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Frankly, Maul has been an excellent story thread throughout the Clone Wars and into Rebels. Granted, his surviving in the first place was a little hamfisted, but once you get past that he was a genuinely interesting character.

The awful waste of him in TPM made his salvaging infinitely more palatable though.

Indeed. He was one of the most interesting parts of TPM. Frankly he should have been a recurring villain in the Prequels. An antagonist for Obi-wan and Anakin to go after because he killed Qui-gon.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Indeed. He was one of the most interesting parts of TPM. Frankly he should have been a recurring villain in the Prequels. An antagonist for Obi-wan and Anakin to go after because he killed Qui-gon.

One of the biggest problems with episodes i/2/3 is that each movie introduces the most visually interesting, Darth Vader esc, villain in the prequels and then immediately kills them off in the same movie before they get to do anything that really matters. The only recurring villain is Duku. An old confused looking guy.

It would have been so much better if Maul stayed alive and one after the other kept killing important people in Anakin and Obis lives. You could even see Anakins fall towards the Darkside as Obi becomes more and more zen about it while Anakin builds up more and more hate until Maul threatens Padame and Anakin looses his gak completely and falls. Just a horrible assassin that dogs them throughout their lives picking off person after person and always getting away leaving them frustrated and left to deal with the aftermath.

It would have been so much better of a reason and we could see the emotional toll Maul has on Anakin over the years. AND it would have perfectly reflected Yodas words. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to the Dark Side. Would have been great.

 Manchu wrote:
Elbows - I can follow your point insomuch as the scale of the action is smaller toward the end of the picture. But I thought that was appropriate because the final issues of the plot were intimate questions about personl loyalty.

Sure, and I'd be okay with that if I thought the story wasn't pretty garbage and the acting extremely "meh". If they were better actors, characters, and a convincing/useful story I could have been on board with that. As it was the movie lost my interest more and more as it went on. It's still about 714% better than Last Jedi, but didn't keep me entertained/interested like Rogue One.

My disappointment with R1 is well-documented on Dakka Dakka, so I won’t belabor the issue further.

Solo succeeded in telling a low-key story about whether you can trust anyone in a dangerous world. I’m grateful it didn’t go off the rails chasing some kind of faux epic conclusion like R1.

Deleted Scenes.

There’s a fair few of them, but typically nothing that particularly adds to the narrative.

Extended stuff on Minban, and finding out why Han was stationed there are particularly enjoyable.

Though curiously, none really covering stuff post-Minban.

Do they actually bother to cut the deleted scenes back into the film?

Like, I get why they've kept them separate in the past since they used to be half finished scenes that were often missing some effects or audio, or had been cut because the acting didn't quite work, but these days they're typically fully-realised sequences that just get chopped for time and I've no interest in flicking through a bunch of disjointed bits & bobs.

 Vulcan wrote:

 Thargrim wrote:
I finally saw this for the first time a week ago. I thought it was okay, or at least acceptable. Until they brought back a character i've always felt should stay dead, cause he was never interesting and a 1 dimensional character who was literally maimed dead in a past movie. As soon as this character showed up my jaw just about hit he floor in horror and disgust. I almost feel like saying I wish Lucas never sold SW to Disney, i'd almost rather have no new SW films than see them turn into absurd fan fiction stylings.

In Disney's defense (I NEVER thought I'd be saying that in relation to Star Wars), LucasFilm had already brought that particular character back during the Clone Wars animated series... well before the Disney buyout.

EDIT: And I see I've been beaten to the punch several times over...

AND MARVEL comics managed to resurrect him first - TCW just followed up on that and fleshed it out a lot more.
TCW is ALL lucasfilm, btw, not Disney. I grow tired of telling people this, but although Disney OWN LFL and Marvel, they don't tell either company how to run themselves or make their movies. And George STILL has input on all LFL productions as a "consultant". He's no more gone than Jar-Jar Binks.

He is also in the Lego SW films

I think it was actually Dark Horse comics. And IIRC it was a What If type book.

 Lance845 wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Indeed. He was one of the most interesting parts of TPM. Frankly he should have been a recurring villain in the Prequels. An antagonist for Obi-wan and Anakin to go after because he killed Qui-gon.

One of the biggest problems with episodes i/2/3 is that each movie introduces the most visually interesting, Darth Vader esc, villain in the prequels and then immediately kills them off in the same movie before they get to do anything that really matters. The only recurring villain is Duku. An old confused looking guy.

It would have been so much better if Maul stayed alive and one after the other kept killing important people in Anakin and Obis lives. You could even see Anakins fall towards the Darkside as Obi becomes more and more zen about it while Anakin builds up more and more hate until Maul threatens Padame and Anakin looses his gak completely and falls. Just a horrible assassin that dogs them throughout their lives picking off person after person and always getting away leaving them frustrated and left to deal with the aftermath.

It would have been so much better of a reason and we could see the emotional toll Maul has on Anakin over the years. AND it would have perfectly reflected Yodas words. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to the Dark Side. Would have been great.

I assume he's killed off because George didn't want their to be an obvious Sith running around in the years between 1 and 2. Granted, that's just another problem created by the decision to introduce Anakin as a child and its super weird that Yoda and Windu seem excessively aware that there's a greater threat and DON'T seem particularly concerned about it between movies, but I'm sure its still why he's killed off.

I don't love including him in the movies again. The EU is absolutely loaded with silly stuff like this and Boba surviving and IG88 taking over the second Death Star and mostly using it to troll Palpatine. As much as I love the EU I've also always kind of enjoyed that there's a fairly pure line of storytelling in the setting that mostly ignores this. I don't really need characters back from the dead in the film chronology even if they're technically around in the extended stuff.

That said, Maul's story is certainly improved by his return, particularly with where it goes in Rebels. I'm just not excited about seeing him in films.

You make a good point. Darth Maul died in a movie, came back in a cartoon show, and appears without further explanation in another movie. The strong implication being, episodes of a TV show are as relevant as movies. Which is just incorrect. There are a lot of people, like Thargrim above, who will see a movie but who are not going to watch TV shows much less read novels and comic books.

Maul's cameo works on two levels I think. If you're a fan, have spent time with some of the EU properties and are aware of his back story, you can let yourself have a little self-satisfied nod because you knew he was still around.

If you're just a fan of the movies, or if this is your first SW, your reaction is going to be either "wait, he died!" or "who's that?!" Either way that's a great little moment to throw in at the end of the movie, to either expand on in a sequel or send the curious off into the EU for the first time.

 chromedog wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

 Thargrim wrote:
I finally saw this for the first time a week ago. I thought it was okay, or at least acceptable. Until they brought back a character i've always felt should stay dead, cause he was never interesting and a 1 dimensional character who was literally maimed dead in a past movie. As soon as this character showed up my jaw just about hit he floor in horror and disgust. I almost feel like saying I wish Lucas never sold SW to Disney, i'd almost rather have no new SW films than see them turn into absurd fan fiction stylings.

In Disney's defense (I NEVER thought I'd be saying that in relation to Star Wars), LucasFilm had already brought that particular character back during the Clone Wars animated series... well before the Disney buyout.

EDIT: And I see I've been beaten to the punch several times over...

AND MARVEL comics managed to resurrect him first - TCW just followed up on that and fleshed it out a lot more.
TCW is ALL lucasfilm, btw, not Disney. I grow tired of telling people this, but although Disney OWN LFL and Marvel, they don't tell either company how to run themselves or make their movies. And George STILL has input on all LFL productions as a "consultant". He's no more gone than Jar-Jar Binks.

Darkhorse, not marvel. Marvel didnt reaquire the sw comic liscene until after disney aquired lucas film (for what should be obvious reasons).

 Manchu wrote:
You make a good point. Darth Maul died in a movie, came back in a cartoon show, and appears without further explanation in another movie. The strong implication being, episodes of a TV show are as relevant as movies. Which is just incorrect. There are a lot of people, like Thargrim above, who will see a movie but who are not going to watch TV shows much less read novels and comic books.

Whether someone chooses to see them or not has no bearing on whether it's part of the story, and TCW has always been considered canon. Rebels as well.

Canon is canon.

Clone Wars is just as valid as the movies.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Maul's cameo works on two levels I think. If you're a fan, have spent time with some of the EU properties and are aware of his back story, you can let yourself have a little self-satisfied nod because you knew he was still around.

If you're just a fan of the movies, or if this is your first SW, your reaction is going to be either "wait, he died!" or "who's that?!" Either way that's a great little moment to throw in at the end of the movie, to either expand on in a sequel or send the curious off into the EU for the first time.

This is a good point. There's no narrative break in this cameo. They just reveal that a character you thought had been chopped in half is alive with robot legs. Most people really don't need an explanation of how he survived, got his legs, what have you. One could argue that that's the primary reason that Solo itself didn't draw as much attention as fans expected; most people don't really need an explanation of how Han got his stuff.

My gripe isn't really with the cameo itself, but the kind of cameo it is. Character obviously killed off is reconned to have survived years later is something I don't really like, but accept as an often necessary tool of disposable long form storytelling. I just liked that Star Wars didn't have a ton of this in the films, though in fairness its probably just a result of these "Star Wars Stories" being something of a theatrical release of an EU product in the first place. Any criticism I have of the Maul reveal probably extends to the Solo as a whole.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Maul's cameo works on two levels I think. If you're a fan, have spent time with some of the EU properties and are aware of his back story, you can let yourself have a little self-satisfied nod because you knew he was still around.

If you're just a fan of the movies, or if this is your first SW, your reaction is going to be either "wait, he died!" or "who's that?!" Either way that's a great little moment to throw in at the end of the movie, to either expand on in a sequel or send the curious off into the EU for the first time.

This is a good point. There's no narrative break in this cameo. They just reveal that a character you thought had been chopped in half is alive with robot legs. Most people really don't need an explanation of how he survived, got his legs, what have you. One could argue that that's the primary reason that Solo itself didn't draw as much attention as fans expected; most people don't really need an explanation of how Han got his stuff.

My gripe isn't really with the cameo itself, but the kind of cameo it is. Character obviously killed off is reconned to have survived years later is something I don't really like, but accept as an often necessary tool of disposable long form storytelling. I just liked that Star Wars didn't have a ton of this in the films, though in fairness its probably just a result of these "Star Wars Stories" being something of a theatrical release of an EU product in the first place. Any criticism I have of the Maul reveal probably extends to the Solo as a whole.

Which doesn't really have anything to do with Solo, since Maul was brought back YEARS ago in TCW series.

And "obviously killed off" is a funny thing. As any RPG player will tell you, it ain't dead unless you have the body and can pump some extra shots into it for good measure. And even then, you never know...

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Canon is canon.

Not really. I mean, sure that can be a rule. For writers. Or IP managers. But the movie going public does not give a feth about such rules. You are never going to get the same number of people to see a Star Wars TV cartoon as will go see the movies. And so the movie going people are going tl be straight up confused. I talked to a number of Star Wars fans, but fans of the movies only, who were totally confused by the cameo in question and who can blame them.

Then don’t complain a given movie doesn’t explain something when it’s explained elsewhere within the canon.

You might as well complain a sequel doesn’t explain a backstory, because you’ve not watched the preceding entries.

But that’s exactly the problem. People don’t go to movies to find out what happens after the events of some comic book.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Maul's cameo works on two levels I think. If you're a fan, have spent time with some of the EU properties and are aware of his back story, you can let yourself have a little self-satisfied nod because you knew he was still around.

If you're just a fan of the movies, or if this is your first SW, your reaction is going to be either "wait, he died!" or "who's that?!" Either way that's a great little moment to throw in at the end of the movie, to either expand on in a sequel or send the curious off into the EU for the first time.

This is a good point. There's no narrative break in this cameo. They just reveal that a character you thought had been chopped in half is alive with robot legs. Most people really don't need an explanation of how he survived, got his legs, what have you. One could argue that that's the primary reason that Solo itself didn't draw as much attention as fans expected; most people don't really need an explanation of how Han got his stuff.

My gripe isn't really with the cameo itself, but the kind of cameo it is. Character obviously killed off is reconned to have survived years later is something I don't really like, but accept as an often necessary tool of disposable long form storytelling. I just liked that Star Wars didn't have a ton of this in the films, though in fairness its probably just a result of these "Star Wars Stories" being something of a theatrical release of an EU product in the first place. Any criticism I have of the Maul reveal probably extends to the Solo as a whole.

Which doesn't really have anything to do with Solo, since Maul was brought back YEARS ago in TCW series.

And "obviously killed off" is a funny thing. As any RPG player will tell you, it ain't dead unless you have the body and can pump some extra shots into it for good measure. And even then, you never know...

It's not a funny thing, that's the point and the problem. Long form storytelling almost always requires some retcons, but when chopping someone in two only means they're "probably" dead, you quickly lose the narrative weight death should carry. You get to a place where comic books are, where every death is an obvious stunt and mostly just annoys the audience while they wait for the retcon. Star Wars IS absolutely loaded with this kind of stuff, but its generally been regulated to the EU. That's why no one expected to see Han return in Ep 8 with robot legs, despite basically suffering the same fate as Maul.

I really feel you’re grasping at straws, or being deliberately obtuse.

I dare say the majority of folk that go to see Marvel Movies aren’t up on the comics, like at all. And as such, didn’t seek out the movies because of the comics.

Yet there’ll be those then wanting to know more, who’ll seek out the comics.

Same with Star Wars. Don’t complain something hasn’t been answered when it’s the viewer refusing to watch where the answer is. And Clone Wars isn’t exactly some obscure ‘one off’ TV disaster. It’s a very well regarded and much loved series, which adds considerable narrative flesh.

You're not thinking like a nonSW fan.

A well regarded and much loved series that they haven't heard of is the best description for the overwhelming majority of the cinema going public.

Can you refuse to watch something you're completely unaware exists?

Once you’re aware of it? Yes you can.

Star Wars is now multimedia.

There’s 10 movies, with the 11th on the way. 5 complete seasons of Clone Wars, 1 incomplete season of Clone Wars and new episodes coming, four complete seasons of Rebels, comics and novels up the wazoo.

That’s how they’ve chosen to market it. Seeing Maul in Solo generates ‘whaaaaaa!’, and from there, increased sales across the other mediums.

Or a quick Google search on the way through the foyer...

Reading about it is one thing, seeing it is another.

It’s not going to work on everyone, but enough to generate additional revenues.

Deliberately obstuse is the perfect description of an apologist defending a scene that confused most of the audience by pointing to ancillary cartoons and comics.

I mean, I both LOVED the film and already knew about this character’s unlikely resurrection, and even I can acknowledge the cameo was tone deaf vis a vis the general audience.

 Manchu wrote:
You make a good point. Darth Maul died in a movie, came back in a cartoon show, and appears without further explanation in another movie. The strong implication being, episodes of a TV show are as relevant as movies. Which is just incorrect. There are a lot of people, like Thargrim above, who will see a movie but who are not going to watch TV shows much less read novels and comic books.

When Disney took over they publicly stated the Clone Wars were part of canon. Just because lots of people didn't watch it, doesn't mean it's not part of the story. Consider the MCU; I imagine there are quite a few people who haven't seen ALL the movies, but catch the Avenger films.

Of course, MCU does a better job covering the necessary story bits than Disney Wars has...