PT Darth Maul: The dark side of expectations

One complaint I have seen about the prequels is that Maul was killed too soon and should have been an overarching villain of the trilogy. But where does this sentiment come from? I believe people had expectations based on his name, that he would be like Darth Vader in the OT. And to be fair, he was quite significantly featured in the marketing campaign, maybe leading people to believe he would have a bigger role. But so was Boba Fett, who was also a minor villain despite his huge popularity. Before The Clone Wars brought him back, Maul was essentially the final boss of the first film, like Lurtz in Fellowship of the Ring. An underling and lieutenant of the major villain. Palpatine is the overarching villain of the prequels. I personally like that Lucas chose to have a different secondary villain in each prequel film.

 

can't say I missed him, but he does seem to be a fan favorite.

 

Well....

Maul was a VERY cool looking character, who was heavily featured in the promo materials and such (hey, maybe my mind is playing tricks on me, but my memory is that when I saw the first preview for Phantom Menace in the theaters, that had Maul igniting his DOUBLE BLADED LIGHTSABER!!!!!! there was an audible gasp/wow/reaction from the theater audience), so yeah, people were super psyched to see him in the movie and expected he'd be a character of significance. I remember buying two T shirts before the movie came out -- one featured Qui-Gonn and Obi-Wan dueling Maul (message: this guy is such a bad-@ss that he can take on TWO Jedi!) and one that featured just Maul. He was a big part of the pre-movie hype. A big part.

And then in the movie - and hey, your reactions may vary - he was indeed a very cool bad-@ss. He didn't say much but that just made him MORE mysterious. His fight with Qui-Gonn on Tatooine, brief as it was, was very cool, and then when he faces Qui-Gonn and Obi-Wan, cooly lowers that hood, and ignites that double bladed saber? WOW. To say nothing of the fight itself, him pacing behind the "force field", etc. In general, audiences loved him, loved that, and then................

It's funny you mention Boba Fett, as there ARE similarities there. Boba Fett was made to look so cool in EMPIRE and at least in my circle folks were hopeful that we'd get to see more of him in ROTJ, and then when we did, they had him go out like a punk. It almost felt like a deliberate "screw you" to that element of the fan base, like "you're not supposed to make such a big deal of this guy" thing.

To me, if those behind a movie promote a character heavily before the movie comes out, they really can't be surprised if people have high expectations for the character, and in most ways I think it is a compliment that the fan base actually wants more. If you push Maul, or Phasma, heavily, you can't really be surprised if people go "Wait, that's it?" if the character isn't really that big a deal, or isn't especially formidable, or if the character is perceived as being a "let down". And in the case of Boba Fett - if you "get lucky" and catch lightning in a bottle with a character, you again (IMHO) can't really suggest that fans are "wrong" to want more of a character.

 

For me, the look of Darth Maul is creative and intimidating. The dual bladed lightsaber added that extra layer to a dark and powerful presence already established by his outward physical appearance. His inclusion in the trailers and promo materials generated a lot of excitement for me because he came across as fearless and imposing. I felt like he was going to be great villain. It was a disappointment for me when he was killed off so quickly. He was different from the human male Sith lords we'd only seen up to that point and then Lucas replaced him with an old man whose entire character was boring IMO. He had no creative aspects (sorry but his lightsaber wasn't impressive) and his demeanor wasn't as awe inspiring compared to staring down the black and red horn headed Maul. Ray Park's athleticism during the fight with Qui Gon and Obi Wan was amazing.

Grievous was another interesting looking character but still didn't have the menacing features that Maul did. The character trait of killing Jedi and collecting their lightsabers was cool but he just didn't inspire the dread that accompanied the design of Darth Maul.

In Star Wars I like my dark side characters to look bad ass and Dooku wasn't it.

 

I think that's not exactly a mystery. It's a visually striking, cool looking character. But there's a difference between simply wanting more of a character and pretending that it's a flaw of a movie not to have said character, or having said character killed. The latter is ridiculous, since that's completely missing the point that the purpose of the movies is to tell a certain story (a decades old story in the case of the prequels), not having a certain character on tap.

 

I like the fact Maul 'died' for the simple reason it showed the bad guys don't always win in the PT.

I think the opposite

Without the'death' of Maul, we wouldn't have had the most charismatic villain in the PT (well charismatic in AOTC anyway)

 

Was Boba Fett marketed as heavily as Maul was? Did he appear a lot in the trailers, was his image given very prominent placing in posters for ESB?
Not really.
Maul however was.



Maul is in the background but big and overshadowing, kind of like how Vader is in the posters for ANH and ESB.
Not so subtly saying "This is the Darth Vader of TPM."

Boba Fett got popular after the film, Maul was pushed by the marketing of the film.

Your comment that Maul is like Lurtz in Fellowship I think is apt.
What was Lurtz function? Kill Boromir so that his death was not at the hands of a bunch of orcs with no name but someone more prominent. And someone for Aragorn to fight.
Was Lurtz promoted heavily or seen in lots of posters? Again, not really.

Maul serves much the same function, look evil, kill Qui-Gon and be someone that Obi-Wan fights and kills(defeats).
To me, Maul was lacking. He looked cool and fought well but that was all there was to him. He was all surface, no depth. He had very little dialogue and even less character.
He was just, BAD GUY.
And to me, memorable villains are a bit more than just Bad Guy!

Having disposable villains in all three PT films, while I can see why, I find a bit unsatisfying.
They are just there and then get killed off and we move on to the next one.
In the first Ghost Rider film, the main villain has three henchmen, look pretty cool but that is all there was to them. And Ghost Rider takes them out with little effort.

You have three films, develop the villains a bit. Or at least make them seem a credible threat.
Maul had killed zero people before the big fight at the end of TPM. Griev killed no one in the film.
Dooku was a bit more of a threat, he beat Obi-Wan and Anakin with ease and then fought Yoda for a bit and while he could not beat Yoda, he did got away so that was a win for him. But then RotS killed him off. Shame because he was a villain I wanted to see more off. Maul and Griev were not interesting.

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

I'll forever recite Lucas's direction to Peter Serafinowicz as an indicator of how much Maul really meant to the overall narrative

"Sound evil"

And hey, he sounded evil! Looks it too

As much as people talk about Maul/Dooku/Grievous representing aspects of Vader (and I'm not saying they don't), I think Lucas's inspiration is more of those 50s serials. Much like how fans in 1977 were left with the cliffhanger of "The cool villain survived, he'll be back!", the PT instead gives us essentially the opposite with the whole "villain of the week" formula. I think both approaches work, and both are exceptionally cheesy, and I frigging love that

Obviously, they have their pros and cons. You're not going to get much character development out of villains who only last one movie (or a movie and like five minutes of the next one), but you get more variety. Likewise, keeping a consistent villain around does allow for expansion of that character - I don't imagine many of us are complaining about the way Vader was handled in the OT - but it doesn't allow for that same variation, and that's instead fulfilled by the "minion" minor villains like Boba Fett

 

I always quite liked Maul's death for the way it leaves the heroes at a loose end in TPM. He's this terrifying assailant who swoops in out of nowhere to act as a massive shock to the Jedi, before promptly dying off before they can learn anything tangible. While Palpatine probably didn't plan it that way, Maul dying there made his mission all the more effective by robbing the Jedi of what they really want. I guess you could say it's implied that Palpatine learnt from this incident when training his later apprentice in Dooku (or Grievous) as paper tigers, tools to make a big impact and be discarded when necessary for the progress of his plans.

Maul has just the right amount of screentime in TPM to my mind, threatening and ominous, while hinting at something more a deeper legacy of Sith. He gets to expand from Vader and Sidious and create something of a template for the generic Sith ideal.

 

Well the Jedi still has leads to pursue after TPM. Like questioning Nute. They know he was working with the Sith. And Maul showing himself made the Jedi realize that the Sith were around despite them not sensing it. So they were alerted to the fact that the Force did not tell them all they thought it would.
Had Maul not shown himself, the Jedi would likely have gone on without a clue that the Sith were back.

Also, how was Maul threatening? Prior to the big fight, he had killed zero people. He had one fight with Qui-Gon that ended with Qui-Gon leaving.
The Arnold terminator in the first Terminator film is shown to be very deadly early on and very hard to hurt.
Same with the Predator or Agent Smith in the first Matrix film.

If you want Maul to be a one film bad guy ok, but make him a bigger threat. Ex, have him kill Qui-Gon on Tatooine. That would show that he is very deadly, it would give Obi-Wan something to deal with. He could be looking for some payback at the guy that killed his master. And the audience would know that Maul is not someone to be trifled with and can kill Jedi masters. Thus building tension.

Bye fot now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

Does he have to kill anyone to come off as threatening?

 

That is a very quick way to establish someone as a legit threat. Show that they are deadly and thus building tension, will the good guys survive this?

You can have them really trounce their opponents, that they beat them with ease and those in turn have to flee as not to die.

You can also show one character as very deadly and then have that person be terrified of their boss.
That would also work to establish this boss as very dangerous.
Ex Vader kneels to the Emperor in ESB, that does some work in setting up the Emperor. We have seen Vader's power and now here is someone that he kneels to and calls Master.

Maul has very little of this. He is in one short fight on Tatooine and while Qui-Gon gets away, it was not really him fleeing in terror. The Sith are not given much background, they are just bad guys. Had we had some dialogue where they say that to take down one sith normally required 5-6 Jedi. Then that would be something. But two Jedi was apparently enough to deal with Maul plus the TF army and blockade, protect Padme and look after a nine year old kid.
In all, not really making it look that this was something really dangerous.

Bye.
Old Stoneface

 

He feels threatening when he fights Qui-Gon on Tatooine. Qui-Gon is visibly tired after the fight and it’s clear he would have lost if he hadn’t escaped. And then he demonstrates exactly how threatening he is in the final fight when he kills Qui-Gon. I don’t think he needed to be built up more. People just want to add more to the story rather than what’s necessary

 

Also have you seen what Darth Maul looks like?

 

Which was a point made earlier, looks. Maul is all surface. Instead of having a villain act or do villainous things, they just make the guy look like the Devil. So Maul has not much character beyond, "Bad Guy."

But Qui-Gon goes back to Naboo because they think Maul will show up there. And Qui-Gon also has to protect Padme and take care of a nine year old kid. And he not only has Maul to deal with but all the TF forces on Naboo. And how much help does Qui-Gon get? One Jedi padawan. To deal with all that.
If Qui-Gon really thought that he barely got away with his life, why would he not tell the Jedi this?
"This dark warrior would have killed me if I had not gotten away. I might need help when facing him."
Either Qui-Gon is an idiot or he and the JC thinks this will be a walk in the park. Or both.

Them taking Anakin along really does not help to establish a great sense of danger or threat. They could have left him behind but didn't. So the film makes it look like they think this will be super easy and safe enough to bring a kid along.

If all Maul had to do was to look bad *** and kill Qui-Gon, ok but that is not really much.
You could accomplish the same with a wicked looking sword or gun that kills Qui-Gon.

As was said, Maul really is like Lutrz from Fellowship. An Uruk-Hai given a slight focus so Boromir isn't killed by some random orc and Aragorn has someone to fight.

Maul is a Sith and TPM is the first film that establishes them. But what do we learn?
Very little. They are thought to have been all wiped out 1000 years ago, the can use the Force and they want revenge on the Jedi for some reason that isn't explained. Even the film called "Revenge of the Sith" never says why the Sith want revenge. People speculate that the Jedi were the ones who almost wiped out the sith 1000 years ago but that is not made clear. And non-film sources say that the Sith wiped themselves out.
So basically, the Sith are just Bad Guys.

Bye.
Blackboard Monitor

 

The Sith might have devastated themselves, but (at least in the TPM novelization) what was left of the Sith after their infighting devastated them, was destroyed by the Jedi. Except for those that hid.

 

Look at it a different way. It’s not about Maul at all. Maul is there to make Obi-Wan look heroic and powerful. In the end that is what Maul does.

Maul’s character works in establishing the Sith in general while also not over shadowing Darth Vader. Obi-Wan being able to ‘kill’ Maul makes Dooku a greater threat in the next movie and affects perception of the Anakin vs Obi-Wan duel in Revenge of the Sith.

Not every piece in the Lego set is going to be 10 blocks long. To make the full model you need 5 block long pieces and 2 block long piece. In the Saga Maul is much more a detail character than a main character like Darth Sidious, Darth Vader, or Kylo Ren.

 

But the way Obi-Wan beats Maul did not make Obi-Wan look all that good. To me it made Maul look like an idiot. Maul defeated a Jedi Master but then lost to a Padawan. Yes he was overconfident and gloating. But still.

And how is Maul establishing the Sith in general? He can fight well and can use the Force. And he wants revenge on the Jedi for something.
That is basically "I am a criminal and I want revenge on the cops!"
Not all that much there.

It would make sense, in the scene that followed Qui-Gon escaping Maul, Obi-Wan and Anakin are introduced and there Qui-Gon says he thinks this could have been a Sith. Obi-Wan can object and say they are all dead and Anakin could ask what a Sith is. He would not know.
And Qui-Gon can give a brief history. The Sith used the Force to do evil and they and the Jedi fought each other over centuries. Eventually all the Sith were defeated and presumed killed in a big battle at Condawn.
There, would not take long and gives us some lore and world building.

To the OP's point, Maul was made prominent in the marketing, posters and trailers.
And yet there is not much to him. He is as you say, a detail.
But would people then not feel like the marketing was a bit misleading here?

Bye.
Blackboard Monitor

 

What’s that have to do with the story thou really? Other than a memory of those of us following this series 23 years it’s not part of Star Wars.

Did a marketing campaign mislead us or did we mislead ourselves? This the same series that introduced Boba Fett a year early in action figure and cartoon form before he shows up and has zero action scenes and like three lines in The Empire Strikes Back.

I suppose in a way Maul not living up to the fan hype in a way translates into him not fulfilling his Sith potential and being killed off. But that seems like a stretch.

I bet General Grievous has more screen time than Maul. Definitely more lines.

Most of Mual’s movie lines are in Solo. That must be such a head scratcher for anyone that didn’t watch The Clone Wars. Ha.

 

To you, maybe. To me, it seems like he fell to a similar mindset that the empire seem to typically fall to: arrogance.

Could Maul have been given more? Sure, I think so. Does that mean I think he needs to be? Not particularly. I think the movie gives what is necessary for the character's use in the movie.

 

Wait, are people really questioning Maul's villainy from what we saw in TPM?

 

Boba Fett was featured in the Holiday Special animated short, of course, similar to how Grievous was introduced and hyped up by the Clone Wars cartoon. So he is similar to Maul in that he was there to be a cool looking villain who mostly stood around silently next to the big bads and saw a bit of action before falling in a pit. The popularity that came to Boba after the movie caught Lucas off guard, so maybe he learned his lession and applied it to Maul, by featuring him prominently in advertising and merchandise despite his small role. But even Maul's popularity seems to have exceeded his expectations, since he later decided to bring him back despite at first being adamant that he died. Lucas had similar thoughts about Boba and almost added a scene to RotJ where he would crawl out of the pit. There's a lot of common ground between the two characters, and I think the fact that they were only bit players in a larger saga is what made them so popular in the first place. They are mysterious. Boba's resurrection in the recent series didn't go so well, with many people complaining that the much more verbose version seen in the series didn't feel like Boba anymore. It killed the mystery.

The serials definitely influenced everything Lucas did with the Star Wars films. Also, Lucas was smart not to upstage Vader. He kept things so it felt like the films work in numerical order, as if they were made in that order. The prequels build up to the situation seen in the originals. The issue of Palpatine finding the perfect apprentice is one of them. Each apprentice had an aspect of Vader, who is the full package. Similarly, it would have been easy for Lucas to create something like Starkiller Base in the prequels, but that would have ruined the stakes of the Death Star in the OT.

 

The OP talked about expectations. Marketing can build up expectations and that is part of the job of marketing. Get people interested in the film and want to go to see it.

So since Maul was given quite big push by the marketing and people expected quite a bit from him due to that. And then the film did not really do much with him.
Is that the fault of the audience if they felt a bit let down?

A complaint towards TFA is the marketing that showed Finn used a lightsaber. And people argue that it set up the idea that Fin would be Jedi material and the film did not have that. And TFA have been slammed for that. Misleading marketing.

The people making TFA had input on the marketing and Lucas certainly had input on marketing.

Maul to me is a good example where a character gets to hold an Idiot Ball in order for the plot to work.
He had shown himself to be fairly clever, by separating Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. Thus removing their two to one advantage. But then he has the upper hand and suddenly gets really stupid so Obi-Wan can jump over him and slice him in half.

The Holiday special? You mean the thing that Lucas has said that he would like to track down and smash every last bootleg copy? Not sure that Lucas wanted or expected much good will from that. I think he would rather people forget they saw it.

But Boba Fett in ESB is different from Maul in several ways. One, as I've said, Maul was marketed a lot more than Boba was.
But also their function in the plot is very different.
Boba is just a means to an end, to track the MF and so that Vader can capture them and then to bring Han to Jabba. Was Boba Fett the only one who could do that? Nope, any of the bounty hunters in ESB could do that. Dengar or IG-88 could have done the same thing.
Maul is needed for the latter half of the film to work.
If Maul was not in the film, what would happen? Everything up to and including Tatooine would be much the same. Padme and co would go to Coruscant, the senate does nothing, she calls for the vote and then decides to go back to Naboo. But would Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan go with her? Unlikely. They came with her because they though Maul would show. No Maul and Padme would be left to fend for herself. She likely would go back but would her plan work? No Anakin so the droid ship is not destroyed. And he destroys the destroyer droids that had Padme pinned down. But then again they would have left through the door that Maul entered through. So lets say that she get Nute and she can get him to stand the droid ship down and Naboo is freed. The Jedi would have no idea that the Sith were back. Qui-Gon would not be dead. Would they agree to train Anakin? Unclear as the Sith being back and Anakin being tied to a prophecy to destroy the Sith might have played a part in that.
So remove Maul and TPM changes a lot.
An other reason why Boba and Maul is not that comparable.
Boba Fett survives his first film, Maul does not. Until the retcon.
Boba Fett was alive at the end of ESB. And he was in RotJ. So Lucas could have been aware of the characters popularity and decided to put him in RotJ. That was not a given due to ESB.
Boba Fett was a bounty hunter, why would he hand out in Jabbas palace? he would be out looking for work or living well of the bounty he got for Han.
But he was there, possibly due to the character being popular and possibly because Lucas figured people might want Han to get some sort of revenge on the person that led to Vader capturing him.

Lastly, are they very mysterious? Boba Fett is a bounty hunter. That is it. He looks cool and he knows his trade. Anyone just watching the films would have no clue about Mandalorians or any of that stuff. He is a competent bounty hunter that is bold enough to stand up to Vader. Not much else.
Maul? Maul has little to no character and I found him uninteresting.
He is just Bad Guy! He looks evil so he is Bad Guy!

I have questions about the Sith in general, how did they get wiped out, what is the history between them and the Jedi and stuff like that. That is not much to do with Maul as a character.

In closing, I found both Maul and Griev to be subpar villains. Uninteresting, unengaging and while Maul had at least a good fight scene, Griev did not even have that.
Dooku had potential and an actor that I liked but he was killed off too soon.

If Lucas wanted underdeveloped, disposable side villains that is his choice.
To me it does not make it any better that it was intentional. "That is not a bug, that is a feature." is not a good excuse.

Bye.
Old Stoneface

 

That’s what the audience gets for preconceived notions. But that’s only a problem old head Star Wars fans have.

Even for casual viewers in 1999 you’d know who Darth Maul is from promotion for the movie but not have as much of preconceived notion. And viewers today won’t know that at all.

There are other characters who didn’t meet preconceived anticipation. Mace Windu gets a bigger payoff in later movies. Characters like Boba Fett and Captain Phazma also.

I think General Grevious is a secondary villian who lives up to his hype. Then again there are still people who don’t like that he doesn’t lineup with his portrayal in the 2D cartoon show.

 

Nice post. A few questions...

1. How old an "old head" Star Wars fan to you? The franchise has been around a long time now and fandom spans multiple generations.

2. Pre-conceived notions is a problem many Star Wars fans have.

Fans of all kinds came into the Prequels and the Sequels with preconceived notions. Hell, fans went into ESB and ROTJ with preconceived notions. This is not a new phenomena, nor is it one relegated to one age group.