By Marc Bernardin, Source: Blastr.com
You remember Darth Maul, don’t you? That demon-faced Sith Lord with the double-bladed lightsaber who so memorably Phantom Menaced Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi and Liam Neeson’s Qui-Gon Jinn … until he got sliced in half by a Jedi intern? As the old saying goes, no one’s really dead in science fiction.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars supervising director Dave Filoni thinks that the ignoble manner of Darth Maul’s demise might have had something to do with George Lucas wanting to seemingly bring him back from the great beyond. As Filoni told EW:
“I found it funny in The Phantom Menace when Darth Maul got cut in half. … I thought George was definitively saying to the fans, ‘There’s no way this character is coming back. This is not a Boba Fett/Sarlacc Pit situation where, because of fan love, Boba gets out of that thing any number of ways.’ Fast-forward ten years, and I’m the one to bring Maul back ….
“He’s suffered through a lot to keep himself alive and implemented the training of his master [Darth Sidious] to do so. … He’s more than ten years older than he was in The Phantom Menace. That’s immensely satisfying, because now nobody knows what’s going to happen to him. I know, but nobody else does.”
We’ll have to wait until Spring 2012 to find out. For now, EW’s got the briefest of video glimpses of the CG Darth Maul over here.