By Chris Snellgrove
| Updated
Qui-Gon Jinn’s death in The Phantom Menace was truly shocking, putting Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s lives on what would ultimately be a fatal collision course. Still, many fans see his death as the will of the Force…something that had to happen to eventually topple Palpatine’s Empire. But the truth is that Qui-Gon simply sealed his own fate by preventing the troopers on Naboo from attacking Darth Maul.
Everyone remembers the scene where Maul is revealed, and Qui-Gon tells the troopers to stand down because he and Obi-Wan “will handle this.” It’s a fan-favorite moment that precedes the sick three-way lightsaber duel that is by far the best part of The Phantom Menace. But thanks to the events of Order 66, we know that if Qui-Gon could get over his pride and order Naboo’s soldiers to fire on Darth Maul, he could almost certainly have prevented his death.
When The Phantom Menace came out, Qui-Gon dismissing those troops made sense…after all, what could regular soldiers do against a Dark Lord of the Sith? But in Revenge of the Sith, we see just how effective the Clone Troopers were at killing Jedi because even the most talented space wizards can only deflect so many blaster shots at once. Qui-Gon Jinn had no less than 18 soldiers at his command, and if he ordered them to fire on Darth Maul, the Sith could be defeated and the Jedi’s death avoided.
It’s possible that Qui-Gon was simply trying to preserve lives and was worried that Maul would have cut through those troops like a hot lightsaber through butter. But his choice is still irresponsible because a Sith posed a major existential threat to everyone on the planet and, quite possibly, everyone in the galaxy. If Qui-Gon Jinn wanted to prevent as many deaths as possible, he should have been willing to sacrifice the soldiers’ lives rather than gamble that he and Obi-Wan would be enough to stop this new threat.
And it was a gamble: the Sith was able to outfox and ultimately kill the Jedi Master, and it was a miracle that fledgling Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi was able to defeat Darth Maul. If Qui-Gon Jinn accepted the offer of military assistance, he would have done more than prevent his own death…he would have stacked the odds in their favor against the first Sith the Jedi encountered in one thousand years. And considering that Jedi train with laser-firing remotes, the Jedi Master should have known it would be impossible for Maul to deflect 18 blasters constantly firing at him all at once.
Qui-Gon Jinn might have been a wise and powerful Jedi, but the sad truth is that his death was caused by his own pride. He had a small army at his command who were willing and able to take on Darth Maul, and we know from the events of Order 66 that even the most skilled Force users can’t deflect a ton of directed laser fire. Fortunately, Qui-Gon’s death had one upside: poor Liam Neeson no longer had to look like he cared while delivering gobbleygook lines about midichlorians in between boring scenes with a CGI space rabbit.
