Photo Credit: Lucasfilm
5. Darth Maul – Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
This is it, everyone; we are now into the top-5 character introductions and I am going to kick it off with a little bit of cheating with Darth Maul’s introduction in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.
Why? Because I want to talk about his epic appearance when facing off against both Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Why is this cheating? Because technically, before we got to that moment in the movie, we had already been introduced to Darth Maul several times. However, I would like to argue that those intros before were not his full intro. They were only a partial one. His proper appearance wasn’t until he produced his double-bladed lightsaber.
So actually, No. 5 is Darth Maul and his epic double-bladed lightsaber introduction.
Because that’s what it is. Epic. Up until then, lightsabers were just laser swords and were either green, blue or red. Darth Maul showing up with a double-bladed lightsaber pretty much changed how we viewed the weapons and opened up a whole new world into lightsaber design.
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Thanks to Maul, new shapes, designs and colors of lightsabers appeared in the Star Wars universe; not all of them good mind you, but it is great to have such a variety.
Putting the double-bladed lightsaber part aside, the battle that followed is one of the best moments within the franchise as well and is accompanied by probably the best musical score as well, I’ll let you debate that one out if it is or not.
Ultimately, Darth Maul’s introduction at that moment in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace was proceeded by a heck of a lot of good. Apart from Qui-Gon Jinn’s death, that was sad.