Matthew
Hello, Star Wars fans. Do you feel that excitement? Do you feel that energy building in the air? That’s because on this wonderful, joyous day, the New York Mets defeated Paul Skenes and the Pittsburgh Pirates. We have won opening day. The New York Mets are off to a great start. Oh, and we’re also a week away from Maul: Shadow Lord. So that’s probably a little more exciting for you.
But I think it’s the Mets, but it doesn’t matter either way. Here we are. We’re getting started. We’re excited. Erin, how are we feeling about Maul: Shadow Lord coming out soon?
Erin
I gotta say, Matthew, the baseball jersey makes a lot more sense now. Very happy for you and your Mets. I’m so excited for this show. Darth Maul is just such a fun character — from a shallow view, he’s so fun, but he also has so much depth and really rich lore to him. I’m really excited to see how that’s explored in visual media, because there hasn’t been a show focused on him. It gives us a look at the underworld and some more Order 66 fallout stuff. Yeah, I’m really excited. All the trailers look just freaking cool, dude.
Matthew
Yeah, they really do. So excited. Maul has been such an interesting character ever since The Phantom Menace. And by the way, this is for everybody — whether you are the most hardcore Star Wars fan or someone who likes the movies but is wondering, wait, I thought Obi-Wan killed Maul. Don’t worry, we’re going to get to all that. We’ll explain all of it today.
We’ve got you covered. But yeah, I think it’s the lore. Maul winds up being this incredibly interesting figure. He’s kind of the Cassandra of the Star Wars universe because in the last days of The Clone Wars, he’s the one who’s figured it all out.
He’s put the pieces together. He knows that Sidious is turning Anakin. He knows that the clones were always a way of taking down the Jedi. And when he goes to the only other Force user he can find — Ahsoka — and says, will you work with me and help stop Sidious, she can’t join him. Understandably, because he thinks the only way to do it is to kill Anakin before he fully falls.
And so he’s this person who has known what Sidious was up to. Now all the things he predicted — that no one listened to — are coming true. At the time we encounter him, everything is falling apart on him. And here’s where he starts to rebuild.
Erin
And I think that’s really cool. And as someone who enjoyed Solo: A Star Wars Story — I’m not going to say it’s the best Star Wars movie out there. I’m not even going to say it was a good Star Wars movie. It was a good movie. But I’ve been foaming at the mouth for any bits of how Maul ends up as the leader of Crimson Dawn. I’ve been so excited ever since that end scene, and that was so long ago. We’re finally getting some information on how he rebuilds after the Clone Wars, and I’m really excited.
Matthew
Well, last week, myself and Jonah Kellman, a good friend of mine who’s a huge fan of the Legends books, went over all of Darth Maul’s story in Legends and The Phantom Menace, and talked about how, as a result of all this, he is so resentful of Sidious. He’s so resentful of the Jedi. He’s filled with anger and hate. And the last thing we see of him in that movie is two different parts of his body falling down a shaft — and to all intents and purposes, he is gone. Erin, what happened? How was he still alive?
Erin
Well, he got thrown in with some trash and brought to a planet. I’m not going to say it — I was going to say Lotho Minor, but I’m second-guessing myself. But it’s a trash planet where he somehow survives due to his hate. He’s so angry and hates the Jedi — but specifically Obi-Wan — so much that he drives himself mad and just loses his mind. All he can think about are some basic principles of the Sith religion.
Matthew
So just to give people the background, the planet is called Lotho Minor. This first chapter in Maul’s story is covered in episodes of The Clone Wars season four that we actually recently covered in episode 324 — how Maul took Mandalore, Death Watch, and all of that.
We’re not going to go into too much detail here, but a lot of the comic books also tell us more. As you said, it’s a combination of his utter rage and hate — which, as we know, is literally what powers the dark side; those emotions can channel dark side energy — and a lot of the Dathomirian magic. There’s a character named Mother Talzin who is essentially the leader of a group of dark witches from a planet called Dathomir, which is where Darth Maul himself comes from. That plays a big part of it. And yeah, he’s basically taken out with the trash. It’s not the kind of trash compactor they have on the Death Star, because he wasn’t going to be smashed up. He’s dumped on this planet named Lotho Minor.
A snake-type creature finds him, and he spends about ten or twelve years slowly going out of his mind, trying to hold on to Sith ideas, trying to hold on to some concept of what’s going on, until he is found by another Dathomirian named Savage Opress.
Erin
Yes. And so Savage was chosen by the Nightsisters, which is what the group from Dathomir are called — the group of witches. He was chosen to be an assistant to a character in The Clone Wars called Asajj Ventress. She starts as a Sith assassin and then kind of goes from there. Savage doesn’t work out with her. He tries to go undercover and be Count Dooku’s apprentice. That doesn’t work. So then Savage goes back to Mother Talzin, and the witch does some magic and gives him a necklace and says, you have a brother — go find him. So then Savage comes across Maul on Lotho Minor, takes him out of the trash planet, brings him back to Dathomir, his home, where Mother Talzin does a ritual to pull the madness and the darkness out of his head and then gives him these robotic magical legs.
Matthew
And for anyone wondering about the Nightsisters or thinking they sound familiar — if you’ve seen the show Ahsoka and you know about Grand Admiral Thrawn and all that, the people he is working with to return to this galaxy are Nightsisters. This group has been established as dark side Force users who are not the Sith, and they have a fairly different approach to magic.
And so this is where Maul really comes into his own. He and Savage try to take things down, and he is so focused at this point on Kenobi and on getting revenge on Kenobi. Why? Why is that so important to him?
Erin
Because Obi-Wan Kenobi cut him in half?
Matthew
Yeah. I mean, that’s the thing. He blames Kenobi. And I think it’s important because at this point, he is not yet willing to blame Sidious. He’s not yet willing to say Sidious did all these terrible things to me — it’s Kenobi. Kenobi stopped him. Kenobi must have used treachery, whatever it is. He has to get revenge on Kenobi.
And interestingly, at this point, he actually winds up falling back into Sith patterns. At one point, he and his brother are kind of on the same page — no, we don’t need the Sith, we’re going to do our own thing. And then there’s a moment where they’re fighting and Maul overpowers Savage and says, now I am your master, and I’m going to treat you as my apprentice, because the two of us are the true Sith. In his mind, Sidious is not a true Sith because he and Dooku betrayed him. At this point, he’s trying to recreate the ideas of the Sith.
Erin
Absolutely. He goes on a rampage, and at first it’s about getting Kenobi’s attention and getting revenge. But also, they’re displaying a very dangerous partnership between Savage and Maul. We see them kill several Jedi, not to mention helpless townspeople. And they are just going wild. Maul’s like, no, we’re not going after the Jedi. We’re going to make them come to us by slaughtering people.
Matthew
He is not part of Sidious anymore, but he ain’t a good guy. He has not had a hero turn by any means.
Erin
He’s like, I want to be the big bad now. What do I got to do?
Matthew
And he goes through a number of plots. They have some level of success, but he’s never able to kill Kenobi. And eventually he realizes that he needs to work with some people, and he starts building the Shadow Collective. This is kind of the beginning of what you were talking about before — wanting to see him with Crimson Dawn. He realizes that he is a shadow lord. Jonah and I talked about this — Sidious never brought him into high society or anything. He was always the assassin. He was always the criminal. And so he goes to Black Sun, he goes to the Pykes, he goes to these other groups and recruits them to be part of his collective. Do you happen to remember how he gets Black Sun to be on his side?
Erin
I don’t remember specifics, but I know he kills somebody important.
Matthew
It’s a pretty great moment. He basically goes to the head of Black Sun, and they’re all gathered around a corporate table — very much like the mob. It’s apparently a fairly narrow table, because when they all say no, he says, okay, lifts up his lightsaber, and then uses telekinesis to run it with both blades out down the length of the table, decapitating every member of Black Sun’s leadership.
Erin
Every board leader. Exactly.
Matthew
Yeah. And remember, The Clone Wars is a kids’ show, so it’s not fully shown, but you know exactly what happens. But I realized I’m a bit ahead of myself, because the first thing he does is team up with Death Watch. The exact details get really complex, but basically he and Savage attempt to take on Kenobi a number of times, including once while working with Hondo. It doesn’t work out. And in one of them, he and Savage wind up unconscious in an escape pod where they’re found by Pre Vizsla and Bo-Katan and the Mandalorians. And the Mandalorians are part of Death Watch. What is Death Watch?
Erin
Death Watch is considered by the modern Mandalorian leadership — led by Duchess Satine — to be a terrorist organization, but they see themselves as the true heart of what the Mandalorians should be. They’re a little more similar to the Mandalorians we know from The Mandalorian show. They’re warriors. They’re fundamentalists. They want to retake Mandalore and turn it back into a society of warriors rather than the pacifist, peaceful society that is currently occupying Mandalore.
Matthew
Right. And so we get this interesting situation — and here’s where really all the politics of the galaxy start coming together. Bo-Katan, to her credit, wants to just kill him right from the beginning. But Pre Vizsla — that name sounds familiar because the Vizslases are going to show up in The Mandalorian TV show later, same family, same clan, which is very important in Mandalorian society — he realizes that Maul is an actual ally, especially because Maul wants to kill Kenobi. And Kenobi is very close to Satine, who as you just said is part of the Mandalorian society that Pre Vizsla wants to overthrow.
So they work together. And that’s when they start building the Shadow Collective — Black Sun, as we talked about, and then the Pykes. Even Crimson Dawn, which isn’t really shown in The Clone Wars, but in the comic books they go into how Crimson Dawn also joins them. Dryden Voss, the big bad from Solo, is part of that as well.
They go to the Hutts, and again there’s some more machinations, and they’re able to put pressure on Jabba to have him join the Shadow Collective as well. And if you think about how powerful Jabba is, that should give you an idea of just how powerful this collection of gangs is.
Particularly because this collection of gangs is now going to be used to take over a literal planet of warriors. And as the plan comes together, I think it shows another really important part of Maul’s character that’s going to be central to the story: he’s very good at planning and plotting. At one point he lays out his idea — he and Savage and the criminal gangs are going to cause so much chaos that it’ll show Duchess Satine is weak and powerless and make the Mandalorians need order, which Death Watch can bring. Maul says, I will use my army of crime lords to attack different targets across Sundari — which is the capital city — sow chaos to undermine the Duchess’s rule. Our gangsters will make her look too weak to maintain control. Then you and your Death Watch will capture and arrest us, bringing order where Satine’s weak government could not.
Erin
Yeah, it’s quite the plot. It’s quite the assassination of a government, one might say. And it works. It absolutely works.
Matthew
And the whole idea of creating chaos so that a strongman needs to take over — that’s straight out of 1930s Germany. That’s straight out of what the CIA did in a lot of places and the KGB did in other places. It’s just great tactics.
And very classic. As part of this, he basically assumes the Mandalorians are going to turn on him. They do. He escapes. He takes over. And perhaps one of the most tragic moments in all of the Star Wars story — he uses Satine and Obi-Wan’s love of Satine to lure Obi-Wan to Mandalore. And what happens next, Erin?
Erin
He Force chokes Satine to taunt Obi-Wan. And then when Obi-Wan tries to go to her, Maul pulls Satine onto the Darksaber. And she dies in Obi-Wan’s arms.
Matthew
In Obi-Wan’s arms. Yeah. And also, he’s gotten the Darksaber, which as you may have learned from other pieces of media is really important for declaring yourself the ruler of Mandalore. And there’s just so much sadism here. He probably could have killed Obi-Wan in that moment, but he doesn’t want to. Instead, he wants to kill Satine in front of Obi-Wan in this horrific way. What do you think that shows us about Maul’s character?
Erin
I think at this point he’s like, well, Obi-Wan cut me in half, so I wanted to kill him. But actually, Obi-Wan subjected me to years of torture and horrifying conditions. He’s like, no, I need to torture this man the way I feel he’s tortured me — even though Obi-Wan forgot about Maul the second he fell down that shaft.
So I think that’s the change: once Maul realizes how powerful he is and how easy it would be to just kill Kenobi, he’s like, no, I need a better way to make this hurt.
Matthew
I need to make this man suffer. Yeah. And what you just said about how Sidious basically forgot about Maul is super important, because that’s the one thing Maul hates most. We joke a lot about how Maul and Kenobi just need to kiss already, because it’s basically that — Maul is completely obsessed with Kenobi, and he wants Kenobi to be just as obsessed with him. It’s kind of the situation where Maul is like, Kenobi, you and I are blood enemies, and I’m sure your whole focus is on defeating me. And Kenobi is like, I’m fighting a war, dude. I thought I killed you. You’re not really that big a thing.
Erin
And Kenobi literally goes, oh, that can’t be him — doesn’t even recognize the guy.
Matthew
Yeah, doesn’t recognize him. Thinks he killed him. And this is one of the big things that drives Maul: he wants to be recognized. And again, we talked last week about just how abusive his childhood was — not to defend him; he’s a total villain — but it helps us understand where he’s coming from. He is someone who’s been rejected again and again throughout his life. And on some level, if someone is obsessed with him to the point of wanting to kill him, at least they’re thinking about him.
And at this point, he does kind of get his wish, in that Sidious realizes that Mandalore being ruled by these two dark side Force users is not good. Sidious comes to the planet, and it’s all the cruelty all over again — because he shows that he doesn’t care about Maul.
Maul makes an effort of like, I did all this for you, take me back. Sidious wants nothing to do with it. He tortures Maul for a while. And he goes so far as saying to Maul — because part of what Maul has figured out during this time is that Sidious was just using him — as the ultimate twist of the knife, Sidious says, I could kill you. He does kill Savage Opress. I’m just keeping you alive because you’re going to be useful to me down the road.
We later find out what Palpatine wants is for Maul to help lead them to Mother Talzin. He doesn’t tell Maul that. But it’s just one more insult and humiliation — Sidious still doesn’t see him as an equal. He doesn’t see him as a rival. He still sees him as a pawn.
Erin
Absolutely. Sidious never cared. It’s interesting that they called him Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace. I think if they’d had the concept of that movie and The Clone Wars at the same time, they may not have, because he’s really treated as an assassin — the same way as Asajj Ventress is. He’s not treated as a true apprentice. To me, an apprenticeship means you are walking with the person, showing them things — not just saying jump and they jump, point and they go. And that’s exactly what Maul always was to Sidious.
That’s why it’s kind of powerful later when Darth Maul makes it very clear: I am not Darth Maul. I am Maul. This is who I am now, and this is who I really always was. But yeah, it doesn’t change the fact that Sidious never thought about him.
Matthew
Yeah. And we talked about this a little last week — to some extent, Sidious had given Maul the title of Darth kind of to placate him. But Sidious never intended Maul to actually be part of the Rule of Two. The Legends canon goes into that a lot more, so we can say maybe that’s true, maybe that’s not. But I think there are some indications in the comic books as well. But you’re right.
The fact that the show is called Maul, not Darth Maul, is very significant. Because by the time The Clone Wars ends, and this TV show is being set about a year after that — during some of the time of The Bad Batch and things like that — Maul has fully accepted his identity. That leads to one of his last chapters before the chapter that happens in Clone Wars season seven, which we’ll definitely get to as well.
In the comics that go more into this, Maul has to escape. Gar Saxon and Death Watch help rescue Maul. But we find out that the Sith actually let him escape, because what they want more than anything is for Maul to lead them to Mother Talzin.
As we talked about earlier in the season, the Nightsisters had been pretty much entirely wiped out by General Grievous, Count Dooku, and droid soldiers. But Mother Talzin still lived. She was helping Maul, helping to find Savage Opress. And Maul goes back to Talzin for help. Talzin suggests that he needs to force another battle between the Shadow Collective and the Separatists on Ord Mantell. And this time it looks like he’s almost going to win when the Jedi intervene. I think that’s actually when Savage Opress dies — I may have some details slightly off, but…
Erin
Sidious kills Savage, yeah.
Matthew
Right, Sidious kills Savage — I’ll correct that. But yeah, the Jedi intervene and everyone’s escaping to their own corners. It’s this interesting story where Maul is on the edge of taking Grievous and Dooku prisoner and possibly even killing them. But the Jedi intervene, and everyone gets to survive. Dooku and Maul briefly work together against the Jedi. It’s kind of the Jedi blundering in and screwing everything up. They could have actually done really well there. They could have ended the Clone Wars.
And I think that also leads to why by this point Maul is completely despairing of the Sith. He thinks the Sith are terrible, but this moment especially helps confirm for him that the Jedi are no better.
And this is when he’s really put all the pieces together and starts trying to tell anyone he can find: look, the Republic is about to fall, Sidious is going to take over, Anakin is going to become his… I think he mixes up some of his predictions — he gets flashes of the future and confuses what will happen to Anakin with what will happen to Luke. So he keeps talking about Skywalker and mixing things from one or the other, but he knows it’s going to be important.
And this brings us back to the final battle on Mandalore that happens in Clone Wars season seven. Maul is still on Mandalore. Death Watch helped rescue him, they bring him back, he is still ruling. And Bo-Katan has fully broken away from Death Watch. She doesn’t want any part of Maul. He’s got the Darksaber — she does not care. And what does she do when she realizes she has no more allies to fight Maul?
Erin
She wants to go to the Republic, but I don’t think she feels she has that standing. So she goes to Ahsoka — even though Ahsoka has already left the Jedi Order. But Bo-Katan and Ahsoka have interacted before, and she felt like, if I can get her on my side, maybe we can convince the Jedi to help. Because she was like, I need a Jedi, but I don’t know if I can actually get a Jedi.
Matthew
And so she goes to the Jedi and tries to get them to help. And this is all part of Maul’s plan. Again, he’s being the master manipulator, because what he wants is for Kenobi to come — and he keeps referring to Anakin as his loyal foal, like a baby animal — he wants to kill Anakin. And I think this is also really significant in terms of how much he has evolved past pure revenge. He would rather kill Anakin even over Kenobi at this point, although he wants Kenobi there too, for sure. But why can’t Ahsoka get Kenobi and Anakin to come help?
Erin
Do you know anything about some big-picture lore?
Matthew
This happens just as the events of Revenge of the Sith are taking place. It’s devastating. If you haven’t watched the last four episodes of The Clone Wars, I strongly recommend it. Even if you haven’t seen any other episodes, it is such a brilliant part of the story. You see Ahsoka talking to Anakin while they’re hearing news in the background about Grievous invading Coruscant to capture Palpatine. And it helps answer a whole other set of questions — like, why wasn’t Ahsoka there at Order 66?
Well, it turns out that during Order 66, Ahsoka leads a bunch of clones with Rex — most of the 501st — and Bo-Katan and her Mandalorians back to Mandalore to lay siege and try to take down Maul once and for all.
Erin
So it’s really this ragtag group of people. It’s quite fun because, you know, Ahsoka’s not a Jedi, so she can’t officially command the clones. So Anakin splits his clones in half and promotes his captain to a commander, so he can be in charge.
And so it’s a non-Jedi, a newly promoted commander, and a bunch of clones. Then there’s Bo-Katan, who kind of was shunned from the pacifist Mandalorians for being with Death Watch, and now she’s also at odds with Death Watch. And she’s really just still fighting for her planet and her people, because she sees that what’s happening is wrong. It’s a very interesting group of skill sets we get to see together. We don’t often see those three fighting styles at the same time, and it just makes for some really, really good storytelling.
Matthew
And there’s a lot of great material there. Ahsoka and Maul have this epic duel that, while animated, was done using real people and motion capture. I think it’s one of the best lightsaber duels you’re ever going to see — especially because during it, Maul is trying to bring Ahsoka over to his side. He keeps telling her that together they can defeat Sidious. He’s telling her everything that’s going to happen. But the one stumbling point for her is when he says Anakin is going to go over to the dark side and they need to take him out. And that’s just where she can’t go.
Erin
She just doesn’t believe him. She refuses to even process that idea — and honestly, I would also not believe Darth Maul if I were her. Obviously he’s trying to seduce you to the dark side.
Whenever I watch those episodes, I just sit there like, listen, I know he’s terrible, but listen. But why would she? Yes — that’s the thing. You see her start to consider it, and then he brings up Anakin, and like you said, she’s like, we are not going there.
Matthew
Yeah. At one point she actually agrees to join him. And then when he says what they have to do to Anakin, she just can’t go there. And to me it’s one of the great tragedies, because you think about what would have happened if she and Maul had gone to Mustafar and helped Obi-Wan take down Anakin — they probably would have finished him off. Maybe even Palpatine when he showed up. Maybe not that, but certainly it would have changed galactic events quite drastically.
But of course, that’s not where it can go. So she wins the fight. Maul is captured.
The Shadow Collective entirely falls apart. And now we have a captured Maul on the Venator — which is the Star Destroyer that Anakin had been using and is now the ship that Ahsoka and Rex are on. And it’s while they’re on there that Order 66 happens. And when Ahsoka has a whole bunch of clones trying to kill her, what does she do?
Erin
She uncages the dog. She lets Maul out. And he’s like, yes, together we shall — and she goes, I’m not rooting for you. You’re a distraction. Get going.
Matthew
To me, so much of what I love about the Ahsoka-Maul dynamic is that both of them have been rejected by the groups they were part of. And to some extent they’ve also done the rejecting — but Ahsoka kind of got kicked out of the Jedi, and then they tried to bring her back and she was like, no thanks, I’m done. Maul got kicked out of the Sith, tried to come back. And now after Sidious said no, he’s like, I don’t want the Sith either.
They fought each other. They almost paired up. And now Ahsoka comes to Maul and says all these things. She frees him. And Maul says, now, if you will follow my lead — and Ahsoka responds, you don’t understand. I’m not here to team up with you. I needed a diversion and you’re it. Now go cause some chaos.
It’s what you’re good at. And then he kind of looks at one of her lightsabers and says, care to give me a fighting chance? And she responds, I’m not rooting for you. Now get going.
What does that say about Ahsoka? Because that’s not a Jedi move.
Erin
That’s an Anakin move. That’s a hardcore Anakin move. And when it comes down to it with Order 66 — we see this implicitly — Anakin basically trained her to survive Order 66. He said the battle droids and training droids aren’t enough. You need to train with actual opposition. So he basically taught her how to fight the clones.
And my thought is that when this happens, suddenly she doesn’t understand anything. Her best friends, the people she trusted for so many years, are trying to kill her and she doesn’t know why. She looks at them and there’s nothing behind their eyes. She just doesn’t understand.
So in my mind, if that were me, I’m going to go back to the basic training I got to survive. And Anakin’s the one who provided that. And unfortunately, in her early years as a padawan, we also see him instill some not-great habits about threatening and using people. I don’t think Ahsoka’s wrong for this, but it’s definitely not a Jedi move.
Matthew
Especially because at this point she pretty much understands that the clones’ minds are controlled — I forget if this is before or after she figures out exactly what happened with the chip, but she certainly knows this is not the clones acting as who they want to be.
And you’d think on some level she’d be like, no, these are my friends, it’s not their fault, I can’t release Maul on them. But she also knows she has to survive, and that even though it’s not their fault, she’s going to let Maul go and do what he does, because she has to do what she has to do to help the bigger picture. That’s the right thing to do. It ain’t the Jedi thing to do.
Erin
Yeah. I mean, the truly righteous thing to do would just be to leave — and everyone dies. But also, the whole point was that she couldn’t leave. That’s why she went to Maul, because the clones were locking down the hangars.
Matthew
Exactly. And Maul does wind up escaping. Ahsoka actually shows some of her strongest Force power ever — she’s able to hold on to his shuttle as it’s trying to get away. But he does escape. And then there’s more great stuff that happens with her and the clones. Again, watch those last four episodes. But that’s pretty much where we end Maul’s story — with the Shadow Collective having fallen apart entirely, with him having been this Cassandra who tried to warn everyone of what’s happening but no one listened to him.
And that’s where he is. Go ahead —
Erin
Who’s Cassandra?
Matthew
Oh, sorry! No worries. Cassandra is a figure from Greek mythology who was cursed to always know the future but to never be believed.
Erin
Yeah, I agree — he is a Cassandra. The first time you said it, I let it slide. I was like, maybe it’s from a TV show. But then you said it again and I needed to know. So thank you. There you go.
Matthew
So talk more about what you think is going on with Maul as this show is going to start.
Erin
I can never quite get a read on that guy. My best guess is that he’s tried so many times, but now the Republic is gone, Sidious is out there, and you really can’t do anything about that at this point. It’s been proved to him over and over again. You can’t touch that. So I feel like he’s probably going to start over, just build from the ground up. And we know in the future that he will be some kind of crime boss again. We know through the trailers for Maul: Shadow Lord — have you seen the trailer yet? Okay — we know through that that he takes on another apprentice. So he’s still very much following the master-apprentice patterns he grew up with and lived by. But part of me just feels bad for the guy. He’s had to start over like five times.
Matthew
He’s had it rough. He’s not a good guy. But part of that, I think, is because — and this is something I hadn’t fully thought about until I was putting pieces together for this episode — the actor who played him in the movie: is it Roy Park or Ray Park? Ray Park. Ray Park was an incredible martial artist and was the person they used for all the combat scenes. They were going to have someone else do the voice. They wound up having him do the voice. He’s turned out to not be a great person — there’s a whole bunch of stuff about that.
But most of the acting we’ve gotten from Maul, and a lot more of the real emotional depth of the character, has happened in the animated shows, where Sam Witwer has been his voice. And Sam Witwer will again be the voice of Maul in this show. Talk about what Sam Witwer has done for this character.
Erin
Well, he really took Maul from being the mysterious, says-one-line-in-a-movie character to being — in a funny way — one of the most certified yappers I’ve ever seen. This man loves to talk. But more seriously, he brings so much depth to the character. We see that Darth Maul has gone through a lot, but he’s learned from it. He is intelligent — actually very intelligent. And he speaks almost with this dialect of holier-than-thou. He refers to people with these almost formal epithets, like things dripping in condescension and I-am-better-than-you. And it’s just great. I could listen to Maul’s voice when Sam Witwer is doing it all day. It’s chef’s kiss.
Matthew
Witwer, thank you. And he is so good at it. I think he probably more than anyone else in this universe loves the character. He doesn’t make any bones about it — Maul is a villain, he’s a terrible person. But he understands his pain, he understands where he’s coming from, and he wants to make him a sympathetic villain, or at least an understandable one. If you go on YouTube, there are some great interviews with him where he goes into incredible detail about key parts of Maul’s life, including some moments in the Rebels TV show that we’re not going to get into, because while it’s been out for about ten years, it’s still technically a spoiler if you’re coming in at this point in the story. But everything Sam has done — I think he is one of the leading forces behind making this character one of the most popular in Star Wars right now. I don’t think there’s any way people are this excited about a Maul show if we didn’t have Sam Witwer doing his voice and campaigning for this character for so long.
Erin
Oh, yeah, absolutely not. Maul throughout all of The Clone Wars — we wouldn’t have Maul as he is without Sam Witwer. And you can’t speak to what didn’t happen, but it seems like Sam Witwer was better suited than most others would have been for this role — not that other people aren’t talented, but he seems to connect to this character in a personal and realistic way, which is so important for a voice performance.
Not all voice actors do that. So I think we’re really lucky that we got him. And I’m excited — I’ll say this — I’m really excited for the people who have only seen the Ray Park version and are now going to watch Sam Witwer perform Maul. Because the character is so well fleshed out. He’s so realistic, really. He’s a very realistic and relatable character — aside from the mass murdering, but the traumas and the way he carries himself, the way he plots and plans and tries to protect himself — he’s just trying to get to a good place.
Matthew
And at this point, I hadn’t really thought about this much until I was putting all these pieces together for this episode. He has really had two things animating his life ever since The Phantom Menace: one was defeating Kenobi and killing Kenobi — and more importantly, Kenobi knowing that it was Maul who did it. Think of that — like, tell Cersei I want her to know it was me. Maul wants to be the one to do it and wants Obi-Wan to know it. And then also stopping Sidious and stopping Anakin. And the second one is now gone. Sidious has taken over. The Republic is gone. The Sith are in control.
And as far as Maul knows — and we know that by the end of the show this is still the case, because of what happens later in Rebels — he thinks Obi-Wan is dead. Think of Inigo Montoya: I’ve been in the revenge business so long, I don’t know what to do with myself now.
That’s heartbreaking. Maul can’t become the Dread Pirate Roberts. What is he going to do? I hope that’s going to be part of what they wrestle with — how does he feel when his ancient enemy is dead, but his other ancient enemy was probably part of killing him? I imagine he’s going to feel really unsatisfied. Great story.
Erin
It’s interesting. I never quite put it together — I’m not all that familiar with Rebels, I’ve only seen it once — so I didn’t fully put together that he didn’t know Kenobi was alive. Of course he thinks Kenobi is dead. All the Jedi just got killed.
Matthew
Yeah. Even with his sort of future sight. And mild spoilers, but there’s a moment in Rebels where he learns that Kenobi is still alive, and he’s deeply shocked. And that’s fifteen years after where this show is going to take place. So we know that’s not going to happen in Maul: Shadow Lord — fingers crossed they hold the continuity, which would be crazy to break. They wouldn’t.
Erin
They follow the lore. They wouldn’t do it to us. They wouldn’t do it to us. So yeah.
Matthew
Yeah, we’ll see. So that’s everything we know going into it. We know that within a couple of years after the show, he’s the head of Crimson Dawn. So this show might be about how he becomes the head of Crimson Dawn. It might be about him still trying to take down the Empire somehow. I have no idea.
I think the show is going to flesh out another part of the story that we haven’t seen. It’s a time that hasn’t really been explored much in terms of what’s happening with the dark side and what’s happening with the criminal underground.
Erin
And I absolutely love an ambiguous upcoming release. I have a friend who loves movies but very much will just go off the trailer. She was like, the trailer didn’t look super interesting — what’s the movie even about? Why would I watch that? And she was actually very critical of the Mando and Grogu trailer.
And I was like, I’m going to hold my tongue and not eviscerate you right now, because she’s not a big Star Wars fan. But I love that. I love these trailers. I think Mando and Grogu and this show, especially, do such a good job of showing things that get you excited without really giving away the bigger plot. And I think that’s the best way to tell a story.
Matthew
Yeah, I think so too. There’s one more piece of information that’s come out. The Star Wars: Shadow of Maul comic series began releasing earlier this month.
I haven’t gotten my hands on a copy yet, but I’m going to. And either me, or me and Erin, or me and Alex, or some combination of all of us are going to spend at least a few minutes talking about that as well. That may get added onto this episode as an addendum, since we’re recording this a week before it goes live — or it might be its own episode. But we’ll definitely cover it.
And then I think we’re going to be fully dialed in for coverage of the Maul show. And I will say, Alex has one of those silly things called a — what’s it that people do? A job?
Erin
A J-O-B, yes.
Matthew
Works regular hours. Very silly. But the point being, he can’t record on quite the same schedule on weekends. But the episodes are going to come out Monday evenings. Erin and I are going to record Tuesday mornings. Hopefully we’ll get those episodes to you on Wednesdays, so you’ll have that instant reaction from the two of us. And then we’re probably going to do a second episode later in the week that’s often going to be me talking to Alex, or talking to other people, with Erin joining when she can.
So we’re going to have so much more coverage for you. Please make sure to subscribe to this podcast and tell your friends about it. You can join our Discord — which is a great place to talk about things. You can email us. We’re going to be taking a lot of live audience feedback. We’re always going to be recording at the same time, and I’ll announce that so you can join us live. We are recording as a stream on YouTube, so you could ask us questions live, or you can email us questions. Send them to matthew@TheEthicalPanda.com. We’ll get it that way.
All that information is in the show notes. So please be part of the conversation. Please tell your friends to be part of the conversation. And most importantly — we have spoken.
Erin
At last, we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At last, we will have revenge.
