Lit The Official StarWars.com Blog Thread - That's right, I went there

a Force users who is a musician


A sith playing the piano

 

Gamiel: I wonder how that instrument works, since I don't see any strings on it.
I never knew Weird Al did a Star Wars song.
I was thinking more along the lines of this for "Sith Lord piano duets"

 

Who says he was supposed to be that? That was the role he played in Episode I, but that doesn't mean there weren't more layers to his character that were unexplored. And what you're presenting is a false dilemma; you already have the best of both worlds. If you want to see him as a mindless attack dog, just watch Episode I. If you want to see him transcend that role and prove his worth as a Dark Lord of the Sith, watch TCW.

 

You can also read the EU produced around Episode I with him in that role. But it kind of diminishes what a "Sith Lord" is if they can be a prideful Terminator without any depth or ambition, which was essentially the EU's early take on the character. It's kind of implied by being a Sith Lord that Maul would have ambition because it's central to the selfishness of the Sith -- it's kind of ironic that people interpreted the movie which introduced the Rule of Two for the Sith as having an apprentice Sith who was all about selfless service to his master with no ambition to supplant him.

 

I think the reason that the EU made Maul "a Terminator" is his lack of dialogue. The EU thought that no dialogue = no personality, desires, ambitions, etc.

 

Darth Maul's ambition is irrelevant, since it was simply never realized, because he died before he could properly demonstrate such ambition.

 

Do go on....

 

Can he be a Terminator with depth? I'm for Maul having depth, but I wouldn't dismiss the "Sith Terminator" role he played early on. If every Sith has to be a manipulator working to off his master right away, isn't that a little homogenous? I think it's a little more interesting to play with the concept of a Sith drilled in loyalty to his Master, with the dueling understanding that he has to surpass his Master but also serve him, to play with the idea that, at this early stage in his development as a Sith Lord, Maul is content to remain the loyal assistant while he learns and grows, and is putting off making his move until later. I think that's interesting, and it's probably more realistic, and more to Maul's credit, than having every twentysomething Sith upstart thinking they're going to knock off their Master tomorrow if they can just get the right plan together. I like the idea of Maul as the guy who's content with the current arrangement, knowing that someday the time to make his move will eventually come, and it'll be even better with his contentment to camouflage it.

I agree that there has to be that depth underlying the character, because Maul as pure servile attack dog makes him too thin a character and doesn't do justice to the Sith . . . but I think that the Terminator, the attack dog, is an interesting and unique archetype that's worth playing with rather than throwing away in the name of a "complexity" that renders all Sith ultimately interchangeable variations on the same type. So "he's the Terminator now, but someday . . ." works for me, and I think that's honestly the tack the EU tended to take when it got into him with any depth; it's just that a lot of material skimmed more along the surface, where it couldn't really say anything about him one way or the other.

 

It seems to have tangents and maybe it also is projecting a magnetic field around the sound hole that Tionne is caressing, like a theremin, or it could be that the artist forgot to give it strings

 

I think this is basically what he ended up being, thanks to TCW. Maul only started plotting against Palpatine in earnest when he rose from the grave and discovered he'd been replaced and the Clone War had started without him. It's one of the ways the TCW arc used Maul's apparent "death" to the advantage of the story.

 

http://starwarsblog.starwars.com/2014/03/26/this-is-podracing-sports-in-the-star-wars-galaxy-part-1/

 

Interesting article.


......but have there never been any starship races in star wars? It seems a basic enough sci-fi idea that it should have popped up somewhere in the 20/30 years that the franchise has been around.

 

The Blockade Runners' Derby on Ord Mantell springs to mind. We also have belt-runner races at Lando's Folly. I imagine asteroid field races are pretty common in other places too.

 

Messiah did the EU steal your lunch money when you were a kid bro?

Maul was basically taught to be a living weapon in the EU, of course Sidious wasn't going to keep him around forever, if he survived he'd swap him with Anakin same way he did Dooku and no difference would happen.
This contradicts absolutely nothing and your just digging for things to blame the EU for.

 

Han & Salla were running the Kessel Run together as a race a few times, in Crispin's Han Solo Trilogy.

That's more "informal racing" though.

 

One of the ships the New Republic used to chase the Teljkon vagabond was a converted "racer".

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Prinawe_racer

 

There's a starship race mentioned in an old WEG sourcebook -- I remember it was one of the particular challenges in making Atlas systems fit together.

 

I shudder to imagine what TCW must have done to you as a kid. I'm so sorry.

 

Great stuff.
I wonder if there's such thing as a Galactic Olympics? The disparity between different sentient species would be a problem though.

 

Palpatine pole vaulting?