Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord: The Next Act of a Villain We Can't Hate
By John Kirk
Rating: A
We never really got to see enough of Darth Maul. Thankfully, Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord fixes that oversight.
Darth Maul was taken out too quickly by Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. After such a build-up in the film and an admittedly glorious end battle with Qui-Gon Jinn and Kenobi, Maul was done, bisected by Kenobi’s lightsaber.
However, he survived, living 10 years in a dark catacomb, surviving somehow, grafted on to a sort of cybernetic transport and life support system. Re-appearing in the animated series, The Clone Wars, we learned he had suffered years of psychological trauma: failing his master, betrayed by his master, rebuilding himself through hate and sheer willpower. Maul is a tragic villain in Star Wars who not only has our sympathy, and a relatively new deep back story to explore. And these are reasons why the franchise needs him to stay.
Star Wars has two sides: the dark and the light. These are manifested by the Empire and the Rebellion in the classic Episodes IV to VI trilogy. However, in the prequel episodes and the polemical sequels, this same dynamic is repeated by different organizations. Yet, it’s this classic trilogy dynamic with the empire and the rebellion that seems to resonate the most in the offerings from producer Dave Filoni, and they are well-received.
The dynamic is different in Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord. Maul (voiced by Sam Witwer) doesn’t fit into the Empire any more. He is a renegade Sith with the Emperor’s bounty on his head. He cannot join the growing Rebellion as his character’s unbalanced nature and penchant for evil run somewhat counter to its altruism.
This opens up a third pathway: the criminal underworld.
The latter is a dynamic in Star Wars that has only recently been re-birthed in film, comics and novelized additions to the franchise in the last decade, and is present in this series. Not only does it add extra entertainment value for Star Wars fans, it allows for a focus on a character who deserves this attention. We saw recent elements of the Star Wars underworld in the film Solo: A Star Wars Story and in the series The Book of Boba Fett. Crime makes for a wonderful third column in Star Wars lore.
Set after the events of Order 66, Maul is a crime lord with a cadre of Mandalorian mercenaries, fellow Dathomirians following him to a backwater planet out of the Empire’s control. He senses the presence of a possible apprentice he can train. After all, despite his abandoned state, Maul is still a Sith Lord with training by Darth Sidious, aka the Emperor. Maul is intent on building his own criminal empire and he has the will to do so.
The apprentice he senses is the young Padawan, Devon Izara (Gideon Adlon) who is hiding with her master, the Jedi Eeko-Dio-Daki (Dennis Haysbert) from the Empire. They are simply passing through when they cross paths with the local lawman, Brander Lawson (Wagner Moura) and his droid deputy, Two Boots (Richard Ayoade).
When Maul crosses the two local crimelords, Looti Vario (Chris Diamantopoulos) and Nico Deemis (John Carroll Lynch), it brings all the players together in a true-to-franchise style of adventure that every Star Wars fan can instantly recognize and sink their teeth into.
Not only is this a well thought-out and rich setting for a Star Wars adventure, it also has the threads of revenge, loyalty, revolution and of course, the punchy comedic dialogue that is common to the franchise’s larger-than-life heroes. In short, it’s a fan’s delight and as a bonus, is a chance to learn more about Maul.
Darth Maul is complicated. He has layers of self-loathing, compacted upon years of abuse, servitude, torture and recrimination for his failure to best Obi-Wan Kenobi. Presented with the chance to re-invent himself, he must penetrate these layers of his character to achieve some sense of success. In his twisted logic, he can only think to re-start the whole process of taking an apprentice in the Sith way to help achieve his revenge.
That’s the draw of this show. It’s an instant success and it was recently announced that the second season has already been green-lit. But from Dave Filoni, the natural successor to George Lucas’s vision, could we expect anything less? As the saying goes in Star Wars fan circles: “in Filoni we trust.”
But this is also richly deserved. A poignantly tragic character who was underserved and still has a valuable contribution to make gets the chance to do so.
I’ve interviewed the original Darth Maul – Ray Park – from Star Wars, Episode 1, The Phantom Menace and his love for this character was infectious.
For good reason.
Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord. Produced by Dave Filoni. Cast: Sam Witwer, Gideon Adlon, Wagner Moura, Richard Ayoade, Dennis Haysbert, Chris Diamantopoulos, Charlie Bushnell, Vanessa Marshall, John Caroll Lynch, David W. Collins, A.J. LoCascio, Steve Blum. Episodes 1 & 2 of Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord drop on Disney+ April 6.