Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers. Do not read this piece until you’ve seen “Solo: A Star Wars Story.”
Lucasfilm’s “Solo: A Star Wars Story” is in theaters this weekend and its causing people to argue and over “Star Wars” movies all over again. Directed by Ron Howard, the movie’s been met with an enthusiastic to lukewarm response, depending on who you are (our review here, which is very mixed). Many will note ‘Solo’ is the lowest rated Rotten Tomatoes movies since the “Star Wars” prequels, the space adventure is tracking low at the box office, has already bombed in China, and may not even crack $115 million (four comparisons sake, “Rogue One” opened to $155 million, so that’s about 29% down).
LISTEN: ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’: Spoilers, Easter Eggs, Box Office, And More! [Podcast]
Lots to unpack with Lucasfilm, so-called “Star Wars” fatigue and where this franchise is headed. Meanwhile, many are talking about the movie’s surprise, arguably wtf?, cameo and perhaps confusing ending (which we hope to examine closer soon). Seemingly out of nowhere, the end of the film features “Star Wars” prequel character Darth Maul (played by Ray Park again and voice by Sam Witwer) which will confuse and irritate some fans given that the Sith apprentice was seemingly killed by Obi-Wan in “The Phantom Menace” (Ron Howard voice: he wasn’t).
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However, in the comics, the books and the animated series (“The Clone Wars” and “Star Wars Rebels”), Maul (who has dropped the “Darth” part of his moniker) is very much alive (we’ll sidestep the how and why for now). In ‘Solo,’ fitting with the theme that everyone serves someone, the movie’s villain, Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany) is revealed to be serving a higher master: Maul, who’s now the head of the Crimson Dawn crime syndicate. However, Dryden is dead at this point, so it’s Solo’s former girlfriend Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke) who must answer to Maul at the end of the movie and inform him that her former boss’ plans have failed. He sends for her and the movie basically ends.
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Even if you’re totally familiar with the comics and animated series, the choice to include Maul is rather baffling and feels extremely fan service-y; the moment feels more like a wink and a nod than something that could be explored in future ‘Solo’ sequels should they happen (Ron Howard: the won’t).
So why the jarring cameo that has even some of the most diehard “Star Wars” fans scratching their heads? Screenwriter Lawrence and Jon Kasdan recently explained.
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“So, it was something that I’d been subtly laying in hopefully early on. I always sort of thought that’s … a character I adore from the prequel trilogy I felt like was underutilized in the prequel trilogy,” Jon Kasdan told Comicbook.com. “So it was something that, when we realized that we wanted someone in the crime world above Dryden, we wanted it to feel like there were bigger fish than even the ones we get to meet in this movie. There was no one more lethal and more in the spirit of the ultimate villain that we could identify in the trilogy than him. That’s something that I sort of always wanted, and Ron was very supportive of. Sort of intuited that it’s what I wanted, and we made it happen.”
That last part is kind of interesting and suggests that Maul was a late stage addition and not in the version of the script Lord and Miller initially shot.
Maul poses some potential continuity problems. There’s the Maul era of The Clone Wars series, set when Anakin Skywalker is still a young Jedi Knight, sometime between “Attack Of The Clones” and “Revenge Of The Sith,” the Maul of the comics and then the Maul of “Star Wars Rebels,” a show which takes place over several years, but ends one year before the events of “Rogue One” (there will be a test after this). But the Kasdan’s realized in their ‘Solo’ timeline they had found a “gray area” not depicted in any canon where they could include the former Sith.
“I loved that they took him and went an interesting place with him in ‘Rebels,’ and in ‘Clone Wars,’ and just sort of to expand on the myth of that character, and the idea that he survived,” the young Kasdan explained. “‘Rebels’ set us in a timeframe where we were sort of in the clear, and they were allowed to sort of do what they wanted with the Shadow Collective, with the whole, you know, backstory that they were playing with, and his movement into crime that would leave us in a clear zone, so that, by the time this movie happened, it was gray where he was. And so it opened it up for us, and certainly, I think there’s room to go back and forth with that character and know more because he’s a rich, rich opportunity.”
It seems rather unlikely that Maul and Solo could cross paths in a ‘Solo’ sequel (which makes the cameo feel all the more pointless), given that the smuggler in “A New Hope” says he doesn’t believe in the Force and thinks it’s a hokey religion: undoubtedly he’s never encountered any Jedi, Sith or Force-sensitive people. Doesn’t it all make it impossible for Solo to cross paths with Maul?
“I don’t think so,” Lawrence Kasdan told Uproxx in a separate interview. “Because that’s part of what I love about this story. He doesn’t believe in the force, and we know that ahead of time. But he doesn’t ever have to! The only acceptance he has – over three movies that I wrote! – is so slim. You know, he never really comes to believe. He’s always the skeptic.”
The young Kasdan went on to clarify. “The line we love,” he said, “and keep referring to is, ‘we’ve seen some strange stuff across the galaxy.’ And we did really want to honor the line that he’s seen some weird stuff. And that’s why we thought it would be great for him to encounter a Jules Verne-type creature out in deep space, and made his experiences that have made his life rich and pressed the limits of what possible.”
Personally, I don’t buy it, I think it’s stretching , nd if they make a ‘Solo’ sequel (Ron Howard: they won’t), I’d personally rather not see Maul in it. You? “Solo: A Star Wars Story” is in theaters now and should cause some sort of ruckus should its box office fail to impress armchair box office pundits. Keep attuned this weekend.
