If you’re still in danger of having your experience of The Phantom Menace spoiled, you probably don’t care about spoilers. If, however, all you know about Darth Maul is from the Phantom Menace, and you’ve never seen the episodes of The Clone Wars or Rebels that reference him, you may want to turn back now. This post is going to contain major spoilers.
From the moment his face first appeared in trailers, Darth Maul had Star Wars fans salivating for more. He was a great villain, and his portrayal on screen by Ray Park was outstanding. Even though I think some morality-laden back and forth between him and Qui Gon would have made Episode 1 better, I still see the beautify in his nearly wordless portrayal as it was. It made him like a tiger — all menace and no talking.
You’ve been warned. Here be spoilers! Avert your virgin eyes!
Precisely because Maul was such a great villain, many fans didn’t like it very much when Lucas killed him off after just one movie. Almost from the moment the first midnight showing ended, some fans began arguing online, creating theories about how he might have survived. Maul was flat out cool, and lots of people who like Star Wars wanted more of him. They didn’t want him to be gone so soon.
Rightly so. It was truly bad story telling for Lucas to kill him off in Episode 1. We should have been able to keep enjoying the clash between Obi Wan and Maul right up until midway through Episode 3, when Anakin killed him and became the new apprentice. Think how much more motivated Obi Wan as a character would have been if he had three films to pursue the man who killed his master?
So, in a major act of fan service, the Clone Wars brought Maul back. They devoted a multi-episode story arc to how he survived the fall, clung to life in the sewers from pure rage and the dark side of the force, until he could finally assemble cybernetic legs (not unheard of in star wars, every other character has an artificial hand). He became a major villain in the series, and then again in Rebels, until he finally died — apparently for good, in the third season.
Here’s my problem with that. Star Wars’ major problem is already it’s relatively low stakes for the main characters. Almost no one who gets onto the movie’s poster ever dies. When the few characters who do die start coming back to life, it cheapens the stakes even further. It’s hard to experience true suspense in a star wars movie because you know the major characters aren’t going to die. That’s one of the things the new trilogy is doing right. Major characters die, sometimes shockingly. But the thing is, in a world where Maul can survive being sliced in half and dropped down a bottomless pit, are we really sure Han Solo is gone?
Yes, we are, but mostly for out of character reasons. We know Harrison Ford wanted out. The fact is, in universe, it’s hard to believe that for sure.
So yes, I loved Maul too. And yes, I thought Lucas should not have killed him in just one film. But that being said, I think the folks at Lucas Arts should have just sucked it up, lived with George’s mistake, and made a new villain.