Star Wars' New Darth Maul Show Should Solve A Big Palpatine Mystery
The misunderstood apprentice is getting a new lease on life.
At this point in Star Wars’ history, only watching the movies only gives you half the story. If you watch Rogue One, Cassian Andor is already a grizzled spy. If you watch Andor too, then you get an entire backstory exploring his transition from self-centered opportunist to true Rebel believer.
There’s no better example of this disparity than Darth Maul. For movie fans, he’s the quiet villain who was sliced in half in The Phantom Menace. But for TV viewers, that’s only the beginning of his story. An upcoming show will not only flesh out this misunderstood character, but solve one of the biggest mysteries in Star Wars canon.
Maul duels Palpatine in The Clone Wars, yet never gives him up to the Jedi.
In Star Wars canon, Maul actually survived being bisected, and a visit to the mystical Nightsisters restored his legs. He then embarked on quite the saga on The Clone Wars: he took over the planet Mandalore, duelled Palpatine, and became a shadowy crime lord. He slowly came to see the threat Palpatine posed to the galaxy, and even foresaw Anakin’s fall to the dark side.
Yet despite encountering Jedi like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka Tano multiple times, he never told them Palpatine’s true identity as Darth Sidious. It’s something of a Clone Wars plot hole, but it won’t be for long. At Star Wars Celebration Japan, Lucasfilm announced Maul — Shadow Lord, an animated series following Maul as he rebuilds his crime network after the Empire’s rise.
Based on Shadow Lord’s font, Maul is ready to either rise to power or take up skateboarding.
Sam Witwer, Maul’s voice actor, told IGN the series will solve all the big mysteries behind Maul’s loyalties. “These are the types of questions that I have been asking for years, and in this show, we get to create stories about them,” he said. “I mean, not flashbacks – we don't literally tell these stories, but there are aspects of that character that have not been explored, traits that that character has that people wouldn't think he has, because he's different than Palpatine.”
It sounds like Shadow Lord will finally fill in all of the blanks in Maul’s story, although there’s still plenty of time to catch up on his story so far while we wait for it. You may not have known it, but he’s secretly one of the most interesting characters in canon.
