A/V Maul: Shadow Lord

Vos family reunions are really awkward.

"Boys, boys, stop fighting. Jedi and Crime Lord are both admirable professions, you don't have anything to prove."

 

Entertainment Weekly spoke to the movie producers and lucasfilm and seem to have gotten a rather definitive answer on the matter

https://ew.com/movies/2018/02/09/solo-a-star-wars-story-woody-harrelson-thandie-newton-paul-bettany/

 

So like Antilles

 

Vos is the Jones of Star Wars surnames

Antilles is the Smith of Star Wars surnames

There's a lot of 'em. Not all of them are related.

 

Of the various pitches I had heard of new series, I have to admit the Maul was probably my least favorite...but that is...whatever the opposite of "damning with faint praise" is - I am still very into this. Especially since I was pretty skeptical of the Bad Batch but loved that in the end.*

What really stands out to me about this show is that has a villain protagonist - and not even "hero turning to villain" like Acolyte or the Prequel Trilogy, nor a redemption story. I mean, sure there have been plenty of books and comics like that and a game or two, and individual episodes - including some of the best - but still, I find it fascinating that they are going to center a running series on a villainous character, who we know from other series starts and stays a villain throughout. Like, what kind of antagonists can they throw out to keep us rooting for Maul? Particularly since he and the Mandos face rolled the underworld pretty quickly back in TCW so can underworld threats be the main focus or will it be the empire? Or something more left field?

And the supporting cast and their relationships should be interesting to see. No endearing plucky kid and adopted soldier dad here...at least not without a very dark twist.

Should be fun to see.

Also on the note of supporting cast, fascinating to see Talon brought in like that.
-First thought was all "Wonder what the One Canon folks will do?" before quickly realizing it could easily be a clone, or long term carbon freeze, or just a simple name reuse.
-Really makes me think the sith war, whenever it gets depicted, is going to be more like Lucas' notes than the Legends depicitions of that war - I mean, if they are shifting Talon dramatically through time because of an off-hand comment from Lucas, at least from what I recall correct me if I am wrong, then a larger bit of Lucas world building is probably also important.
-Since Qira takes over Maul's operation later, it seems likely Talon won't make it in the long run...but then people said the same for Ahoska. And heck, Ventress was actually dead. So...yeah, wonder where her story will go.

*Also on the note of the Bad Batch, that took place in a similar time period and also featured the Underworld a bit, so I wonder if there will be any overlap - like say the Durand Syndicate, the Rhokai Gang, Ventress, or Cid.

For more out there cameos, might be fun to see Taron Malicos, since he does set up on Maul's homeworld and takes over a group of Maul's followers while Maul is still alive, Baylan Skull, since being a force using mercenary he would fit in with these events very well, or Morgan Elspeth who has a big gap between losing her family in the clone wars and her next appearance as a businesswoman and planetary leader when the empire is already well established.

Maul is all about Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss. Part of his cultural heritage.

 

Oh, right, Solo was a thing.

Well, I liked Dryden Vos, so he can join in with the Maul Mayhem. Does Qira become an interesting character in the expanded material? I recall her being a fairly stock Femme Fatale.

 

I love to see brutality of Dryden Vos the commics comment on during his rise post Clone Wars. Him and Maul as two girl bosses. Dryden jealous of Maul and Talon found his own apprentice in Qira

 

I would say so. I haven't read Crimson Climb, but I have heard good things about it, and she is definitely an interesting morally ambiguous mastermind in the Crimson Reign comics.

 

I... despised Crimson Climb so much I didn't even review it. I didn't want to be attacked by all the folks here who loved it. But good grief, that on top of Red Blade was just misery piled on depression. I get we want to have antiheroes once in a while, but lately the books have been learning hard into it.

My hope is this show might do something different. It will most certainly wallow in misery because that's Maul's middle name, but I'd like to see somebody climb out of the Dark Times pit. Not mantra-ing "hope hope hope" like the regular heroes, but actually doing something noble, and for someone besides themselves.

 

I think what has me the most incredulous is that while we’ve gotten villain-focused books and comics, that’s never really been the case for tv or film. So just from that level I’m very curious about how the show will play.

Certainly at this point there are no shortage of Bigger Bads for Maul to go up against- other criminal syndicates (Will this be the place we finally see Prince Xizor?), Imperials, Inquisitors, Vader etc…but perhaps they’ll humanise Maul a little bit more. There’s already glimmers of it across TCW and Rebels, so this could really expand on him.

 

It really has been to the two extremes in characters lately hasn't it? Man, they have over played the hope-mantra.

I'm curious what this show will be rated.

 

Maul's a great character because despite his obvious villainy, I'm always kinda rooting for him to get better. He got dealt a bum hand, is justifiably angry at the world for it, and just keeps digging himself deeper in search of revenge at/approval of his horrible father figure. He could be a Zuko, but he's just too angry to ever figure out any real way to heal, and every time he does try to reach out for connection, he's too poisoned by his baggage to ever get anything from it. Curious to see how they'll handle him in this, Witwer's performance is always stellar, and it's kind of fun going into this knowing Maul's not gonna get better.

 

Maul is a character where you can acknowledge that he's horrible yet can't help but admire his tenacity and perseverance in a way. Like, in TCW he successfully tames all the biggest crime syndicates in the galaxy - the Hutt Cartel, Pyke Syndicate, Black Sun, Crimson Dawn, Death Watch, Hondo's pirates - and it's STILL not enough to beat Sidious. There's genuine tragedy to that, I think.

 

I am curious about this series' "moral compass" of the characters and factions in the context of being a villain-centered show. If we take Palpatine as the ultimate, irredeemable evil, and place the characters in relation to him. Maul is less evil, more humane and tragic, but still very much evil. He is driven by revenge and hatred, he treats everyone as nothing but tools for his ends, and he cares not for the innocent casualties along the way. We can understand what made him that way, we can pity him, pity the terrible hand he was given at life, being handed off to Sidious by Talzin as a child, but now he is stuck in the cycle of violence and evil that he was groomed into, he can't escape it, he knows no other way, and he spreads it everywhere around him, until his final demise in Rebels. The Twi'lek girl seems more neutral, starting in a bad, vulnerable place (Maul breaks her out of prison), and then probably getting corrupted by him in the process (if she is indeed new Darth Talon), or running away from Maul. She's likely supposed to be the character the audience is supposed to relate to the most. Which leaves us with the Empire itself—the people, the clerks, security force, police, stormtroopers. This series has an opportunity to humanize that Imperial element that is comprised of the actual citizens, and not just nameless evil NPCs, since our titular protagonist is that much worse and poses a much greater danger to innocent people. They tried that very, very briefly in S1 of The Bad Batch—that one odd stormtrooper with conscience that was immediately executed by Crosshair, and then never again in the remaining two seasons. We often follow clear-cut, morally good heroes: the Jedi, rebels, etc. But this time we follow quite a terrific villain, who had previously slaughtered an entire village, including children, recorded it and sent to the Jedi Temple, just to get Obi-Wan's attention, for one. Ordinary citizen wouldn't want to encounter Maul or his gang, or get caught in the crossfire during his exploits, as we have seen in the trailer, which involves shooting rocket launchers and machine guns in the streets. And, obviously, Empire is supposed to be an actual, functioning state, and it's supposed to fend off pirates and crime syndicates, who are causing chaos in the open.

Star Wars has had a history of romanticizing scoundrels and outlaws, because they are often placed against the Empire, who are clearly the villains and morally worse in practically every story. But we rarely see how these "outlaw elements" affect regular people, and if that effect is negative. Then we have bounty hunters, who are more on the grey side of things, and will do the job for anyone who pays - both the good guys and the bad guys. Stuff like Maul's Crimson Dawn is morally much below bounty hunters, and I'd say even below most of the "human element" of the Empire. They are essentially Maul's mini-cult, indoctrinated into Sith values that Maul had been taught, and even though Maul is not as bad as Palpatine, but he is still pretty close - he is his apprentice, and he is a deadly threat to pretty much everyone else.

In Lucas' sequel treatments, Maul came out of the shadows and took over only when Palpatine was gone, which means Palpatine and the Empire were doing its job in keeping the crime elements in check - even though it was a fascist dictatorship with a Death Star, it was ultimately evil and had to be taken down, but it was still functioning as a government, even if against vile elements, like Maul. Even in the current "Mandoverse" shows, it's been stated that crime/pirates run wild ever since the Empire fell, and New Republic is not capable of maintaining order everywhere.

At any rate, it would be a missed opportunity to make stormtroopers just a bunch of inept, stock evil NPCs—again. This time around our protagonists are actual villains, and it just happens that there is only a stormtrooper standing between an ordinary Imperial citizen and Maul's thugs. This is a good opportunity to humanize them, give them some depth, show the people who volunteer to genuinely defend their families and compatriots from monsters, such as Maul. I am curious how they will handle it. I know that portraying Empire in any kind of heroic light is seen as controversial and contagious to a lot of people, and it seems like a lot of stories go out of their way to never create such a scenario in the first place, but I feel like in the context of this show it is appropriate.

 

Yeah I'm generally okay not giving jackbooted thug volunteers a pat on the back. Too much of that going around lately.

I'd love to see some Syril Karns, though. Pathetic whiny babies that sign up to be cops so they can prove that they're stronger than their mean mommy by shooting at poor people.

 

With Crimson Dawn helping the Rebel Alliance in comics (and Leia's interactions with Qi'ra being quite akin to ones between Shepard and Illusive Man in ME2), this series can have a good amount of moral ambiguity if it will show that Maul, on the one hand, gave money to early rebel groups (including omnipresent Saw and his Partisans) and on the other - his syndicate caused missery to ordinary people, so that they would radicalize and eventually fight the Empire (akin to Luthen's plan).

 

I'd add the whole Sabine/Obi-wan/Qui-gon original mission to Mandalore. Think about how connected that is to so much media, and it's never been covered.

I wonder if she'll survive...

So, when do the Microscopic Whills come in?

 

Darth Talon will survive to fight Rey
I agree one day we need the Obi Wan/Satine/ Qui Gon Jinn/Jango story. But i think we get another Clone show before that and after Maul.

 

Also worth noting that both Crimson Reign and Solo, the two installments this series is most likely to tie into, make it clear that not only does the empire have little to no interest in protecting the citizenry from organized crime, it is happy to work with organized crime to squeeze the citizenry all the harder.

While the Palpatine and his Inquisition very much wants Maul himself dead, and there will always been some degree of robberies, assassinations, and turf wars between the syndicates and the empire just as between the rival syndicates, with the above in mind I wouldn't be surprised if we see Maul's frontmen like Voss establish working relationships with imperial officials over the course of the story.

 

Ones thing for sure they’ll definitely reuse assets like there is no tomorrow

on another note similar to comparing this show to the bad batch

the twi’lek apprentice maul takes I think anyway and this is pure speculation will be the main character. Or at least the point of view character.

not to say maul won’t be important but just as one would have thought the show called the bad batch would focus mainly on the 5 clones in the bad batch and didn’t I think the same will happen with Maul Shadow Lord. And I have no problem with that. Omega was a much more interesting character to follow then anyone in the batch and I really liked the batch

I think the same could very well happen here in that I’ll like whoever this twi’lek is much more than maul

 

Now Maul has two apprentices

 

Most definitely.

Though that does remind me

Spoiler

It is hard to know for certain since the leaked trailer is fuzzy, but it looks like they might have god with the live action Pyke design rather than the Bad Batch/TCW design despite being an animated show with the same art style as those 2.

Oh yeah. Or kind of like Ahoska in TCW - like, I don't think she had more screen time than Anakin or anything and that was more of an anthology than other shows, but since Anakin already had his arc in the films Ahoska's felt more central to the show's plot, especially since it began and ended with her. It would make sense to do something similar here - since we already know where Maul is coming from and going, his scenes, like Anakin's in TCW, are more going to be about adding a bit more depth to that picture, while the unknown apprentice could be more central to the show's character development and major plot beats.

...or maybe she is a red herring and gets killed right away.

Probably the first option.

 

If we get time jumps to Solo in future sessons she be in her 20's and we could see Talon gets some romance. Maybe her and Qira. I am looking forward mostly i think for whats Maul's and Dryden Vos relationship, and whats Talon and Dryden relationship like as both second and third hand of Maul.

I wonder if we will see Saw Gerrera in this show and see how the early Rebel cells deal with the Underworld. Also since it involves the Underworld, could we see pirates like Hondo. I think in future seasons we can see Aurra Sing and see how Beckett kills her.