There’s an elasticity to Star Wars beyond its pulp science-fiction roots that the franchise has only begun exploring in the last handful of years. The Disney+ series The Mandalorian was very much inspired by both spaghetti westerns and Japanese samurai films like the Lone Wolf And Cub series. The recently concluded Andor was clearly a politic spy thriller, while the theatrical feature Star Wars: Rogue One was very much a “men on a mission”-style film, a la The Guns Of Navarone. For the newly premiering Maul – Shadow Lord animated series on Disney+, the inspiration is very much gritty, neo-noir films. Perhaps not so much in the vein of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, but more towards Michael Mann’s Heat. A dark tale of gangsters and cops who find themselves in morally grey situations where no option is a good one. And that makes for a pretty good story.
It has been a year since the fall of the Galactic Republic, the purge of the Jedi and the rise of the evil Emperor Palpatine as seen in Star Wars: Rise Of The Sith. The planet Janix is far enough away on the edge of the Empire that it has been pretty much left alone by the rising fascist government. For Maul voiced by Sam Witwer), a former evil Sith apprentice abandoned by his master Palpatine, that makes Janix the perfect place to continue his plan to manipulate the galaxy’s rival criminal gangs in a way that could ultimately bring down the Empire.
With some Death Watch Mandalorians and Nightbrothers loyal to him, Maul begins to put his plans into motion, unaware that he is about to come into conflict with local police captain Brander Lawson (Wagner Moura) and his droid partner, Two-Boots (Richard Ayoade), as well as a Jedi and his apprentice who are trying to stay hidden from the Empire. As events progress Lawson soon finds himself facing some hard ethical choices when it comes to notifying the Empire of wanted fugitives on Janix, knowing that if they come, they will never leave.
I will admit that when Maul was first “resurrected” in the animated Star Wars: Clone Wars series’ season four finale in 2012, I was a bit nonplussed. While he spawned a lot of fan interest back when he first appeared in 1999’s The Phantom Menace, he never struck as much more than a secondary bad guy. He had a cool and menacing look, as well as that nifty two-bladed lightsaber. He never struck me as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome, and as such, ultimately wasn’t very interesting as a character.
But his return in the animated Clone Wars was at the suggestion of George Lucas to show creator Dave Filloni, and it turned out to be a rather fortuitous one. Through his appearances in that show, and in later Star Wars stories in animation as well as prose and comic books spreading across the timeline between The Phantom Menace and the Original Trilogy of films, Maul’s backstory has been built up, giving him motivations and a psychological complexity that gets explored in more depth here. We see not just the anger, but the pain and even the sadness that drives Maul in his mission. And while Maul is looking to exact revenge on Palpatine for his betrayal and abandonment, he is no hero.
(Lucas also reportedly intended Maul to be the primary villain in a sequel trilogy of films; however, after he sold Lucasfilm to Disney, those plans were set aside in favor of the sequel trilogy we got.)
With each new animated series set in the Star Wars universe, the animation sees some levels of evolution, and Maul – Shadow Lord is no exception. Here, the design is darker, almost grimier. The production utilized some old school matte paintings on glass techniques for some of the backgrounds which help to give the show a more unique and distinct look. The skies seem gray, even when it is supposedly sunny out. Star Wars has famously had that “lived in” look through most of its iterations, and the planet Janix continues in that tradition in a way that suggests the world-weariness of some of its characters is a reflection of their environment more than anything else.
Maul’s story is far from over after this ten-episode season, though. We know that a second season of Shadow Lord is already in the works. Beyond that he has appearances in Solo: A Star Wars Story and the animated Rebels series in his future. So fans may have an idea of the course that this series will chart when connecting to those dots. But that doesn’t take away any suspense from the series. However, the voyage here may be just as interesting, if not more so, than in just knowing the destination.
