Solo: A Star Wars Story is a refreshing surprise. It came packed with a huge cameo that had most Star Wars fans celebrating. If you are only a fan of the films, then the cameo caught you off-guard and had you saying, “Wait…what?”
SPOILERS AHEAD FOR SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY. TREAD WITH CAUTION…
Image: Lucasfilm
There are many hints at who is behind the Crimson Dawn crime syndicate in Solo. Paul Bettany’s Dryden Vos was the central villain of the film. But there was a dark, sinister figure pulling all of the strings. That character was none other than Darth Maul, a character that was thought to have died at the end of The Phantom Menace.
It would be safe to assume that the character was killed because Maul was cut in half. In the expanded universe, Maul’s tale doesn’t end there. It is a story that was featured in Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series, and in Star Wars Rebels.
Solo screenwriters Lawrence and Jonathan Kasdan spoke about what the Maul cameo means for the franchise, and how they made it work. Jonathan Kasdan tells Uproxx that the ex-Sith Lord is hinted at multiple time throughout the film:
Image: Lucasfilm
“I was passionate about him all the way through. I sort of had planted the seeds early and I wanted it to be built that way. And I wanted to reference certain forms of martial arts that might lead to it. And the presence of someone who was so terrifying in this crime world that you had to know he was the guy who could control someone like Dryden. So he was part of the DNA of the thing.
Image: Lucasfilm
The line we love 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 [Han] had 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 are possible.”
In an interview with Variety Jonathan says that Maul’s timeline fits well with Solo’s placement:
“Maul had gone into this criminal underworld and this particular period in his life was left vague and gray in the canon. That gave us an opening to say, ‘OK, can we use that character, and if so, does he fit really nicely into a world of scary people?’”
Image: Lucasfilm
It is now confirmed that Disney made all of the right moves to make the character accurate. Ray Park, who originally played the character in The Phantom Menace, came back for the role, while Sam Witwer came back to voice Maul as he did for Rebels.
We may be starting to see the final act cameo become a habit for studios. Blade Runner 2029, Avengers: Infinity War, and now Solo embracing the tactic. Does this mean that a burn out is in the near future?
Image: Lucasfilm
How do you feel about the big Solo: A Star Wars Story cameo? Let us know in the comments below.
