Was bringing back Maul a good idea?

Those bastards!

 

Someone a while back compared Maul in TPM to essentially filling the role of a "dragon." And I feel that is an apt comparison. Sidious is the mastermind villain - the evil sorcerer. And Maul is his evil dragon sent to capture the queen. He said a handful of lines and pretty much just served as the beast for the heroic knights to fight. Hiss whole purpose was to pretty much just look cool and pose a challenge for the heroes to overcome. He need not have any further development than that. In TCW Lucas gets the idea to bring him back and develop him into something more. But I am going to assume that only a fraction of the millions of people around the world that have seen the films have seen TCW - in my personal life I don't know a single person that watches TCW other than myself, though the majority have at least seen some of the films, even if they didn't like them.

I don't think it can be assumed that everyone is going to know what happened in TCW and how Maul got brought back and how he had been developed. So if Episode VII were going to build upon TCW, they would have to recap all of this which would just be awkward to bring the audience up to speed on why Maul is still alive (Spider-Maul held together by Force and garbage )

I think the prevailing perspective is that you would see Maul alive in Episode 1, he will never be mentioned again from episodes 2-6, many people are going to have no knowledge of TCW, and then he just shows up again in Episode 7?

I highly, highly, highly doubt that will ever happen.

 

Durge could fit the role of Maul very well, with less retcon and inconsistency.

 

Maul is "the dragon" who wants to be the "Dragon Master", which is appropriate for the Sith. The Master holds power and the Apprentice seeks it. If the Apprentice becomes good enough to take the Master's place, he kills the Master and does so. This is implicit and understood by all who walk the path of the Sith.

As Darth Talon once put it to an apprentice who asked what happened if he became more powerful than she, she replied "Then you kill me, and I die happy knowing I taught you well."

 

The recent "New Force Powers & Other Force Feats in The Clone Wars" thread got me thinking that Sidious's plans for Maul were tied to his foiled plans in the episode Children of the Force:

 

I definitely don't want Darth Sidious or Darth Maul in the ST.

 

I voted No.

Maul coming back - not massively believable, but I guess it can fit with the greater Star Wars universe (heck, Maul wasn't even the first). And obviously there was potential for stories (as the Mauldalorians arc demonstrated).

But the big thing that makes it a no go for me?

Obi-Wan doesn't learn.

Obi-Wan chops Maul in half. Maul then falls down a really long shaft. And yet, Maul is able to return from almost certain death, now half-machine. Obi-Wan encounters him. Knows he isn't dead. The lesson here is: Sith are really, really difficult to kill. Decapitation is probably the only safe bet.

And yet Obi-Wan leaves Vader limbless but alive on Mustafar.

Now Obi-Wan looks like a massive idiot for letting Anakin live. Some may say he already was, but at least you could read into that moment that Obi-Wan still cared too much about Anakin to actually kill him, and yet was so angry he wanted him to suffer (quite a deep emotional vibe, I think). Post-TCW, Obi-Wan is a tool, and the mechno-Vader we all know and love should come as no surprise to him.

I mean, compounded on this, TCW doesn't use Maul to his full potential. Here's a guy who was in on all Sidious's dealings, completely aware of his secret identity. He should be able to cause major havoc on the political scene. Plus, there's the barely-touched aspect of Obi-Wan's feelings about the guy who killed his master, who he should have killed, thought he had killed. He should have (a) a misplaced sense of guilt, now that Maul is committing new atrocities, and (b) an overwhelming need to take him out once and for all, bordering on the dark side.

Perhaps an alternative would have been to have a Maul copy - a clone, Nightsister doppelgänger, whatever. I mean, this would be kept from the audience. Savage finds Maul, they team up, Obi-Wan gets word and has various feelings. We get the "Maul forms his own faction" story, and all the while Palpatine is nervous that Maul could reveal everything. Then when Palpy actually confronts Maul, he discovers it isn't his old apprentice, and takes him for his own purposes.

The reason for the plot - I guess it could be one of Mother Talzin's schemes, preferably tying in to some brilliant season-spanning arc that everyone loves.

Yeah, OK, this is starting to sound a bit crazy. But it's late here, and I just lost an hour. Sue me.

 

I liked the idea at first. I just hoped he and his brother would be around longer, because they could have done so much more with them.

Ah, well.

 

Yes you do...

 

You think this is Roger Rabbit or something? No he doesn't and I don't either. =/

 

Palpatine's prophets did make a doppelgänger of Maul.

 

I also say no to Maul doppelgangers in the ST.

 

This would be the perfect villain for ST.

 

Was bringing back Maul a good idea?

At the time, yes. In hindsight, no.

 

Lol you will see if he comes back he will be BOSS as usual...can't go wrong with maul

 

Maul was brought up on mustafar

in wrath of darth maul or darth plageuis maul is handed to palpatine by a nightsister who wants maul hidden from mother talzin and is bought up on mustafar by a spider type droid who tortures and trains the infant maul.
both books are tied into each other and you need to read both.

 

Getting forced into the sun is a hard thing to come back from :b

 

That's just one comic and it already got retconned by TCW a lot, we could just push the time to 19BBY.
And he did come back in SWG I remember, not fully recovered though.

 

I'd be fine with it--one of the few things that really disappointed me about TCW was the lack of Durge.

 

Durge is too much of a proto-Greivous to be a good fit in TCW

 

I swear to God, if Sidious comes back...

I mean, you may as well retroactively destroy the goal of the six film saga, amiright?

 

yeah, it is fun

 

I don't think ST should have Maul or Sidious, their stories are over, but why did you dislike Thrawn?