If Star Wars fans were given a veto for one thing about the pre-Disney films they could stop George Lucas from doing, the most popular response would likely be, “Don’t make the prequels.” But because that’s three vetoes, let’s go with the second most popular reply: more Darth Maul. The Sith Lord had it all: a badass double lightsaber, cool red-and-black skin, those menacing horns, that cloak. Best of all, he barely spoke, so Peter Serafinowicz didn’t have to regurgitate stiff dialogue like, “Master, I’ve heard Master Yoda talking about midi-chlorians and I was wondering… what are midi-chlorians?”
Darth Maul is on screen in The Phantom Menace for less than 15 minutes, but he became a major player on The Clone Wars (Maul survived his duel with Obi-Wan) and fans have been clamoring for a video game for years. He’s even the inspiration for a new fan-made film, DARTH MAUL: Apprentice, which doesn’t feature any appearances from Spider-man, but it’s still pretty impressive.
According to T7 Production:
We worked incredibly hard on this film for almost 2 years! We always felt that Darth Maul should have had more screen time. So we wanted to create a film just for him with the best lightsaber fights we could do! This is not based on any books, comics etc. (Via)
The “we” is writer, editor, and editor Shawn Bu, and choreographer Vi-Dan Tran, and they gave Maul the film he deserves. The only thing missing is “Duel of the Fates,” the Darth Maul of Star Wars songs. Here’s a making-of.
(Via Entertainment Weekly)
