Some misconceptions about the master of the twin-bladed lightsaber.
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00:00A member of the Zabrak race, the much-loved Maul first appeared as the devoted follower
00:04of the evil Darth Sidious in The Phantom Menace. After a brief skirmish with Qui-Gon Jinn on
00:09Tatooine, Maul then engages in an epic fight with him and Obi-Wan Kenobi on Naboo. After
00:14turning his master into a cheese kebab, Maul is defeated by Obi-Wan when he gets sliced clean in
00:19half. And that's the whole story. Or is it? The Star Wars universe is so expansive these days
00:24that it's impossible for a character to be this underdeveloped. Hell, there are some gonk droids
00:29with pages upon pages written about them. So you better believe that there's more to our pal Maul
00:33than you could ever possibly imagine. So with that in mind, I'm Darth Gareth from What Culture
00:38Star Wars and here are 10 Things Everyone Always Gets Wrong About Darth Maul.
00:4210. Ray Park was the first choice Although voiced by British actor Peter
00:47Serafinowicz, Maul's physical form in The Phantom Menace was portrayed by Scottish actor and stunt
00:52man Ray Park. Park has also appeared in the Tim Burton Sleepy Hollow movie, the G.I. Joe series,
00:57and as Toad in 2000's X-Men. But he's best known for his time as the horny Sith, steady now. He was
01:03a natural fit for the part, which might lead you to assume he was the first choice for it. But alas,
01:08this is not true. Benicio Del Toro of The Usual Suspect's fame was originally signed on to play
01:13the role. This was a huge get for the prequel trilogy as Del Toro's style was very much on
01:17the rise at the time. Unfortunately, the Puerto Rican was less than thrilled to find out that his
01:22part had been considerably cut in the final version of the script. He ditched the project,
01:26leaving the door open for Park to stride on in. Clearly, Del Toro regretted his decision to some
01:31degree, as he returned to Star Wars in The Last Jedi. Although, he may have regretted that decision
01:36even more. 9. He only appears once
01:39Let's get a super obvious one out of the way nice and early, eh? If you've only seen the mainline
01:44Star Wars movies, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Maul's character was totally wasted. In The
01:48Phantom Menace, Darth Maul only gets a paltry six minutes of screen time. Just to put that in
01:53perspective, Anakin's mum Shmi gets over seven minutes, and did she have a double-ended lightsaber?
01:57No, she did not. So why did Star Wars not make better use of such a uniquely designed, interesting
02:02presence? Well, it did, just not in the movies. After meeting his supposed end at the hands of
02:07Obi-Wan, Maul actually survived being cut in half through pure hatred and dark magic.
02:12In the animated Clone Wars series, Maul's brother Savage Opress finds him and helps him return to
02:17full power. Since that episode, Maul has turned up in other animated series, video games,
02:21comic books, and novels. He also made his return to the movies when it was revealed he was playing
02:26a part in the plot of Solo A Star Wars Story, and that was fun while it lasted, wasn't it?
02:32The future Emperor Palpatine was not the best father figure to our young subject.
02:36After snatching him away from his mother, Darth Sidious began moulding his new follower into a
02:40walking weapon. He trained the boy in physical combat, taught him the ways of the dark side,
02:45and helped foster the hatred that would come to define his character. As detailed in Marvel
02:50Comics' Darth Maul issue number two, Sidious takes Maul on a field trip to the planet Malachor,
02:55the site of an ancient battle between Jedi and Sith. In order to really drive home how bad this
02:59fight went for the Sith, Sidious forced his apprentice to inhale their ashes, giving him
03:04visions of the slaughter from long ago. This moment helped grow Maul's resentment towards the
03:08Jedi and kickstarted his ambition to wipe them all out. However, had it not been for Sidious'
03:13tampering with the young boy's mind, then maybe this hostility would have never come about.
03:17Perhaps we could be looking at Darth Maul the baker, the accountant,
03:20or the used car salesman. We'll just never know.
03:25Time now for a section I'm calling Maul's Terrible Childhood. He was born on the planet
03:29Dathomir, which is ruled over by a group of Force-sensitive witches called the Nightsisters.
03:34This all-female clan used the Force to rule over their male counterparts, the Nightbrothers,
03:38and became so powerful that the evil Darth Sidious took notice of them. Game recognises game.
03:44Sidious travelled to Dathomir to have a nice cup of tea with the Nightsisters' leader,
03:47Mother Talzin. An extremely powerful being, Talzin was offered the opportunity to become
03:51Sidious' apprentice. But that all changed when the Sith Lord discovered Talzin's gifted son.
03:56You can see where this is going. Yes, Talzin was Maul's mother, and Sidious sensed great
04:00potential in him. He kidnapped the young boy, breaking his promise and setting in motion the
04:04Zabrak's rise to power. So Maul was not handpicked by Sidious, his involvement with the Sith came
04:09about through sheer good luck. Or bad luck, from a certain point of view.
04:14He's only got one backstory We've already covered Maul's childhood as
04:17the son of Mother Talzin, how he was taken by Sidious, raised to be a killer, blah blah blah.
04:22While this is the character's most commonly accepted backstory, there is another, one out
04:26there. In 2012, a Star Wars novel called Darth Plagueis was released, detailing a different
04:31version of how Sidious came into possession of the young Maul. In this story, Maul's mother is
04:35not the all-powerful Talzin, but rather a human named Kysena. Kysena was a Nightsister who lived
04:40in fear of Talzin, terrified that she would force her sons into slavery. Upon learning of Sidious'
04:44visit to Dathomir, Kysena persuaded him to take her child and raise him far away.
04:48Oh yeah, because that just turned out really great, didn't it? Maul's conflicting parentage
04:52is usually ignored in mainstream conversations about Star Wars, as the Talzin version is most
04:57widely accepted. However, learning that our favourite Zabrak might actually be a little
05:01bit human certainly makes for some interesting reading.
05:04He was always planned for the prequels The first six Star Wars movies weren't
05:08particularly heavy on female characters, it must be said. There's Leia, Padme, uh, Mon Mothma,
05:14that Jedi librarian from Attack of the Clones, the weird CGI singer from Jabba's Palace.
05:19Is that really it? This was nearly very different, as the name Maul almost went to a very different
05:23character altogether. George Lucas originally planned for an evil witch to be the antagonist
05:28of the Phantom Menace, but this idea was eventually scrapped. The closest we got to
05:32this version being released was Darth Talon, a female Sith who appeared in several Star Wars
05:36comics and the mobile game Galaxy of Heroes. Although she was a Twi'lek, Talon had red and
05:41black skin similar to that of Maul's. She was also going to be teamed up with the twin blade
05:46wielder as the main baddies in one of Lucas' original drafts of the sequel trilogy. These
05:50plans fell through when Lucasfilm got sold, which is a bit of a shame, because we might have ended
05:54up seeing Darth Maul as a Disney princess. We can all agree that the double-ended lightsaber
06:01is freaking cool, right? Hell, I spent many a day swinging my own toy version of it about,
06:05and regularly smacking myself on the back of the head in the process. Good times.
06:09Sure, it would be an absolute nightmare to wield, again, I'd know. Probably isn't that much more
06:13effective than a single-ended one, and was almost certainly designed with the sole intention of
06:17selling toys, which again, it did. But it's neat, and I like it, so there.
06:21Maul's most famous contribution to Star Wars has led many to believe that he is not that
06:24strong with the Force, though. Some feel like he uses his signature weapon to make up for this,
06:29but Maul ain't compensatin' for nuttin'. Ever since his apparent demise at the hands of Obi-Wan
06:33Maul began using the Force a lot more. In the Clone Wars, he busted out all the time on a
06:38variety of opponents, including his attempted killer. In fact, it was his Force sensitivity
06:42that attracted him to Sidious in the first place, so it has always been strong with him.
06:47It's impressive just how competent Maul is at deploying the Great Energy. Maybe if he'd been
06:51a bit more willing to use it in The Phantom Menace, he might still have his original legs.
06:56He hated Sidious
06:57If someone kidnapped you at a young age, turned you into an assassin,
07:00and then abandoned you in your hour of need, you probably wouldn't be their biggest fan,
07:04would you? After falling out with his master, Maul swore revenge on Sidious and the Sith in general.
07:09He became a sort of rogue element in the Clone Wars, definitely not pro-Jedi,
07:13but also acting as a thorn in the bad guy's side.
07:15Parental figures are complicated though, and it's always much harder to leave them than it seems.
07:20Maul finds this out first hand in the Son of Dathomir series of comics. Our subject teams
07:24up with some Mandalorians, although without a baby Yoda in sight, to track down and capture
07:28the two men he views as his replacements, Count Dooku and General Grievous. After he has them
07:33both, he presents them to Sidious and decries their failures. He is also desperate to show
07:38his former master that he is more powerful than his two successors. This moment adds a fantastic
07:42layer to Sidious and Maul's relationship, and only serves to highlight the tragic circumstances
07:47under which the latter lives. He didn't interact with original trilogy characters
07:51Although getting sliced up like a burger bun doesn't finish him off, Maul does eventually die
07:56for good. But he doesn't let this teensy inconvenience get him down for long. In the comic
08:00book series Shattered Empire, the former Princess Leia takes a trip to her mother's homeworld of
08:04Naboo. Leia, who recently helped secure the downfall of the Empire, wanders around the old
08:09palace until she comes across a familiar feeling hangar. This is the site of Maul's duel with
08:14Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. Although Leia wasn't even born yet, she is still somehow connected to the
08:18events of that day. She senses something, a presence, one that makes her feel a little bit
08:23cold. She soon finds out what's going on when a vision of the ex-Sith appears right in front of
08:27her. That's a bit terrifying, isn't it? Like in the case of most powerful force users, death is
08:31far from the end for Maul. He's able to use his great power to tangentially connect to the land
08:36of the living, through the process of haunting someone in an old room. Great use of those
08:40phenomenal powers, Maul. Obi-Wan does kill him, and he doesn't
08:44It was mentioned just now that Maul did eventually die for realsies, but how did that happen? Well,
08:49that depends on who you ask, really. In Star Wars Rebels, Maul confronts an older Obi-Wan in the
08:53desert on Tatooine. After it becomes clear that his adversary knows of the existence of Luke's
08:58Skywalker, Kenobi cuts him down after a short duel. However, if you go by the Star Wars visionary
09:03story Old Wounds, Maul meets his maker under slightly different circumstances. He still goes
09:07to Tatooine to confront Obi-Wan, only this time he does it at the Lars family farm.
09:12After a much longer fight, Maul gets shot in the head by Luke's Uncle Owen. In both cases,
09:17the Jedi show some respect to his fallen foe. In Rebels, he reassures Maul that Luke is the
09:21chosen one, while in the comics he gives him a proper funeral. How nice! As lovely as this sounds,
09:27it will likely bring little comfort to Maul, as Obi-Wan was involved in his death on three
09:31separate occasions. Come on, Kenobi! What did he ever do to you? Oh yeah, quite a lot, actually.
09:37And that's our list! Know of any other things that everyone always gets wrong about Darth Maul?
09:41Then please do let us know all about them in the comments section right down below,
09:44and do not forget to like, share, and click on that subscribe button while you're at it.
09:48Also, if this kind of thing is your bag, then please head on over to WhatCulture.com and find
09:51some more incredible articles, just like the one this video you're watching right now is based on.
09:55I have been Gareth from WhatCulture Star Wars, may the Force be with you, as always,
09:59I hope to see you very, very soon, but in the meantime, be good to yourself. Bye-bye!