PT Why Did Qui-Gon Lose to Darth Maul ?

Maul was in the process of an attack before Obi pulled the lightsaber to him. He calmed himself and took action in defense. It wasn't an execution or something. Maul was neither defenseless nor unarmed. Call it a rushed reaction, but one he had reasons to make in the situation in defense of his own life.

Huh? Qui-Gon had been killed, Obi was knocked into a hole and Maul had just been slashing at the area he was hanging from.

 

Qui Gon is very wise and skilled in the force however when it comes to skill and speed with a lightsaber Maul was just simply better. Faster more agile.

 

It's quite simply because he actually doesn't have a particular set of skills, skills he's acquired over a very long career.

 

This.

 

Well said. That and staffsabers are rare, and Jedi do not get many opportunities to train against them. In reality your range of movement with staff saber is more limited than with a traditional saber and if you know where one saber is, you can know where the other is. But like duo-sabers, it overwhelms most duelists not aware of the staffsaber’s limitations.

 

Maul was trained to be a killer from the time he was a child and he’s fast. Qui-Gon is far wiser and smarter though. But when it comes down to it, it was a decent amount of luck. They are both skillful but Maul had a very brief opening to hit Qui-Gon in the face to stun him which then gave him the opportunity to stab him.

 

I feel like most Jedi by the time of TPM were pretty rusty in lightsaber skills, they face blasters day and day out and that's it. This isn't the Old Republic era of Jedi armies vs Sith armies.

lightsaber training will never emulate the real deal of combat to the death. Although lightsaber training with a Sith like Palps is likely a near death experience, lol.

wasn't it said that Dooku trained with lightsaber like crazy because he anticipated the potential return for the Sith while the other Jedi became lax. And that's why he was one of the best lightsaber duelist. It seems very few Jedi at that time even focused on perfecting their lightsaber to lightsaber skills.

Qui-Gon was always gonna lose to Maul, take his 1st fight on Tatooine he was completly down and needed to exit stage left just to survive. 2nd fight nowhere to run and he dies.

and yeah Jinn seems like one who is more intune with force aspect than fighting aspect. Still don't think he's weak or bad with saber just that he was like 50 y/o facing a younger hungrier, faster, more aggressive Maul and he couldn't keep up long term.

 

Qui-Gon doesn't use darkside, he needs to be in peace not aggressive, shouldn't give in to the dark side, he needs to focus without using anger or hate. Thus meditation is a better way to focus.

Maul is a darkside user, he needs to be calm as well but also chaotic and aggressive at the same time. He needs to use his anger and hate to have greater focus, thats the way of the darkside. Thats the difference.

Qui-Gon lost because Maul is simply a better swordfighter, just like Sidious was better than many Jedi.

'An incredible duelist second only, perhaps, to Darth Sidious, Darth Maul honed his lightsaber skills through a lifetime of training against advanced sparring droids.''
---Source: Star Wars Chronicles - The Prequels (2005)


Source: Star Wars - Absolutely Everything You Need to Know (2015)

While Qui-Gon is a tier 7, possibly better than even Jedi Masters like Kit Fisto, Maul or Dooku are tier 8, higher than them.

Nick Gillard: ''Dooku & Maul are 8, but there is a huge difference inside the numbers themselves. It's not about how well they fight, it's about how well they learned.''
Source: Danger-inc.com, Theforce.net, Saberproject

Nick Gillard : ''And somebody like Kit Fisto is 7. I did take it to 8 and 9. But not many people know that. 8 and 9 is cheat.''

Question: ''Where Qui-Gon was on your/Lucas tier system? Was he a 7 or an 8?''
Nick Gillard: ''7.''
Question: ''Is Qui-Gon higher than Kit Fisto, since he learned from Dooku?''
Nick Gillard: ''Yes exactly for that reason, there's a bit of the dark side from that line.''
Source: danger-inc.com, theforce.net, saberproject

To be more precise, he was trained to kill anything, not just Jedi.

Jedi are sparring with each other all the time in the Jedi temple or in other places, Dooku himself sparred with Qui-Gon thousands of times,

''Obi-Wan lifted his lightsaber into the balanced two-handed guard of
Ataru: Qui-Gon's style, and Yoda's. (...) Dooku had fenced Qui-Gon thousands of times, and he knew every weakness of the Ataru form, with its ridiculous acrobatics.''
---Source: Revenge of the Sith Novelization (2005)

And thats how Dooku learned all of Qui-Gon's style very well thus he learned Obi-Wan's style since he is using the same style, and used it against Obi-Wan,

Nick Gillard: ''They are almost the same those two (Kenobi & Anakin), because they've learnt, they come up through the same way. Taught by Qui-Gon, Tyranus, Yoda. It's the same line.''
Source: Star Wars It's All For Real - The Stunts Of Episode III

but since Obi-Wan didn't spar with Dooku before, Obi-Wan didn't know Dooku's weakness, thats why he always was in disadvantage vs Dooku while dueling with him.

 

Maul is just that good. People forget he's got some insanely impressive feats:

Dueling both Mace Windu and Aayla Secura at once



Defeating Pre Vizsla in combat without use of the Force



Defeating and capturing General Grievous



Teamed up with Mother Talzin and proved they were equal in strength to Sidious and Tyranus



Effortlessly defeating Savage Opress



And of course, fighting Darth Sidious and not dying instantly (like the legendary Kit Fisto)



Of course, Qui-Gon is no pushover, and we can see how Maul kept trying to get him on his own and deal with him first, showing that he clearly viewed Qui-Gon as a threat, but he was just more powerful.

 

Qui is he a Goner?

 

“I have a certain set of skills — surviving a lightsaber through my chest is not one of them.”

 

Yet we see time and time and time again characters surviving that blade through the chest.
I think Qui Gon ran out of steam and was taken by suprise by Mauls quickness when he got close range. He should've used more Force powers against him like push him off the edge.

 

George Lucas willed it so.

actually, I’m going with him being distracted. The return of the Sith, thinking of Obi-Wan and Anakin. Even his dying words were about Anakin.

 

The look on Qui-Gon's face says it all: Maul caught him off-guard and he took full advantage of it.

On a related side-note, I'm still angry that when Obi-Wan later slices through Maul's double-bladed lightsaber, Maul did not hop up wielding a lightsaber in both hands instead of just the one. A wasted opportunity.

 

Maul had just killed a Jedi Master. He probably figured he could take on a Padawan. Besides, the other half may have rolled into the chasm.

 

Qui-Gon lost to Darth Maul because he was worn out. Maul stage-managed that entire duel. Throughout it, he was working on separating Qui-Gon from Obi-Wan, and during Qui-Gon's final stand, Maul was dismantling him.

 

If I remember correctly, Nick Gillard (the guy who directed dueling scenes in the Prequels) said before they did that on purpose to show Maul's skills with 1 blade regular lightsaber too, so that people can see Maul can use both 1 blade or 2 blades lightsaber very well. As we also see him using 1 blade in Tatooine vs Qui-Gon first fight.

To be honest, Kenobi was a 'padawan' only in name during Phantom Menace, he was 25 years old, and Qui-Gon tells Jedi Council that Obi-Wan is ready for the Jedi Trials to become a Jedi Knight, and they made Kenobi a Jedi Knight at the end of that movie. Nick Gillard also said, in his lightsaber dueling tier system, Kenobi and Qui-Gon are both tier 7 (same tier as another Jedi Master Kit Fisto), and Kenobi stays as tier 7 in Attack of the Clones as well, only in Revenge of the Sith Obi-Wan becomes a tier 8.

Thats one of Maul's powers. He doesn't get tired and always keep fighting until the end as we also see he even survived after get cut in half.

Maul beat Kenobi same way too even though Kenobi was enraged and using that rage to defeat Maul, but Maul feed from his anger and get Kenobi tired as well.

''The Sith Lord attacked Obi-Wan relentlessly, backing him around the melting pit. All Obi-Wan's efforts could not break through his guard. And Obi-Wan was tiring, while his opponent seemed as fresh as ever. The Sith Lord was on him before he could recover his balance. With a mighty stroke, the Sith knocked the young Jedi into the melting pit.''
---Source: Star Wars Episode I - The Phantom Menace Jr. Novelization (1999)