Warning: Full spoilers for the latest Star Wars Rebels episode, “Twin Suns” below.
And so it ends. The episode “Twin Suns” was obviously going to be an important one for the series and for Star Wars in its entirety, as Darth Maul and Obi-Wan Kenobi faced off on Tatooine. With the show’s timeline hurtling towards A New Hope, could Maul possibly survive one more encounter with his old enemy – the man who sliced him in half and left him for dead in The Phantom Menace?
The answer was no, he couldn’t, as the former Sith apprentice was killed at last, via a swift cut from Obi-Wan’s lightsaber.
Voicing Maul since his big return on The Clone Wars years ago has been Sam Witwer, and I spoke to the actor about saying goodbye to the character and the circumstances around Maul's death, including that surprisingly quick lightsaber battle. A huge – and highly knowledgably -- Star Wars fan himself, Witwer shared his own thoughts on how it all went down.
IGN: So you got to do it. You got to bring closure to Darth Maul. What did you think when you found out that this was going to definitely be it?
Witwer: The Disney sale happens, Clone Wars closes out, and they start Rebels. And I remember talking with Dave [Filoni] at the studio, at a time when I didn’t know what I would or wouldn’t be doing for Star Wars. And Dave kind of shrug his shoulders and says what I don’t have the courage to bring up, which is, “You know Maul is coming into Rebels, right?” And I was hoping! And he was like, “Yeah, that’s happening,” and the moment he said that, I knew we were going to Tatooine. The shape of how it was going down, I saw it in my head when we talked about it at the studio. So I’ve been prepared for this for a while. I feel like this guy, he got his mileage. He’s had more than his fair share at trying to make his mark on the Star Wars universe.
IGN: A lot happens and and a lot is conveyed in those final moments. What was it like to play out the final words of Darth Maul?
Witwer: If I’m being honest, I’m sad even right now because I’ve been Maul for several years and we’ve been through a lot together, me and that guy. Saying goodbye was -- there was some sorrow but there was a great satisfaction in having that closure. And in a weird way, I think Darth Maul shared my satisfaction with that. On some level, he knows this can’t end well for him. He knows that the best thing that can happen for him… In a weird way, I think that the best thing that can happen for him does happen for him. In the way that they make Rebels, the dialogue is very well chosen and it’s not too verbal or robust. They don’t explain everything to you. But we’re talking about a guy that every time that we see him, he’s been locked in the past and trying to break out of it. We find him on Malachor, which is basically a big graveyard, as a withered old man who gained some measure of his youth back sort of siphoning it off young Ezra, draining his youth to debase himself. Then you see him in an old Mandalorian base that had been abandoned - an old Death Watch base. You go to Dathomir, which is just a dead world. The witches of Dathomir are no longer there and you have a guy who has collected all these Clone Wars mementos and all the stuff from his life – he has a shrine to Satine!
This guy has been living in death for quite some time and not been able to move on from it. So for his last moments to be embraced by what is essentially a new life, this Luke Skywalker that is going to save the galaxy -- for him to be embraced by his enemy, for Obi Wan’s actions to be forgiveness, for Obi-Wan to cradle him in his last moments and shepherd him into whatever is next for Darth Maul, to make his passing into the force a peaceful one... That’s about as good as it could get for this guy. His end should have been far more violent than it actually was. It was a peaceful way to go, relatively, considering all the suffering he has caused. For him to come so very close to realizing the error in his ways… But he just messes up that one word. He thinks that revenge will be the order of the day, that revenge will prevail. He almost gets redeemed, but he can’t quite get there. But whether or not he was redeemed, he is still on some level forgiven by Obi-Wan Kenobi, by his greatest enemy.
IGN: That’s what I really love about his final words. He’s still Maul, hoping Luke will get vengeance, which is a Sith idea not a Jedi idea. Yet there’s a sadness and connection there with Obi-Wan, even as he’s still espousing Sith ideals that Obi-Wan does not agree with. Was it great for you to get to play all of that at once in this character that is so meaningful to fans?
Witwer: Yes. There’s a lot there. That’s one thing about Dave. He doesn’t call me up unless there’s something to think about or there’s something that we have to work out on a philosophical or moral or a mythological riddle that we need to solve. Some sort of moral conundrum that we need to place our feet on one side or the other. It’s fun when we can ambiguously put those feet into the sand and let the fans discover for itself what it all means. What I’m telling you is my interpretation of it. I could be very wrong. Anything anyone says about this is valid. Is he redeemed? Some people could say yes. Other people could say he missed the point. He had the chance and he missed it. The thing I like is that they’re both in the desert and both men needed redemption. Obi-Wan’s hasn’t come just yet. Darth Maul needs redemption and Obi Wan Kenobi needs redemption because in his own way, he was a general in a war, and that’s against what the Jedi are supposed to be. And Obi-Wan, on some level, I’m sure feels responsible for the things that have gone down and how the Jedi fell and how everything became corrupt. And through Luke Skywalker, both Darth Maul and Obi-Wan Kenobi find redemption.
IGN: Why do you think their fight is so brief? Is it that Obi-Wan is just at that point so much stronger than Maul, that Maul has lost his edge, or is it that Maul doesn’t truly want to win? Or is it a weird combo of all that?
Witwer: There are so many different ways of looking at that. Everything you said is valid. It could all be absolutely true. One thing I think is interesting is the Jedi in the prequels are supposed to be peacekeepers, and certainly had a very artful way of making war. They had an artful way of defending themselves and inciting violence, really. You find that the Jedi who survived all of that had a much more simpler way of going about things. Obi-Wan, for example, in the bar when Ponda Baba and Dr. Evazan pick a fight with Luke, Obi-Wan closes down that fight as fast as it begins. He doesn’t do anything flashy. He just dispatches the problem as fast as he possibly can. I think that’s what you see here. If this fight had happened maybe twenty years earlier, you would have seen a dashing display of lightsaber wickedness. I think there is something else going on in the classic trilogy, which is where we are now finding ourselves. Obi-Wan is no longer interested in expending any more energy than is absolutely necessary. If he can end a fight quickly, he’s going to end it quickly. The line between intention and results is finally a straight line. It wasn’t quite a straight line and he had powers and you have to imagine by indulging in those powers and becoming better and better at those things, administrating a war, by participating in those things they are giving in to a measure of the dark side of the Force. However, a Jedi who only fights in self defense and draws his lightsaber only to defend the innocent or to strike down his foe as quickly and painlessly as possible, that’s what the lightsaber is for. That’s what a Jedi is supposed to be. That’s how it’s supposed to go down. It’s not supposed to be pretty or flashy. It’s simply a necessary move. And that’s it. Only the most necessary moves survive into the original trilogy.
IGN: You mentioned how Maul was trapped in the past and that was one reason he’s ready to let go.
Witwer: I think Darth Maul has been on a vicious cycle, he’s been on a merry go round. In some way he’s begging for Obi-Wan Kenobi to take him off that ride. Guess what? We’re going to see almost a replay of what we saw in Clone Wars because this guy is not learning what he needs to learn. Maybe he is going about it in slightly smarter ways and maybe he understands a little bit more through the loss of Savage what it means to have a brother, but ultimately he’s going to make a lot of mistakes. This is a man who needs Obi-Wan to help him get off this ride, to help him out of this cycle. That’s the way I read it. Without anyone’s help, Darth Maul will only commit himself to his mistakes of the past. Every time we find this character, he is living in the past and in some cases he is living with the dead. This character is desperate and he needs Obi-Wan’s help to move on.
IGN: And he gets it.
Witwer: He does and ultimately, it’s a very human thing. When something goes wrong in our lives we often ask ourselves “Who was present?” and if there was ever a singular person that was present in whatever the event was when something changed our lives. If we can't get beyond that event, we become obsessed with it or it changed our life in a way that we can’t make sense of. We often seek out that person because that was the last time our lives made sense. The last time Darth Maul’s life made sense was on Naboo and then everything changed. And he hasn't been able to put the pieces back together again because he’s been looking in the wrong direction. We saw it over and over again in Clone Wars - they faced off multiple times. Darth Maul had several opportunities to kill him and the first time he defeated Kenobi he realized, “This doesn’t make me feel better.” It didn’t make him feel any better. “Okay, what if I torture him psychologically? What if I kill the woman this loves?” It doesn’t make him feel better either. He knows 100% that it’s that guy, there’s something about that guy that will heal me. And that’s where Darth Maul is correct. The one part that he has right is that Obi-Wan Kenobi can heal him, just not quite in the way that you first would expect.
IGN: Your history with Star Wars as a fan goes way back, but your history career-wise with Star Wars is now many years old as well. I know even if you had the answer to this, you couldn’t tell me right now, but given the fact that Sam Witwer has played more characters in Star Wars than almost anyone, and that we could see still Maul again in some other earlier time frame, even as you say goodbye to the character, are you excited about whatever could come next?
Witwer: The thing I love about these Star Wars characters is that I kind of believe we’re all just stewards, temporary caretakers. Darth Maul is Ray Park and Peter Serafinowicz voicing Ray Park, but mostly I think that presence on the screen, that’s what Darth Maul is. Whoever contributed to that presence, that’s what Darth Maul is. And when you watch Clone Wars and you watch Rebels, I am contributing to that presence and that character. Sometime in the future, if I’m not right for it and someone else steps in because there’s some move for that character, I completely accept that. I contributed. It’s going to sound funny but in the same way – Obi-Wan in Star Wars Episode IV says to Darth Vader, “If you strike me down, I should become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.” Obi-Wan understands that it’s not about him. Obi-Wan understands that the best thing he can do is contribute something positive to the world around him and then to leave. And if he does that, he will in some ways live forever because the good influence of what he did will be felt. It may sound corny but that’s kind of the way I feel about contributing to Star Wars characters. It isn’t about me. It’s about the story. It’s about the mythology of Star Wars and the moral implications of that mythology. It’s about a teaching tool to give children so that when they grow up they have a vocabulary to deal with things that happen in their lives. So for me, it’s okay. Darth Maul dies and it’s okay. And maybe he’ll be picked up later and another actor will play him and that’s okay. However if they call me up and they need him for this or that and they want me to play him, then that’s okay too. I do actually love this character. I feel strongly about him. I feel badly for him and if there’s anything more I can contribute to him or the larger Star Wars mythology I will continue to do so and if my time has come then I will watch as a fan the way I have since I was born.
Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @TheEricGoldman, IGN at ericgoldman-ign and Facebook at http://ift.tt/LQFqjj.
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