George Lucas’ plans for the Star Wars sequel trilogy involved fixing one of his greatest mistakes. Lucas always liked to pretend he was working to a grand plan from the beginning when it came to Star Wars, but it’s an open secret that his reputation is exaggerated. Darth Vader’s true identity, as Luke Skywalker’s father, only appears after the second draft of The Empire Strikes Back; Leia became Luke’s sister largely as a convenient way to tie up various plots. Like all the greatest storytellers, Lucas was always willing to adapt and even react.
He did so when he made the Star Wars prequel trilogy, too. There’s a reason midi-chlorians were dropped after The Phantom Menace; Lucas spotted the reaction, and decided continuing to focus on them would be (in his oft-repeated words) “indulgent.” But there was one other lesson he learned from The Phantom Menace, because he saw that one character was a hit who he hadn’t quite expected. The character in question was Darth Maul, and Lucas quickly understood that his swift death was a big mistake.
Darth Maul Was Wasted By The Phantom Menace
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Lucasfilm knew how big Darth Maul was going to be. He was a massive part of the film’s marketing, with an iconic and unforgettable design that showed him as an almost satanic figure. You have to remember that this was a time when audiences didn’t know much about the Sith, so it was thrilling and new to see a character holding a red lightsaber. And what a new lightsaber, too; a double-bladed lightsaber, seen before in comics but never on the big screen. Darth Maul played a prominent role in the unforgettable first Phantom Menace trailer, with good reason.
In the end, though, Maul only appeared for a little over six minutes of The Phantom Menace. He had relatively few lines of dialogue, and next to no depth as a character; visually impressive, he was basically just a cool villain. Worse still, he died at the end of The Phantom Menace, cut down by Obi-Wan Kenobi due to his own cockiness and arrogance. It swiftly became clear to Lucas that killing Maul was a big mistake, because he had so much more potential.
Lucas considered bringing Maul back for Revenge of the Sith in an unexpected way. According to Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels writer Henry Gilroy, Lucas considered revealing that General Grievous was actually Darth Maul under the armor, transformed into a cyborg. In the end, Maul had to wait some years to be resurrected; he was brought back in The Clone Wars at Lucas’ own insistence, with Gilroy figuring out how to make it happen. Incredibly, that also almost set Maul up for an even bigger role.
Darth Maul Would Have Been the Villain of Lucas’ Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Image Courtesy of Lucasfilm
Paul Duncan’s The Star Wars Archives 1999-2005 reveals Lucas’ original plans for the sequel trilogy (likely very different to the ones he eventually passed to Disney when Lucasfilm was purchased by the House of Mouse in 2012). According to this, Lucas actually intended to bring back Darth Maul as the true villain of the sequels, reinventing him as a crime lord (in a continuation of the Clone Wars plot). “Maul eventually becomes the godfather of crime in the universe because as the Empire fails, he takes over,” Lucas explained.
Maul would have even had a new Sith Apprentice of his own, Darth Talon, meaning he’d have been viewed as a continuation of the Sith line. Incredibly, it seems Lucas himself had realized the potential of Maul and recognized that he had the power not to be a secondary villain but to be the main foe. In this version of the sequels, Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa would have led the reborn Jedi Order and the New Republic in an effort to defeat the crime lord. Leia would have been proven to be the Chosen One, as she brought peace to the galaxy.
It never happened, of course, because those sequel trilogy ideas were discontinued. Delightfully, though, the next Star Wars animated TV show – Maul – Shadow Lord – honors these abandoned sequel trilogy plans by bringing back Darth Maul and what seems to be Darth Talon. This story is set during the Dark Times of the Empire’s reign rather than after the Empire’s defeat, but it will still feature Maul as a Sith crime boss. It seems George Lucas’ mistake has been corrected to the point Maul’s all-too-brief big screen debut now means he’s star of his own show.
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