The biggest mistake in Star Wars: Episode 1

When it comes to the prequel trilogy as a whole, the most fundamental problem was bad script writing by George Lucas and, most particularly, the fact that he completely missed the mark on the most important core plot of the entire trilogy. In other words, completely botching showing in a good and believable manner why and how Anakin switched to the dark side.

However, if we examine just the first movie, there are literally dozens of huge flaws in it that could have been done much, much better. However, by far the biggest mistake made in the movie, something that pretty much anybody would agree with, was killing off Darth Maul.

Ask pretty much anybody, and they will agree: By far and large, by a country mile, the most awesome, coolest and best element of the first movie was Darth Maul.

He is exactly what a believable threatening villain should be. He not only looks cool and menacing, but he doesn't speak, he doesn't banter, he doesn't taunt, he doesn't hesitate, he doesn't play with his enemies. Instead, he is efficient to the extreme, going for the kill as fast as possible, with extreme skill and precision.

His fight against the two Jedi is pretty much universally agreed to be the best laser saber fight in all of Star Wars. Not just the prequel trilogy, but all of it, every movie, every made-for-TV movie, every series.

He is so skilled and so dangerous that he single-handedly succeeded in defeating and killing one of the most powerful Jedi that existed in the lore, ie. Qui-Gon Jinn.

Then, after that feat, he is just ignominiously defeated by a padawan. It's no exaggeration that this was universally considered a complete disappointment.

What Lucas should have done is keep the fight exactly as it was (it's pretty much perfect), and after Maul killed Qui-Gon he has his short fight with Obi-Wan, who falls into the chute just like happens in the movie, but he doesn't come back up, he just falls all the way, Darth Maul looks him fall, and then walks away, as he has important things to do. (It would be a bit later in the movie shown that Obi-Wan survives the fall.)

This way Darth Maul could have returned in the second movie, and have a second fight with Obi-Wan, who would then have the opportunity to avenge his master's death properly.