Solo The Darth Maul Cameo

If SOLO's numbers are that crucial for a decision to go on or to stop, in the latter case giving us Maul/Qi'ra via a Panini comic drawn by Michael Atiyah, then I'm seriously asking myself how RotS did it even make on screen, while the numbers of AotC were that bad?

SOLO seems to be the first part of at least a duology. And who says A should say B too.

 

I'm just saying that the number of people who will buy Rebels box-sets will be very small indeed (partly because the animation doesn't age well). Killing Maul on the big screen in an epic lightsaber duel would be far more profitable than contorting the story around a cartoon that ran a couple years ago. Who wouldn't want to see Maul vs. Vader or Maul vs. Obi-Wan round two?

I think people here tend to miss that if you end Maul's saga with him stranded on Dathomir that would still be a loose end when it comes to the GA.

But what do I know? I thought they would treat Luke Skywalker with respect and here we are.

 

We already know where Han Solo ends up. We already know where Obi-Wan ends up when there will be a spin-off for him. What kind of criticism is that?

 

That’s like saying we should never have stories about Han, Luke and so many other characters just because we know they are dead.

 

When they make so many spin-offs now for the time between RotS and ANH, somehow linked to each other, this would even give us a kind of continuation, we still do miss in that period.

 

That isn't what I meant.

 

What ya' mean? Of course there is a universe for the Star Wars movies! It's just another galaxy far, far away...

 

LFL after the disappointing box office results

 

Well, I see that Maul is a very antagonizing and polarizing character. Fortunately the General Audience doesn't consist of overagitating Maul-haters only. And LFL knows about this and will pave the way for further exploration of the Mauliverse.

 

I am and plenty of people were confused by the timeline of R1 before the movie, when they were watching it and afterwards until they figured it out by various means and Maul is no different.

I don't see why the one is able for them to be understood and the other impossible. It isn't.

Yet that would still pale in comparison to the already established Maul.

The people who have the biggest hang-ups about so many things are the dedicated fans themselves who for some reason worry about how confused the casuals fans and regulars will be. They aren't really worried about it.

Now does that mean that the makers of the movie shouldn't be working things in the story properly? Of course not. They shouldn't be taking advantage of that situation.

In the case of Maul it does work in the story because that story was told and so it all lines up very well.

 

@Blackhole E Snoke,
I am dazed and confused. Is it a difference if somebody is killed in pre- or past SOLO times, pre- or past RotJ times, when in the end it is all past?

And no, Maul was not killed in the past before SOLO times, but 8-10 years afterwards in Rebels.

And, @Qui-Riv-Brid, regarding Boba Fett there are several EU-legends letting him alive for a very long time (even until the Yuuzhan Vong invasion). There is no officially confirmed death of Boba Fett yet to be seen at Wookieepedia. And when Fett can do survive a dramatic fall, Maul can too.

Who sais that the box office results were low because of Maul? Who sais they wouldn't have been even lower without the red Zabrak?

 

Now you are confusing me, are we talking about the same thing? I'm saying that Vader died and has stayed dead. As in no story set after ROTJ has Vader alive. Likewise no story set before ROTJ has Vader being dead.

Maul died in TPM. Lucas had him sliced in half on purpose to press home that fact. Yeah like typical George Lucas he changed his mind for TCW, but still that didn't effect the watching of the movies themselves and the stories there. But now SOLO movie is here and Maul is alive. TPM is set before SOLO, he was dead and then he was alive. Only explanation in the movie - "Look, Robotic legs". That is just really bad storytelling, no getting around that.

Same goes for if a future movie set after ROTJ used Boba Fett. If he just turned up and his armour was a little more scratched up and acid burnt just to show he had been in the Sarlac and got out with no other explanation in the movie.

Cross media canon is a nice thing but it should never be to a detriment of the single story being told in that single media. Take the New Jedi Order series of novels in legends for example. You weren't expected to have read all the previous books when say reading Star by Star. If anything important happened in a previous book that was relevant to the story, it was explained again.

 

Hmmm @Blackhole E Snoke,

I see your point to be confused that a character you deemed dead is still alive. I wonder what you would say, when such a resurrection would hit a character you are more into, would you really mind?

The more films, books and series you have, the bigger is the tempation to alter tiny things or to retcon bigger issues like is the survival of Maul.

For you mentioned the no-go for a post-RotJ-Vader: Anakin/Vader is to be seen in six movies, not to mention TCW, Rebels, a lot of comics and books to flesh out his character to the brim. So one can say that his story is outlined and dived in to the full. What was not the case with Maul. He first died at TPM after a few scenes only but left a huge impression on the GA. Many people wanted to see more of him. George Lucas fulfilled their wish. When the same will happen to Boba Fett in the future, I wouldn't mind but say: Lucky guy, you are!

 

Nah, actual general audience fan reaction and LFL was this:


Maul , is universally thought to be one of the best parts in the Solo film, if not thee best part of the film according to quite a few news headlines and websites. He's certainly the one of most talked about , which is good publicity and will be good going into celebration 2019 & beyond.

If one hasn't bothered about TCW, SOD or Rebels, then that is more a problem with specific certain type of audience member or critic . Same goes if someone actually thinks Solo is before TPM or after Rogue One,lol. Star Wars is fantasy fiction, that means characters can return from the dead, some already have, it also means time travel, and special god-like powers. Star Wars always told prequel stories since the early days of the EU . TCW was not the first to bring Maul back from the (unconfirmed)dead, it was done a few times in the EU and was attempted for an early TFU concept. Maul is a much loved and fan favorite character and Ray Park does a lot of good for the community and for the brand for many years now, so if anyone should've been "brought back from the dead", then its Park's Maul.

 

except how do you do that? how does someone come back from the dead? not in comics where anything dumb is possible(but hasn't always been and has gotten rediculous even in comics a couple decades ago). not in soap operas where they kill someone off because the actor wants to leave. Star Wars has never been about 'magic'. No the Force isn't even 'magic'. No one has come back from the dead before, with far less injury. Getting cut in half and falling about 300 feet and probably landing on his head. yeah that isn't doable. (oh and that's not even getting into how he got off Naboo. I suppose he crawled to a ship and escaped without anyone noticing right) If he's alive nothing really matters and anything can happen at any point and Star Wars just becomes another dumb b-movie story.

 

A clear setup for an obi wan/maul dynamic for the forthcoming obi wan film

 

How can that work without retconning Rebels? Correct me if I'm wrong (I only watched it once) Maul found Obi Wan by using Ezra, and then Maul died when he attacked Obi Wan. Where is there any room for Maul to be in a whole movie with Kenobi?

@Vorax you are talking as if the old EU was as fully canon as the movies. It was not. Maul is the first character ever in Star Wars to cheat death in top level canon.

 

Well, it has been since The Clone Wars. It had literal witches, invisibility potions, body transmutation, zombies and long-distance curses channeled through a lock of hair. The Nightsisters dealt a terrible blow to the idea that Star Wars was in any way science-fiction.

Well, there is that one guy from Dark Forces II who was cut in half, much like Maul, in the opening cut-scene of the game... and yet, we still had to fight his floating torso as a boss later on!

Well, the story, as told in the short comic Sith Hunters, is that he managed to slow his fall and landed into a garbage chute. Hence why he ends up on a literal garbage bin of a planet and spends more than a decade there in a feral state.

It's technically possible, people have made that argument, but I really hope it won't happen. Twin Suns wouldn't be as good if Maul and Obi-Wan had another big confrontation after The Lawless.

 

Dark Forces II

really?

 

I was delighted to see him, but casual fans who did not know he survived TPM may be confused. One casual fan I talked to was confused about the timeline because he thought Maul's presence meant Solo was pre TPM. I wonder how many casuals came to that same conclusion.

 

The problem with bringing characters "back from the dead", especially in the case of Darth Maul who was clearly mortally wounded in TPM, is that you remove all sense of peril and consequence for characters. If they can just be "brought back with robot legs" (despite being severed through the torso) then you may as well bring any and all dead characters back. Snoke can come back now based on current lore, because being severed in half isn't apparently fatal. Bring back Han, he can come back. He survived the fall and being impaled through the stomach. Same for the Emperor, or Count Dooku. They can just stitch his head back on and get some CGI in to recreate Christopher Lee.

I think it is a rocky road to travel down. Sure, Star Wars is science-fantasy-fiction, but to tell good stories and have characters that we can care about and feel anxious about their fates, their fictional peril must feel realistic, and final.

 

Please consider that Maul, despite being the only resurrected character from the current canon, is also dead before A New Hope in the current canon. And this time, I think it will stick : he's had his time in the limelight, we've gotten that marvelous contrast between his selfish stagnation in the Dark Side and Obi-Wan's selfless enlightenement and he died (somewhat) at peace. Plus, apparently Obi-Wan burned his body this time.

What?

 

Let's just hope Obi-Wan has learned to finish the job this time...

 

How does Maul work in terms of the rule of 2 (siths)? Dooku can be classified as a fallen Jedi but Maul is mentioned to be a sith in TPM as far as I can remember.

 

The difference between Snoke is that we've seen his motionless body on the floor. We didn't exactly see what happened to Maul's body after the fall. So it's open to other possibilities.