Here's our first Darth Maul scene, plus a view of Ani's home life. We're actually getting close to halfway through this movie.
See comment section for our criticism!
Script copyright George Lucas
Script excerpted from this site:
http://www.supershadow.com/star_wars/episode_1/the_phantom_menace/script.html
EXT. CORUSCANT - BALCONY OVERLOOKING CITY - NIGHT
DARTH SIDIOUS and DARTH MAUL look out over the vast city.
DARTH MAUL
Tatooine is sparsely populated. If
the trace was correct, I will find
them quickly, Master.
DARTH SIDIOUS
Move against the Jedi first... you
will then have no difficulty taking
the Queen back to Naboo, where she
will sign the treaty.
DARTH MAUL
At last we will reveal ourselves to
the Jedi. At last we will have
revenge.
DARTH SIDIOUS
You have been well trained, my young
apprentice, they will be no match
for you. It is too late for them to
stop us now. Everything is going as
planned. The Republic will soon be
in my command.
The hologram of DARTH MAUL fades off as DARTH SIDIOUS looks
out over the city.
EXT. MOS ESPA - SANDSTORM - DAY
The giant sandstorm engulfs the town, including the Naboo
spaceship on the outskirts of the city center, where Watto's
ship is; and the slave quarters, where drifts of sand begin
building up against Anakin's house.
INT. ANAKIN'S HOVEL - MAIN ROOM - DAY
QUI-GON, ANAKIN, SHMI, JAR JAR, and PADME are seated around
a makeshift table, having dinner as the wind howls outside.
JAR JAR slurps his soup rather loudly. Everyone looks at
him. He turns a little brighter red.
SHMI
All slaves have transmitters placed
inside their bodies somewhere.
ANAKIN
I've been working on a scanner to
try and locate them, but no luck.
SHMI
Any attempt to escape...
ANAKIN
...and they blow you up...poof!
PADME and JAR JAR are horrified.
JAR JAR
How wude.
PADME
I can't believe there is still slavery
in the galaxy. The Republic's anti-
slavery laws...
SHMI
The Republic doesn't exist out here...
we must survive on our own.
An awkward silence. ANAKIN attempts to end the embarrassment.
ANAKIN
Have you ever seen a Podrace?
PADME shakes her head no. She notices the concern of SHMI.
JAR JAR snatches some food from a bowl at the other end of
the table with his tongue.
QUI-GON gives him a dirty look.
QUI-GON
They have Podracing on Malastare.
Very fast, very dangerous.
ANAKIN
I'm the only human who can do it.
SHMI looks at her son.
ANAKIN
Mom, what? I'm not bragging. It's
true. Watto says he's never heard of
a human doing it.
QUI-GON
You must have Jedi reflexes if you
race Pods.
ANAKIN smiles. JAR JAR attempts to snare another bit of food
from the bowl with his tongue, but QUI-GON, in a flash, grabs
it between his thumb and forefinger. JAR JAR is startled.
QUI-GON
Don't do that again.
JAR JAR tries to acknowledge with some silly mumbling. QUI-
GON lets go of the tongue, and it snaps back into JAR JAR's
mouth.
ANAKIN
I... I was wondering... something...
QUI-GON
What?
ANAKIN
Well, ahhh... you're a Jedi Knight,
aren't you?
QUI-GON
What makes you think that?
ANAKIN
I saw your laser sword. Only Jedi
carry that kind of weapon.
QUI-GON leans back and slowly smiles.
QUI-GON
Perhaps I killed a Jedi and stole it
from him.
ANAKIN
I don't think so... No one can kill
a Jedi Knight.
QUI-GON
I wish that were so...
ANAKIN
I had a dream I was a Jedi. I came
back here and freed all the slaves...
have you come to free us?
QUI-GON
No, I'm afraid not...
ANAKIN
I think you have... why else would
you be here?
QUI-GON thinks for a moment.
QUI-GON
I can see there's no fooling you...
(leans forward)
You mustn't let anyone know about
us... we're on our way to Coruscant,
the central system in the Republic,
on a very important mission, and it
must be kept secret.
ANAKIN
Coruscant... wow... how did you end
up here in the outer rim?
PADME
Our ship was damaged, and we're
stranded here until we can repair
it.
ANAKIN
I can help! I can fix anything!
QUI-GON
I believe you can, but our first job
is to aquire the parts we need...
JAR JAR
Wit no-nutten mula to trade.
PADME
These junk dealers must have a
weakness of some kind.
SHMI
Gambling. Everything here revolves
around betting on those awful races.
QUI-GON
Podracing... Greed can be a powerful
ally.. if it's used properly.
ANAKIN
I've built a racer! It's the fastest
ever... There's a big race tomorrow,
on Boonta Eve. You could enter my
pod. It's all but finished...
SHMI
Anakin, settle down. Watto won't let
you...
ANAKIN
Watto doesn't know I've built it.
(to Qui-Gon))
You could make him think it's your's,
and you could get him to let me pilot
it for you.
QUI-GON looks to SHMI. She is upset.
SHMI
I don't want you to race, Annie...
It's awful. I die every time Watto
makes you do it.
ANAKIN
But Mom, I love it... and they need
help... they're in trouble. The prize
money would more than pay for the
parts they need.
JAR JAR
Wesa ina pitty bad goo.
GUI-GON
Your mother's right. Is there anyone
friendly to the Republic who might
be able to help us?
SHMI shakes her head no.
ANAKIN
We have to help them, Mom...you said
that the biggest problem in the
universe is no one helps each other...
SHMI
Anakin, don't...
JAR JAR belches. There is silence for a moment as they eat.
PADME
I'm sure Qui-Gon doesn't want to put
your son in danger. We will find
another way...
SHMI
No, Annie's right, there is no other
way... I may not like it, but he can
help you... he was meant to help
you.
ANAKIN
Is that a yes? That is a yes!
The storm continues to rage outside the slave hovel.
This will be SO much better with adolescent Anakin, who has grown up enough that nobody would ever call him Annie.
ReplyDeleteAlso, without JJ and his tongue and his belching.
I still think this is preposterously contrived, but it does make a tiny bit more sense than I thought it did in the theatre.
Now... surely the Emperor doesn't ACTUALLY believe that Maul can beat them both. So what's going on here? He seems awfully confident, no?
Palpatine seems damned sure that Darth Maul can take out the Jedi. He certainly did prove to be a match for Qui-Gon.
ReplyDeleteA couple of thoughts on that:
1) Palpatine, to be so skilled in the use of the Force, seems to continually underestimate the Jedi, both in the prequels and in Return. A weakness in whatever teaching he had when he became a Sith?
2) After six movies worth of data, I'm convinced the dark side is stronger than the light side. The stuff they do is just way more impressive. Darth Maul was better than Qui-Gon, and Maul was just an apprentice. Obi-Wan bested Anakin, but once Vader's Sith training was complete, he beat Obi-Wan. Darth Vader destroyed Luke in Empire. Only when Luke gave into his anger did he best Vader in Return, and even then Palpatine WAXED Luke. When Vader tossed Palpatine into the abyss, he did it with physical strength and surprise, not with the force.
1) Yeah, Maul is clearly enough to beat one Jedi. But why would P ASSUME he could beat two? Seems silly.
ReplyDelete2) I've always assumed that the dark side was better at actual combat than the light side. In Knights of the Old Republic, the light side gets healing, which is neato. But I'm not sure using Luke's repeated ass-kickings as evidence tells us much... he's a novice compared to Vader and P. Yoda was fairly bad-ass, but not as much as I expected him to be. He didn't actually win that fight.
Plus he was a freaking cartoon at the time, which calls all of his skills into question.
ReplyDeleteAt some point I'll get back to the Anakin and Shmi part of this scene, but Darth Maul is just so much more darned interesting.
I like this quote:
ReplyDelete"DARTH MAUL
Tatooine is sparsely populated. If
the trace was correct, I will find
them quickly, Master. "
What I like about is that a few years later Obi Wan decides Tatooine is a perfect place to hide Luke. Where by "hide" I mean "place him in the care of Darth Vader's stepbrother under his own name."
Revisionist history is a bitch sometimes, George.
Jar Jar is awful. I hate how he calls things "wude" and then does rude things. That's probably supposed to be ironically funny, but it makes me want to ironically erase his little cartoon character self from the celluloid.
ReplyDeleteIt's very stupid of Qui-Gon to tell Anakin the secret of the mission. Especially what with Anakin now being a pawn of Godfather Watto in my fantasy world. But even so, it's odd and stupid and it's one of the many Anakin moments that stick out of this movie like Calista Flockhart's elbows.
No reason for Anakin to have built his own freaking pod. It could easily be Watto's pod, especially if he's that into podracing. He could have won it on a gamble, like Han Solo won the Falcon. This "Anakin can build anything" crap is just stupid. When, in the next FIVE movies, does he EVER build ANYTHING again that's bigger than a lightsaber. STUPID.
The gambling/podracer storyline is okay--at this point--but it would have been more interesting to have somehow been the Jedi working a deal with Godfather Watto. Collusion to win the race somehow, or the Jedi doing some morally ambiguous favor in return for getting race Anakin. Something morally ambiguous here would have been good.
I guess when Qui-Gon uses the force to win the dice roll later on that's kinda ambiguous, but that's not enough for me. I want this to be a "Han Solo kills Greedo before Greedo even shoots" moment, or a scary one like when Strider yanks Frodo over to the side at the Sign of the Prancing Pony and you're like "oh crap, who's got Frodo now?"
Gah! So much to respond to!
ReplyDeleteI hadn't even thought about the pros/cons of Tatooine being empty in the 2 movies. Oops.
I don't know who this awful Jar Jar is that you speak of. The charming Gungan rogue back on the starship is making himself indispensable to Amidala. Surely we can use his brash diplomacy in the Senate?
I don't think we CAN have moral ambiguity with QG and OBW... I think we're trying to set the Jedi up as never compromising, so that when Anakin does, it still has power. I think we need him to bristle against the rigid code, and to sympathize with him in that. Of course, for that to work, we need someone who can ACT.
And seriously... why does he need to be a prodigy when he's going to be useless for the next movie and a half? Unless he builds his own armor at the end of 3 (does he?!?), there's no reason for this. Darth Vader isn't a tech genius, so why does Anakin need to be?
So many hopelessly contrived layers on top of each other, and NOT ONE of them serving a purpose. ARGH!
hm hm well
ReplyDeleteLet's say that the Jedi cannot do something morally ambiguous, as part of their code. You may be right. Finn and Luke have an entire Jedi training manual so I can look it up, possibly.
BUT I can do the same thing, but differently! How about, while Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are dorking around being moral on Tatooine, Amidala's people REALLY ARE dying? So the longer they go without cheating in the pod race, the more people DIE.
And the problem with my argument lies in QGJ trying to mind trick Watto in the previous scene. I don't think he can do that. Seriously.
ReplyDeleteI would love to be reminded at this point in the movie that speed matters, that this ISN'T just an excuse for a video game. So I'm all for messages coming in that Amidala's people are dying. She must have parents and/or siblings, right? Are they ever mentioned? She's a fucking teenager. Argh! My simple agreement with your idea has found another flaw in these movies. Why does nobody have a family except Anakin/Luke/Leia? Not a single family member. Zero.
But what are you suggesting re moral code? Are you saying that they should break the Jedi code IF Amidala's brother is being killed? I can see that, but I feel like it changes things. I don't think QGJ, in particular, is fleshed out enough for us to care about his moral dilemmas.
Wait... what if we're WRONG, and OBW is over-reacting to QGJ's slightly shady side? What if the Jedi code isn't nearly as black and white as OBW says it is? Isn't he the only one who tells us this? And he flat out LIES all the time. Hmm...
Now you've hopelessly confused me.
ReplyDeleteI thought this scene was simple.
Okay, I don't recall there really being that much of a Jedi Code to tell you the truth. Certainly this movie would have been the first place it's revealed to us, so it's not been established in cinema at this point. So I think we're given a little leeway as script rewriters as long as Lucas doesn't come in and say "oh no, a Jedi can't do that."
ReplyDeleteAt any rate, I can see Qui-Gon deciding it was okay to rip off Watto in order to save Nabooians and then come back and pay him later with some acceptable form of currency. But that ends up being messy and boring, so maybe we should forget the whole idea.
Your point on the older Obi-Wan is certainly interesting....I doubt Lucas originally intended Obi-Wan's conversation with Luke on Tatooine to be full of lies. I think that's revisionist history biting him again..."from a certain point of view."
AND I'm still wondering what the ******* point is of invading Naboo?
ReplyDeleteI'll see if I can reason it out.
1) The invasion of Naboo is the eponymous "Phantom Menace" for the Republic. It's engineered by Palpatine.
2) Presumably, as Naboo Senator, it will generate sympathy for Palpatine and allow him to gain power.
3) Ideally, it escalates to the point where a Palpatine engineers a vote of no confidence for the chancellor, and is elected chancellor himself.
Okay, fine. A tenuous string of logic, but let's assume Palpatine has/will try many schemes, one of which will work by chance eventually, and this just happens to be the one that does. Hence, this is the one that gets made into a movie.
Questions
1) It's CLEAR that Palpatine prefers that Amidala stay on Naboo--the Darth Maul scene here tells us that. So she can sign the treaty at gunpoint and stir up more outrage in the Senate. Fine.
2) Yet, it is Amidala's very plea in the Senate itself (here in half an hour or so) that CONVINCES the Senate to do those very things. A plea that could not have taken place had the Jedi not foiled Palpatine earlier on. Hell, she's the one who calls for the vote of no confidence!
Irony? Accidentally. But I don't think Lucas takes advantage of that at all.
What we need is another scene, where Maul and Palpatine discuss their failure on Tatooine, regroup, and emerge with an even stronger plan. They make lemons out of lemonade. They get to mock the Jedi for expending all that energy just to hand Palpatine the keys to the kingdom. Do we get that scene? I don't think so, but maybe I'm misremembering.
Let's watch.
OR Palpatine knew perfectly well that Maul couldn't beat TWO Jedi (see above), and is actually several steps ahead of the audience. In which case, something needs to be said on camera.
ReplyDeleteDo we know how/when Dooku gets picked up to replace Maul? Maybe P wanted Maul out of the way to pick up a more powerful apprentice?
That whole thing has bothered me for a while.
ReplyDeleteI feel like Dooku has been a Sith for a couple of decades. I don't buy this "only one master and one apprentice" bit that they throw out at the end of Phantom Menace. It certainly doesn't make any sense historically, because there used to be tons of Sith around before the Jedi purged them.
I think Dooku "graduated" prior to Phantom Menace, so Palpatine got a new apprentice. Why would Palpatine NOT want as many minions as possible? Is he afraid one of them will throw him down some random open shaft in a Death Star (why do Death stars have so many open shafts?)?
I think the "did we kill the master or the apprentice" line is just a clever-sounding little piece of dialogue at the end of Phantom Menace, which allows us to have a little chuckle. I don't think Lucas (although he is stupid) meant it to be Sith Policy.
It would actually make sense of Dooku were out there acting as a runner for Palpatine to stir up the Trade Federation as he does the Separatists in the next two movies. In fact, using a few scenes with him would not only set him up as a villain for Clones, it could be used to explicate Palpatine's strategy re: the confusing Naboo situation.
I do like the idea of Palpatine throwing Maul to the proverbial dogs. Would be interesting if Maul had won, come back to see Palpatine, and then you see fear in Palpatine's eyes for the first time.
ReplyDeleteThat could be the final scene of the movie--Maul wipes out Qui-Gon (for example) and some other disposable Jedi, comes back to report to Palpatine with Anakin in tow, Palpatine gets scared and kills Maul. Then he takes over Anakin, tells him Maul had to be destroyed for killing Jedi, swears Anakin to secrecy maybe, and so on.
Your first reply is blasphemy! The Zahn books make it QUITE clear that the Rule of Two is quite real, and quite explicit. And the Zahn books are SO much better than 1-3 that I'm insisting that they're canon.
ReplyDeleteAlso, http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Rule_of_Two, which includes, "It is worth noting that Sidious broke the Rule of Two at least twice: once by training Darth Maul while still under the tutelage of Darth Plagueis; and secondly, by taking on two apprentices at once, and in the form of two Jedi: Count Dooku, dubbed Darth Tyranus, and the Fosh Jedi Vergere."
Fascinating, eh? Apparently, Dooku is EXPLICITLY NOT at the same time as Maul. Also, from the Dooku article on the same site, "As a Jedi Knight, he took Qui-Gon Jinn as his first Padawan, and later trained Komari Vosa. Dooku was a respected instructor in the Jedi Temple and one of the most renowned swordsmen in the galaxy. Only Masters Yoda and Mace Windu were considered his equals."
"The best of all would be the strongest student, yes? Wisest? Most learned in the ways of the Force? Best of all, Dooku would be! Our greatest student! Our greatest failure."
―Yoda
So. We can fix this if we make it happen on-screen. We're supposed to believe the whole 3 movie series is P's master plan. So why not this, too? He knows Dooku is no longer a Jedi, and WAS one of the top 3 fighters in the galaxy, with 70 years of Jedi training under his belt. He can only have one apprentice. So throw Maul at QGJ and OBW. He wins, you get Naboo (and God knows what your plan was). He loses and you get Dooku instead. THAT is mastermindery at its best. We just need to be SHOWN this recruitment of Dooku and how it was all part of the plan, albeit plan 1a.
"*Surviving his defeat on Naboo*, Maul returned to prominence in 20 BBY during the Clone Wars, during which he was sought out by his brother, Savage Opress, for training in the dark side and revenge on Kenobi."
ReplyDeleteMaul isn't dead? But he fell down one of those shafts! Wasn't he cut in half or something? Is this real life?
ReplyDeleteOf course, Luke Skywalker also survived falling down a shaft, and Boba Fett survived falling into the Sarlacc.
What a load of crap.
What a mess.
Anyway, I like your "trade Dooku for Maul" strategy. Make it so.
Ok. So for now, this is under control. Teenage Anakin, dashing gungan rogue charming the pants off "Amidala", Jedi (especially QGJ) can be slightly morally ambiguous for a bigger cause, and the Maul dilemma doesn't need to be solved here if we allow that P's master plan doesn't care if he wins or loses.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, he was cut in half.
Bring on the midichlorians. Christ. I'm as ready as I ever will be.
Well hang on now.
ReplyDeleteAre we having the Gungan rogue LITERALLY charm the pants of Amidala? Especially exciting considering at this point the audience and the Gungan still think she's really the queen?
I vote yes. Imagine what he could do with that tongue!
ReplyDeleteDone. I'll post another clip.
ReplyDeleteThis is so sad. This insistent that Anakin be an adolescent instead of a nine year-old strikes me as not only incredibly shallow, but unnecessary.
ReplyDelete