Star Wars Is Resurrecting A Bizarre Deep-Cut Reference
Maul is getting a little nostalgic.
Star Wars fans will search anywhere and everywhere for spoilers, even among things that exist specifically to avoid spoilers, like working titles. Famously, Return of the Jedi was filmed under the name “Blue Harvest” to avoid undue attention, while Attack of the Clones was (ironically) called “Jar-Jar’s Great Adventure.” Now, a lesser-known working title is getting a second life. Maybe it’s just an Easter egg, but maybe there are some secret story implications at work.
Disney+ recently released the schedule and episode titles for the upcoming animated series Maul: Shadow Lord. Starting April 6, two episodes will be released per week until May 4, aka Star Wars Day. But the most interesting episode doesn’t come out then. It’s the week prior, April 27, that sees the arrival of episodes called “Call to the Oblivion” and “The Creeping Fear.”
“Call to the Oblivion” seems to be an original title, but “The Creeping Fear” may be familiar to Star Wars fans of a certain age. Imagine it’s 2004, and you’re still reeling from the events of Attack of the Clones. You know there’s one more movie between Anakin and Darth Vader, but you don't know what it will be called. In March 2004, Ain’t It Cool claimed to know the true title: The Creeping Fear.
Among other titles like Rise of the Empire and Birth of the Empire, The Creeping Fear became a popular option among fans. On April Fool’s Day 2004, “The Creeping Fear” was added to the official Star Wars website, which acknowledged the speculation while also debunking it.
Now, “The Creeping Fear” is back in a new context. In the prequel trilogy, “The Creeping Fear” referred to Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side. After all, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. But what could “The Creeping Fear” mean to Maul? It’s possible this could still be referring to the Dark Side by means of the Inquisitors, who are expected to play a major role in Shadow Lord (there’s even an episode called “Inquisition”).
Maul, of course, has already fallen to the Dark Side. Could he be undergoing another change, or does this say something about the series itself? “The Creeping Fear” is a reference to the deepest cuts of Star Wars canon, so this could be a series full of references to every nook and cranny in the fictional galaxy.
