Obviously he didnt deserve the harassment he got regardless. Like even if he was dogshit he wouldnt have deserved that. But I just rewatched Phantom Menace for the first time in awhile. Young friend of mine are going through the star wars movies because she was a sheltered homeschooled kid and hadnt seen them. Already did the OT, starting on the prequels.
Other than the obvious "oh wow, the racial stereotypes of literally three different alien species in this movie is insane", the main takeaway my rewatch gave me is "wow ok, Jake LLoyd is average at worst". He was just like, a regular kid actor? Nothing to write home about like say, young Maise Williams or something. But absolutely fine?
Darth Maul looks sick as fuck, but it’s weird how he pops out of nowhere and is basically not a character but a plot device. We don’t know his motivations or story or anything. Pretty weird for the main antagonist of a film to just appear at the end for the final battle without actually doing anything villainous throughout the plot of the film
As a kid I was just pretty confused. Who is this guy? It’d be like if Darth Vader came on screen for the first time in the 6th film right before throwing the emperor down the hole
The mystery around him was pretty intriguing but it never paid off in the movies. We never get any reveal about who he was or his race of people or faction or anything like that. No consequences or plot further on involve Maul. It’s like he came and went without any relation to the overall story. Qui-gon needed to die, and the movie needed an interesting end fight scene so he exists, but for no other reason really.
Oh he's 100% a wasted character and an underwhelming plot device - wish he had more compelling ties to the story and characters, but purely from an aesthetic and action perspective he's very well done IMO. Kid me was already on the shit that I currently love doing with fiction: I assumed he was just "some new dark jedi" that surely must have been doing evil somewhere in the huge expansive universe, and that his story had only started intersecting with the main characters' now. Obviously it didn't turn out anything like this lol.
On the one hand I love expanding the scope and feel of a setting by making it detailed and fleshed out but having a bit of mystery is key, otherwise you end up like a lot of new star wars, mcu, trek, etc. media that just has to explain every little thing you've ever seen on screen