﻿Hi, I’m Moose and in case the title and thumbnail didn’t quite make it clear,
this video will contain heavy SPOILERS for ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story.’
Consider yourself warned,
because today, we’re talking about the shocking reappearance of,
did I mention SPOILERS?
Darth Maul.
Well. it’s not shocking for everyone.
If you’re a fan of the comics, ‘Clone Wars,’ and ‘Rebels,’
it should come as no surprise that that the split-in-half Sith lord is alive and well.
But if you haven’t been keeping up on the new canon,
you might have left the theater a little confused.
Well. fear not, my young apprentice,
because we’ve got the answer to what could be the most important question of our times:
How is Darth Maul Still Alive?
Not only that, but how did a solemn blood knight end up in charge of sleazy criminals?
It’s a sordid tale of siblings, sabres, and Sith lords,
and it all starts on the planet
Dathomir
Dathomir was home to the Nightsisters,
a coven of witches who tapped into Dark Side to aid in their infernal magic.
The eventual leader of the Nightsisters was Talzin,
mother of Maul and his brothers, Feral and Savage Opress.
Beyond having a knack for badass names,
Talzin was also an extremely powerful sorceress,
which soon caught the attention of Sheev Palpatine,
A.K.A. Darth Sidious,
A.K.A. your and my future Emperor.
[CACKLING]
He taught her about the Dark Side, she taught him about Dathromi magic.
It was like a cool little networking meeting,
with a mutual exchange of ideas and information.
Well, let me finish, Dmitri.
Let me finish, Dmitri.
Why do you think I'm calling you? Just to say hello?
Of course I like to speak with you, of course I like to say hello!
Sidious even promised to make Talzin his new apprentice,
then he was like ‘psych, I’m taking your baby boy instead!’
Yoink!
Sidious subjected Maul to brutal training,
and instilled in him a burning hatred for all things Jedi.
He scored the first notch in his lightsaber by killing a padawan named Eldra Kaitis,
but that still wasn’t enough to satiate his bloodlust.
Luckily, his master was about to unleash his plan to seize control of the galaxy,
but even though hundreds of Jedi would perish in the purge,
only one more would taste Maul’s plasma blade before his untimely
Death
No!
Despite Jake Lloyd’s awe-inspiring acting,
Mom. I did it. Yeah!
the real star of ‘The Phantom Menace’ was only on screen for 12 minutes,
and spoke just 31 words.
At last we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At last we will have revenge.
Darth Maul’s master orders him to hunt down Princess Amidala and her Jedi escorts,
and he almost nabs them on Tatooine.
Maul follows them to Naboo,
kicks Obi-Wan’s ass,
and kills Qui-Gon so hard his Force Ghost was too shook to show up in the movies.
He shows up in the cartoon, I know, but you know who doesn't? Liam Neeson.
Obi-Wan rallies,
recalls his lightsaber,
And slices the sith in two.
Both halves plummet down the shaft below,
and that’s the last we’d see of Maul for ten years,
until his unlikely
Resurrection
After ‘Episode I,’ Star Wars fans were still thirsty for more Maul.
It seemed like a waste to kill such a cool character after so little screen time.
I mean, imagine if people actually cared about Snoke?
There used to be a ton of Expanded Universe stories that brought him back as a clone,
a hologram,
and a cyborg that actually gets killed by Uncle Owen.
But those are all long lost Legends now,
so how’d he come back to life in the new canon?
Maul’s rage and hatred kept him alive long enough to snag an air vent during his descent,
and pull his ticked-off torso into a space dumpster.
He survives the trip to the landfill planet of Lotho Minor,
and snags a new set of cybernetic legs,
made out of garbage and held together by spit, chewing gum, and the power of the Force.
Being bisected took a toll on the suffering Sith, though.
His mind was shattered, and the only thing he can remember from his old life was a fiery hatred for one man:
Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Speaking of his old life,
we’ve got to take a detour back to Dathomir.
Talzin, Maul’s momma, knows her baby boy is still alive.
Mothers always know. Your mother knows what you did.
Don't try to hide it. They always know.
But she doesn’t know where he is,
so she tasks her surviving son Savage Opress with finding his brother.
Opress had become a badass in his own right,
first as a mind-controlled monster under the Nightsister Asajj Ventress,
then as Count Dooku’s Sith apprentice.
He finds his brother and returns the prodigal son to Dathomir,
where Talzin whips up a new set of bipedal legs for him.
and sacrifices her own power and life energy to restore his body and mind.
Back at 100%, Maul takes Savage as his own apprentice,
and plots his revenge against the Jedi who killed him,
and the Sith who abandoned him.
I was apprentice to the most powerful being in the galaxy once. I was destined to become... so much more.
Then you must have your revenge, my brother.
Yes. We shall start with revenge.
But to do that, he’d have to become a
Crimelord
So. You and your brother want to get Obi-Wan Kenobi's attention. How do you do that?
Easy, just slaughter a bunch of civilians. During their duel, Maul taunts Obi-Wan about his master’s murder to goad him into anger,
which leads to hate, which leads to suffering, yada yada.
Obviously, Obi-Wan survives.
so the bash brothers decide to take a different tactic.
You better bet your bottom dollar that these two brothers know how to handle business.
After getting their asses kicked in another encounter,
they escape to Mandalore,
a peaceful planet that was once home to a fierce warrior culture.
They align with Death Watch, a splinter group that wants to Make Mandalore Great Again,
but in order to do that, they need an army.
Their first stop is the criminal syndicate called Black Sun.
The mob bosses aren’t initially receptive,
but the sole survivor pledges his loyalty after Opress kills all of his cronies.
It would seem the decision to join us is now yours.
After this display of powe, another syndicate called the Pykes eagerly joined up,
which left the Hutts as the only holdouts.
Jabba and crew mocked Maul’s offer,
but after making the albino Hutt Oruba an offer he couldn’t refuse,
the rest of the space slugs fell in line.
Three of the most powerful mobs in the Galaxy were now under Maul’s control,
and he named his new army the Shadow Collective.
Despite heavy resistance, Maul seized control of Mandalore,
but he struggled to maintain his grip over of the planet.
Seeing an opportunity, Sidious swooped in to take his old apprentice down a peg.
He takes on the two brothers in a no-holds-barred handicap match,
which ends with Maul humiliated,
and his brother murdered.
Sheev throws Maul in a space prison called the Spire,
but he allows him to escape in order to track down Talzin,
who Sidious wants out of the picture before he executes his plan for galactic domination.
I'm Darth Sidious, I'm about to take over the galaxy.
But I got this witch running around on Dathomir, and she's super powerful.
AND she really hates me because I kidnapped her son to train him in the Dark Side,
Then he got sliced in half, driven mad, turned into a cyborg, and drove him to a life of crime!
That's why he wanted her out of the picture.
In the second-most humiliating death in Star Wars,
Maul has to watch helplessly as his beloved mother is killed by General Grievous.
Yuck.
I'd rather get killed by General Mills.
Oh Jesus Christ, Lord Savior, save me, take me to the light! I see demons!
He escapes, but Sheev isn’t sweating.
He’s got bigger fish to fry than Maul, and besides,
The Shadow Collective is shattered,
Mandalore is under Imperial control,
and his old apprentice knows who the big dog is.
That more or less brings us to ‘Solo.’
where Qi’ra, Dryden and the Crimson Dawn gang are revealed to be working for none other than Darth Maul.
Or, just Maul. He’s not so much a Sith fan anymore.
It seems he hasn’t lost a step after losing the Shadow Collective,
and is perfectly happy working with thieves, pirates, and scumbags in his endless pursuit of revenge.
Now, we already know how Maul’s story ends,
but that supremely satisfying final fight takes place years after ‘Solo,’
so we’ll save Maul’s run in ‘Rebels’ for another video.
There’s still a few unexplored years in-between,
with plenty of room for sequels and spin-offs.
Not bad for a character who was killed off in his first appearance!
In hindsight, it was a waste of potential,
and with ‘Solo,’ moviegoers are finally going to learn what fans of ‘Clone Wars’ and ‘Rebels’ have known for years:
The Star Wars galaxy is a much richer place with Maul around.