STAR WARS: MAUL – SHADOW LORD Star Sam Witwer Says the New Series Is 'Bad Guys vs. Worse Guys' — GeekTyrant
'It's about bad guys vs worse guys. This isn't going to be a show where you find out Maul is a real teddy bear, man … We're not doing that. But is he as bad as Sidious or Vader? Actually no.
'From the Sith perspective, this guy has flaws ... [there's] humanity that seeps in at various points because of things that have happened to him.'
Set in the year following The Clone Wars (around 19 BBY), Maul – Shadow Lord picks up after the fall of the Jedi and the rise of the Empire. According to Lucasfilm's official synopsis, the show follows Maul as he attempts to rebuild his criminal empire on a remote planet untouched by Imperial control.
But this isn't just a crime saga, it's also about reckoning. Witwer teases that Maul's growing discomfort with the new galactic order plays a key role in the story:
'Maul will question whether creating the Empire was a good idea. [Maul's] like, 'Is that what [Sidious] had in mind? This is a little scary.
'Maul comes from a time of swords, sorcery, magic and knights, and now all of that color of the universe is being sucked out of this mechanized Empire. And Maul's like, 'Is this right? Is this the universe we were trying to build?''
That doesn't make him a hero, but it gives him a point of view. Fans worried this series would attempt a full redemption arc can rest easy. This is still the same Maul we've come to know through The Phantom Menace , The Clone Wars , and Rebels . He's dangerous, cunning, and filled with rage, but layered with the scars of betrayal and loss.
Maul's journey through the Star Wars canon has been interesting. He started as a near-silent enforcer in The Phantom Menace , got cut in half by Obi-Wan, then reemerged angrier and outfitted with metal legs in The Clone Wars .
He built a criminal syndicate, tangled with Mandalorians, and even returned in Solo: A Star Wars Story as the leader of Crimson Dawn.
While the franchise's live-action follow-ups to Solo have been scrapped, Shadow Lord seems ready to fill that void, offering a darker corner of the galaxy to explore, and with Witwer back behind the mic, you can expect the character's internal storm to come through loud and clear.
This isn't a redemption story. It's a power struggle in the shadows, and Maul is right in the thick of it.
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