound-track, resulting in the death of a hero; and yet throughout most of the fight, there's really nothing happening on an emotional level at all. Compare this to Luke's initial duel with Vader in Empire Strikes Back; Luke literally thinks he's confronting the man who murdered his father, while Vader is trying to disable Luke so he can bring him to the Emperor. In Phantom Menace they're just fighting ... for barely any interesting reason. The ESB duel is a lot more gripping, even without the opera soundtrack and superior choreography.

Again, some people in this thread have tried to pass off Maul as a Boba Fett-like character; a silent, menacing bad-ass type who mostly stands around in the background. But of course, Boba Fett was never designed to carry a lot of emotional weight in any film, whereas Maul evidently was. That's why I believe Maul's character needed a better setup in the film.

In reality, good plans are robust and can adapt to a number of things going wrong. They will have set priorities and assets in place to achieve goals, but it's impossible to predict everything in advance. Palpatine just wants to make Valorum look useless and impotent, by creating problems that he knows Valorum can't solve. He tells the Trade Federation whatever they need to hear, in order to embolden them so that they will create these problems. Every one of the actions you claim has no explanation can fit into this overall framework. Including Maul being on Coruscant: he's obviously there to keep the Jedi from assassinating the leaders of the Trade Federation or otherwise finding a way to resolve the situation before Palpatine could ride to the rescue. He failed, but Palpatine managed to adapt to that too. Where's the mystery?

As I've said countless times before, it's not about whether Palpatine's plan actually makes sense, or whether it's more realistic than some Rube Goldbergian scheme dependent on many small details. The point is that Palpatine's plan is so amorphous that the audience has to fill in most of the blanks. This obviously doesn't bother you, but without a clear understanding of what's motivating the plot mechanics, it's difficult to feel any interest as the actual plot unfolds before our eyes.

The example I like to give to demonstrate this is the scene where Maul lands on Tatooine. Visually speaking, it's a great scene. Maul looks very menacing as he stares off into the distance at dusk, and then sends probe droids out to identify his target. But there is very little actual tension generated because it's not very clear what's at stake, or what the consequences would be if Maul succeeds. Presumably, he'll just drag the Queen back to Naboo to sign the treaty, which legalizes the invasion... which... in some way or another benefits Palpatine and/or the Trade Feds? Really, is that seriously supposed to be compelling? Compare this to A New Hope, where the Storm Troopers are after the droids on Tatooine. Here the stakes are both clear and compelling. If they find the droid, they'll get the Death Star schematics, which will foil the Rebel plan to counteract the Death Star. And we know what the Death Star is capable of doing. Thus, drama.

[Channel72]

I'd also like to add the following addendum to the previous post: just to be clear, I'm not saying that you literally need a planet-destroying battle station in order to generate any suspense or drama in a film. Drama is obviously a relative quality. In many cases, drama can be generated merely by placing a character's life, well-being, or future in jeapordy. But this just highlights the compound nature of the problems in Phantom Menace. The characters themselves are generally so lifeless and uninteresting that it's not enough to simply place them in danger. That's why the audience has to turn to the overall plot to extract any drama from the film. Unfortunately, that too is mostly too amorphous to really amount to anything.

[Knife]

The Xanatos Gambit is where the heroes thwart the villain's plan, but it turns out that them thwarting the plan was the actual plan, and that their thwarting somehow achieved their actual goals. Additionally, it's set up in such a way that either their original plan will succeed and they will win in some respect, or their plan will be "foiled" and their greater objective will be achieved.

The way you've described it is that it's just some kind of distraction to mask your real plans, when the key element is actually that the protagonists are doing your work for you.

A Xantos Gambit, or Palpatine's plan is described in Revenge of the Sith novel. Not details, but in philosophy.

As has been said, the textbook example of a Jedi trap is the one that was set on Utapau, for Obi-Wan Kenobi.

It worked perfectly.

The final element essential to the creation of a truly effective jedi trap is a certain coldness of mind-a detachment, if you will, from any desire for a particular outcome.

The best way to arrange matters is to create a win-win situation.

For example, one might use as one's proxy a creature that not only is expendable, but would eventually have to be killed anyway. Thus, if one's proxy fails and is destroyed, it's no loss- in fact, the targeted jedi has actually done one a favor, by taking care of a bit of dirty work one would otherwise have to do oneself.

And the final stroke of perfection is to roganize the jedi trap so that by walking into it at all, the jedi has already lost.

That is to say, a jedi trap works best when one's true goal is merely to make sure that the jedi in question spends some hours or days off somewhere on the far side of the galaxy. So that he won't be around to interfere with one's realplans.

So that by the time he can return, it will be already too late.

[Darth Yan]

Palpy is also a magnificent bastard, as tvtropes would call it.

[Anguirus]

^ And a Complete Monster.

I mean, for God's sake, Maul is the centerpeice in an epic lightsabre fight, complete with a grandiose, operatic sound-track, resulting in the death of a hero; and yet throughout most of the fight, there's really nothing happening on an emotional level at all.

Except for the part where the hero died. What, should Maul have insulted Obi-Wan's mother, or killed off Qui-Gon's long lost brother on Tatooine?

The emotion is that this is clearly a new Sith and he's trying to kill them. That's galactic-level bad.

The tagline of Episode "1" can't be "This time it's personal," silly. You build up to that. Episode I was such a generally light movie that having Maul sodomize a planet on the way to the bathroom or something would have been out of place. And fine, complain about THAT, all you want, it's legit, but it was also extremely deliberate.

[Galvatron]

The emotion is that this is clearly a new Sith and he's trying to kill them. That's galactic-level bad.

It is? Prior to TPM, the Sith were confined to the comics and novels. Even Vader was never called Dark Lord of the Sith in the OT. So why is it bad that the Sith are back? Who are they?

It might have been nice if the movie had somehow elaborated on Maul's "at last we will have revenge" line if only to clue us into the backstory of the Sith in the same way Obi-Wan brought us up to speed in ANH.

[Darth Wong]

The emotion is that this is clearly a new Sith and he's trying to kill them. That's galactic-level bad.

It is? Prior to TPM, the Sith were confined to the comics and novels. Even Vader was never called Dark Lord of the Sith in the OT. So why is it bad that the Sith are back? Who are they?

It might have been nice if the movie had somehow elaborated on Maul's "at last we will have revenge" line if only to clue us into the backstory of the Sith in the same way Obi-Wan brought us up to speed in ANH.

Yeah, as if it really needed to be longer

[Darth Wong]

I'll agree that Maul has a very menacing on-screen presence. But the problem is that the movie invests a lot of tension and drama in his character, more than the character is really setup to carry. I mean, for God's sake, Maul is the centerpeice in an epic lightsabre fight, complete with a grandiose, operatic sound-track, resulting in the death of a hero; and yet throughout most of the fight, there's really nothing happening on an emotional level at all. Compare this to Luke's initial duel with Vader in Empire Strikes Back; Luke literally thinks he's confronting the man who murdered his father, while Vader is trying to disable Luke so he can bring him to the Emperor. In Phantom Menace they're just fighting ... for barely any interesting reason. The ESB duel is a lot more gripping, even without the opera soundtrack and superior choreography.

How much of this hand-holding does the audience get before Vader faces Obi-Wan in ANH? He has a few lines of dialogue and chokes a couple of people. For that matter, Maul gets at least as much buildup as a typical James Bond movie arch-villain sidekick does before the sterotypical final confrontation.

Again, some people in this thread have tried to pass off Maul as a Boba Fett-like character; a silent, menacing bad-ass type who mostly stands around in the background. But of course, Boba Fett was never designed to carry a lot of emotional weight in any film, whereas Maul evidently was. That's why I believe Maul's character needed a better setup in the film.

You can subjectively say whatever you want, as far as what he needed. Opinions like this are not objectively debatable, and ultimately boil down to little more than "I just didn't like it". I'll just point out that most people seem to disagree, since they like Darth Maul more than most other aspects of the film.

As I've said countless times before, it's not about whether Palpatine's plan actually makes sense, or whether it's more realistic than some Rube Goldbergian scheme dependent on many small details. The point is that Palpatine's plan is so amorphous that the audience has to fill in most of the blanks.

Yes yes, you've made it abundantly clear that you think the audience needs everything spelled out for it.

This obviously doesn't bother you, but without a clear understanding of what's motivating the plot mechanics, it's difficult to feel any interest as the actual plot unfolds before our eyes.

Perhaps you're just slow on the uptake. There were things I found unsatisfying about TPM (particularly the pacing on Tatooine and the emotionally weak starfighter battle at the end), but I certainly didn't walk out of the theatre thinking "man, that was so confusing, I don't see how anyone could follow that plot".

The example I like to give to demonstrate this is the scene where Maul lands on Tatooine. Visually speaking, it's a great scene. Maul looks very menacing as he stares off into the distance at dusk, and then sends probe droids out to identify his target. But there is very little actual tension generated because it's not very clear what's at stake, or what the consequences would be if Maul succeeds.

He'll kill a couple of Jedi at the very least, and take the Queen back to Naboo.

Presumably, he'll just drag the Queen back to Naboo to sign the treaty, which legalizes the invasion... which... in some way or another benefits Palpatine and/or the Trade Feds? Really, is that seriously supposed to be compelling?

The TradeFed is the bad guys, they want her as their prisoner, she escaped, they want her back so they can lock her up and make her do whatever they want again. Duh. It's not hard to understand that "being captured and taken prisoner by bad guys" is a bad thing, for fuck's sake. Seriously, are you really this dense?

Compare this to A New Hope, where the Storm Troopers are after the droids on Tatooine. Here the stakes are both clear and compelling. If they find the droid, they'll get the Death Star schematics, which will foil the Rebel plan to counteract the Death Star. And we know what the Death Star is capable of doing. Thus, drama.

Oh I see, so unless the destruction of an entire planet is at stake, there's no drama according to you. The idea of being captured and taken prisoner by a bunch of murderous heavily armed bad guys is not obviously scary to you, so you need more audience hand-holding in order to understand the tension, right?

[Galvatron]

Yeah, as if it really needed to be longer

Just to keep the runtime down, I'd willingly sacrifice all the exposition about midichlorians for some decent backstory exposition about the Sith.

[Channel72]

How much of this hand-holding does the audience get before Vader faces Obi-Wan in ANH? He has a few lines of dialogue and chokes a couple of people. For that matter, Maul gets at least as much buildup as a typical James Bond movie arch-villain sidekick does before the sterotypical final confrontation.

I don't think we're going to get much further. As you said, this is ultimately subjective, and you already know my opinion regarding Darth Maul.

Yes yes, you've made it abundantly clear that you think the audience needs everything spelled out for it.

Most debates regarding subjective qualities ultimately involve the opponents whittling down each other's exaggerations, until each viewpoint is distilled to its essence. Obviously, you're still exaggerating what I'm saying; I don't need everything spelled out. I just prefer a clear explanation of what's at stake, and why everyone is doing what they're doing. I don't complain that Return of the Jedi never explains how the rebels ended up with an Imperial shuttle. It's not important; the important thing is the stakes are clear and the Rebel plan to attack the Death Star is clearly laid out. For me, this is a key ingredient in holding audience interest.

Oh I see, so unless the destruction of an entire planet is at stake, there's no drama according to you. The idea of being captured and taken prisoner by a bunch of murderous heavily armed bad guys is not obviously scary to you, so you need more audience hand-holding in order to understand the tension, right?

I explicitly said in my follow-up post that I am not claiming you need a planet-destroying battle-station to generate drama. And countless crappy movies involve heavily armed bad guys doing bad things; you need a lot more than that to make a movie interesting.

[Galvatron]

He'll kill a couple of Jedi at the very least, and take the Queen back to Naboo.

RedLetterMedia's primary criticism of TPM is that the characters were difficult to relate to and thus sympathize with. In ANH, George Lucas was very successful at making us care about Luke and the other characters so we would actually root for them to win. In TPM, he not only made the characters difficult to like, he made the potential consequences of their failure difficult to comprehend.

Oh I see, so unless the destruction of an entire planet is at stake, there's no drama according to you. The idea of being captured and taken prisoner by a bunch of murderous heavily armed bad guys is not obviously scary to you, so you need more audience hand-holding in order to understand the tension, right?

I don't know about anyone else, but the cowardly neimoidians and their silly battledroids hardly struck me as "murderous heavily armed bad guys" to be feared. Maybe they would have if we'd seen any evidence of the catastrophic death toll referred to by Governor Sio Bibble, but we didn't.

By contrast, the Empire had annihilated the rebel troops on Tantive IV, slaughtered jawas, incinerated Luke's foster parents, destroyed Alderaan and ordered Leia's execution before the Millennium Falcon even arrived at the Death Star. By the time our heroes were all in the belly of the beast, the villains had sufficiently demonstrated that they were to be feared.

[Anguirus]

It is? Prior to TPM, the Sith were confined to the comics and novels. Even Vader was never called Dark Lord of the Sith in the OT. So why is it bad that the Sith are back? Who are they?

Yes it is, because they explain it in the Jedi Council scene.

The only thing I knew about the Sith before I saw Episode I is that Vader was supposedly a Dark Lord of them. Oh, and some crazy ghost called Exar Kun was one of them. I didn't read the Tales of the Jedi stuff and they just aren't in very much of the pre-prequel EU.

Most of the lore that actually matters about the Sith (i.e. not the pre 4000 year stuff that Lucas doesn't even give half a rip about) was invented and presented to the audience in Episode I. The rest of it was presented in Episode III.

Anyway, if Samuel L. Jackson is wary of a bunch of guys, you KNOW they are hardcore.

[Galvatron]

Most of the lore that actually matters about the Sith (i.e. not the pre 4000 year stuff that Lucas doesn't even give half a rip about) was invented and presented to the audience in Episode I.

I'm not talking about the EU stuff. I figured that was all going to be ignored anyway.

And the Jedi Council told us virtually nothing about the Sith beyond the fact that they'd been extinct for a millennium.

A scene with Padme asking Qui-Gon about their cloaked attacker on Tatooine would have been a perfect opportunity for him to tell her (and us) about his suspicions that he was a Sith Lord and, better yet, who the Sith are. TPM makes the mistake of assuming that we already know these things.