Maul – Shadow Lord Proves This Star Wars Villain Is Best As A Classic Movie Monster
by Rafael Motamayor · /FilmYou underestimate the power of the spoilers. Turn back now if you haven't watched "Star Wars: Maul — Shadow Lord" Episodes 9 and 10, "Strange Allies" and "The Dark Lord."
"Star Wars: Maul — Shadow Lord" ended with a rather spectacular finale that brought Maul closer to how we meet him in "Solo" and in "Star Wars: Rebels." He's now gained an apprentice and new allies, but lost his entire crew, including the best "Star Wars" droid in years (RIP, Spybot).
Things are quite dire for Maul during the finale, which is saying something considering the guy is like Sisyphus, doomed to try and fail over and over. Maul's constant is that he gains power, only to lose it. He faces only the strongest and most powerful Force users in the "Star Wars" universe and gets humiliated at every turn.
This time, the role of Maul's humiliator falls on none other than the Emperor's Fist, the chosen one who joined the Sith, the man who left the Force in darkness; that's right, Darth Vader shows up, and he is absolutely terrifying.
This version of the Dark Lord is not sassy, and he isn't taunting his victims. Instead, he is completely silent — which did make one of our writers think "Star Wars" should finally recast Vader after the "Maul — Shadow Lord" finale. In many ways, he is an invincible slasher villain that brings destruction everywhere he goes.
The thing is, this is not the first time Vader has been portrayed this way. Quite the opposite. "Maul — Shadow Lord" is just the latest proof of the best trend in the Disney era of "Star Wars," the idea that Darth Vader works best when he is a classic movie monster.
Disney smartly presents Vader as an unstoppable monster
When audiences first met Darth Vader in the original "Star Wars," he was an archetypal fantasy monster. He was a magical dark knight that's near indestructible. Then the prequels changed things by making Anakin a tragic figure. In the Expanded Universe, titles like "The Force Unleashed" video games or comics like the Dark Horse series "Star Wars: Darth Vader" tended to focus on Vader, the trauma-filled, self-loathing victim.
That's not how Vader is in the current canon. Though comic book series like Greg Pak's 2020 series do feature moments of vulnerability and humanity in Vader, they all take place after he discovers that his son, Luke Skywalker, is alive. In the Disney era, this is the pivotal moment that starts to change Vader. Before that, though? He was essentially Jason Voorhees.
It started, of course, with "Rogue One." The corridor scene where Vader effortlessly and ruthlessly kills a bunch of rebel soldiers is awe-inspiring. It also remains one of the best scenes in any "Star Wars" movie, in our view. This scene, where Vader fights not a Jedi, or even a main character, but a bunch of regular human soldiers, showed just why Vader would be so feared throughout the galaxy, and it helped set the stage for every Vader appearance to come.
After that, Vader went back to being a movie monster. The comic book series "Star Wars: Vader Down" features the most brutal Darth Vader moment, with the Dark Lord surrounded by rebel troops and massacring them all. Both "Star Wars Jedi" video games feature appearances by Vader in which he's truly terrifying and impossible to defeat. For a while, it even seemed like Vader had finally killed Ahsoka when they faced off in "Rebels."
Vader works best as an uncomplicated monster
It's not that Darth Vader can't have nuance or complexity. Anakin Skywalker is by far the most complex character in the franchise, the one who undergoes the most change, and the main character of the first six movies.
But to keep Darth Vader at a distance makes all the difference. A show or movie focused on Vader, giving us his point of view and inner thoughts during the early years of the Empire, would be a mistake. The character works best when the story focuses on how others perceive Vader. To the puny humans of "Rogue One," he is a demon straight from hell. In "Rebels" and even "Obi-Wan Kenobi," Vader is a remnant of the time when Jedi faced more than just stormtroopers with bad aim.
In "Maul — Shadow Lord," Vader is a slasher movie villain. The Dark Lord makes his presence known by pulling Rook Kast into the shadows and killing her off-screen, before slowly walking out of the fog. At all times, Vader remains calm and unbothered. Even when fighting Maul and two proper, fully-trained Jedi all at the same time, he pays them little mind. This fight goes so badly for Maul that it scars him to be afraid of Vader even over a decade later. And he has reason to be scared. This Vader is not just strong; he actively taunts his victims even without saying a single word. At one point, Vader disappears, giving his would-be victims a false sense of security before bursting through a wall in a bona fide jump scare straight out of a "Friday the 13th" film.
If the past decade has taught us anything, it's that Vader works best as a classic monster that scares and kills everything he encounters.