Darth Maul had an evil look to him and moved well. But as a villain, he’s hardly one of the greats.
Let’s not forget that Darth Vader in the first film, A New Hope, Episode 4, is one of the great film villains of all time. He looks evil, he is huge physically, has magical power and casually kills and tortures people and oversees the destruction of a whole planet.
Palpatine becomes a great villain in the prequels because he runs both sides of the war and profits with every win and every loss. It is probably the greatest anti-war statement ever made in films, surpassing All Quiet On the Western Front and others. It’s a kick in the balls.
Kate in East of Eden is a more subtle, lifelike and evil villain than usually found in film and is a great depiction of evil. Book or movie.
Perhaps you could further argue that the OT were in fact a series of rebel propaganda films, depicting the emperor as an evil Space Stalin and themselves as freedom fighters instead of terrorists.
Nope. George Lucas can have his point of view all he wants. What he said about war and the way he changed film is even more important that what Coppola did. Lucas’ Star Wars films have flaws, but they pale in comparison to the the way he changed storytelling on screen.
The Palpatine showdown at the end of RotJ was the best part of the movie hands down.
I was confused in the prequels when he used a light saber. In RotJ, he seemed to sneer when referencing the “Jedi weapon.” Like he was above such crude measures. Then again, these are the same movies that had Yoda spinning around like a top and doing wall jumps and shit, so whatever.
We still talk about George Méliès too. So what? Lucas didn’t do a damn thing that was original. The only way he “changed storytelling” was to give special effects weight instead of actual, you know, plot.
I suppose “destroying movie-making as a story-telling medium” does come under the heading of “change.”
You are certainly entitled to your opinion. Melies is remembered by the public, to the extent he is remembered by the public, for Scorsese’s film Hugo and Kingsley’s depiction of him in Hugo and for his “moon shot”. Melies is regarded as a foundational figure by film scholars. Lucas is remembered and discussed every day for his characters and plots and portrayals.
I never liked Palpatine. I don’t know if I’m biased because I knew he was a Sith from the beginning, but he seemed like a slimy politician. I didn’t like seeing him duel Mace. I’ll say this, in spite of Yoda looking silly doing his Sonic the Hedgehog impersonation, the last battle between them two in the Senate was kinda of cool.
I didn’t like Darth Maul at first because he had one of those designs that seemed like it was trying too hard to be “extreme!” Over time though he was one of the better designed villains in the PT and had so much more potential. He could have been the Darth Vader of the Prequels. Instead we got some old man “Count Dooku” and a cartoon robot who was hacking all the time.
@marshmallow
Yeah, I thought Yoda was so strong with the Force that he didn’t have to rely on a lightsaber. Same goes for Palpatine.
What I think they should have done with Yoda, instead of having him jumping around like a frog on meth, would have been to have him standing perfectly still for the whole fight, eyes half-closed in concentration, while just his lightsabre flies around like crazy.
When you think about it, none of that first Maul ambush scene makes any sense. What’s he trying to do? If he wants to stop Princess Armadillo making it to the Senate, all he needs to do is take out the crippled ship, not stop to mug pensioners one at a time. Just use a rocket-launcher on their stranded vessel - or better still, pay some local scumbag to do it - and it’s job done.
Plots - not a damn thing original, and what he did establish he couldn’t help fucking with to the point of destruction
Portrayals - can’t write dialogue to save his life, can’t direct worth shit, anything that was remotely worthwhile in the performances was strictly the actors, done in spite of Lucas, not because of him
There is a reason the best of the movies, bar none, was the one that he neither wrote nor directed.
Again, getting talked about in the negative is getting talked about, I’ll admit.
Palpatine needs the Jedi to commit to the war with the Separtists, and not sit it out as a neutral party. Maul’s attack isn’t meant to stop them, or even necessarily kill any of them (although if he can kill a Jedi, bonus!). The point is to make them run back to the Jedi Council and report that the Sith are helping the Separtists. Countering the Sith is very much Jedi business, so they’re more likely to help the Republic, making them vulnerable to Palpatine’s long-term plan.
General Grievous was an infinitely more impressive villain than Darth Maul, genuinely intimidating and a complete badass, his fight against five Jedi’s at the same time is one of the best scenes in any of the Star Wars canon.
I’m talking about the cartoon version of course, the movie version was a pathetic shadow in comparison, but I assume thats because George ‘I have no idea what I’m doing’ Lucas got his hands on him. I was really looking forward to seeing the movie version of him but as in most aspects of the sequels was more than a bit disappointed.
