Let’s face it. You can say what you want about The Phantom Menace, but you have to admit that Darth Maul was pure Sith genius. The only complaint that I’ve ever heard about him was that he just wasn’t in the film enough. Not to pour salt on the wounds, but he did have a few more scenes in the film that were eventually dropped. Sorry, Maul fans! Let’s take a look.
REPORTING TO SIDIOUS
After Darth Maul’s failure on Tatooine, there was supposed to be another short scene where Maul contacts his master, Darth Sidious, and reports to him, explaining what happened. The scene was to take place on a Tatooine desert mesa at twilight.
It’s not in the Episode I novelization or the Episode I Comic Adaptation, but it did exist at one point in the early drafts of the script. Whether or not it was actually filmed has yet to be determined, but it was included in the shooting schedule so there’s a pretty good chance that they gave it a shot.
According to the Episode I Insider’s Guide CD-ROM, the scene contains Maul telling Sidious that the Queen’s ship is enroute to Coruscant. How the heck he could figure that out is beyond me. Maul then asks if he should follow the Queen’s ship but Darth Sidious tells him to go to Naboo instead and await his further orders.
FINISH IT
Here’s a short but good one quoted from the Episode I Insider’s Guide CD-ROM:
Darth Maul confers with his master after the Queen has left Coruscant in the revised rough draft. Sidious orders Maul to follow the Queen to Utapau and “finish it.” He also warns, “If you can’t destroy the Jedi, avoid them.” The self-confident Maul replies, “I have no doubt now that I am stronger than the Jedi. They will be destroyed.”
[T-note: in the rough drafts, Naboo was known as Utapau. For more information on where this originated, head over to Starkiller.]
MORE MAUL DIALOGUE
Darth Maul was supposed to have a few more lines of dialogue than the few we heard him speak in the film. These change slightly depending on where you get your information but the general idea remains the same. Most of these lines take place on Naboo.
The pictures included here from the Episode I Comic Adaptation show Darth Maul speaking his cut lines. The dialogue passages below are from the same scenes in the Episode I Illustrated Screenplay. Look out for additional cut dialogue from Darth Sidious and Battle Droid OOM-9 while you’re reading the piece.
Here’s the dialogue from the Illustrated Screenplay:
INT. THEED – PALACE – THRONE ROOM – DAY
NUTE, RUNE, DARTH MAUL, OOM-9, and a hologram of DARTH SIDIOUS walk through the throne room.Darth Sidious
…she is more foolish than I thought.Nute
We are sending all available troops to meet this
army of hers assembling near the swamp.
It appears to be made up of primitives.
We do not expect much resistance.OOM-9
I am increasing security at
all Naboo detention camps.Darth Maul
I feel there is more to this, My Master.
The two Jedi may be using the
Queen for their own purposes.Darth Sidious
The Jedi cannot become involved.
They can only protect the Queen.
Even Qui-Gon Jinn will not break that covenant…
This will work to our advantage…Nute
I have your approval to
porceed, then, My Lord.Darth Sidious
Proceed. Wipe them out…
all of them.
…and not much later…
INT. THEED – PALACE – THRONE ROOM – DAY
NUTE, RUNE, and FOUR COUNCIL MEMBERS watch the plaza battle on a large viewscreen.Nute
I thought the battle was going to
take place far from here…
this is too close!Rune
What’s going on?Darth Maul enters the throne room.
Darth Maul
I told you there was more to this…
the Jedi are involved.
The solo still of Darth Maul is from the Episode I Insider’s Guide CD-ROM. Compare it to the shot from the Comic Adaptation. It’s almost exact, but in the matching scene from the film he simply says, “Yes, my master,” to Darth Sidious.
The shot of Darth Maul and the Neimoidians walking is also taken from the Episode I Insider’s Guide CD-ROM. This scene is in the film but we don’t see Darth Sidious in this picture. He was probably added in later on. This scene looks like just another version of the “Wipe them out…” scene. Just imagine a computer generated OOM-9 walking alongside everyone.
THE LIGHTSABER DUEL
A big complaint about Episode I that I remember hearing is that there wasn’t any fun, antagonistic dialogue during the lightsaber duels at the end of the film. What made the duels in the original trilogy all the more interesting was this certain kind of dialogue. I admit that I do like the silent Maul but I am probably in the minority there. I think if you give that kind of a character too many cliché “bad guy” lines, it gets boring and silly. The lines would have to had been really meaty for me to enjoy it.
That said, the duel at the end of the film went through many, many changes. It was very different in the beginning and much more involved. One of the more interesting versions is the one where (according to the Episode I Insider’s Guide CD-ROM) after Qui-Gon is killed, Destroyer Droids and Battle Droids enter the battle and start shooting it up. Maul says to Obi-Wan, “You’re finished, Jedi, and this is the beginning of the end for all Jedi.” Then Obi-Wan leaps backward into the crowd of droids. Before they can do much damage, however, Anakin (together with Padmé in this version) destroy the control ship, deactivating the droids and sending them running into the walls.
Maul starts to cut the droids down to get to Obi-Wan while Obi-Wan starts using the Force to hurl some battle droids back at Maul. When they get back to each other again, Obi-Wan says, “Your style of fighting is old, but I understand it now…” to which Maul replies, “You learn fast.”
Obi-Wan comes back with, “You don’t bother to learn,” but the cocky Maul retorts, “I don’t have to…”
At this point, Obi-Wan cuts Maul in half and gives him the nice little posthumous “Arnold” anecdote, “Learn not…live not, my master always says.”
To give you another small taste of what might have been, here’s a snippet taken from Starwars.com where Nick Gillard talks briefly about the confrontation and how it changed:
“Whenever you see anybody fighting near a big hole, it’s a pretty sure bet someone’s going to go over the edge,” Gillard says. However, originally it wasn’t Obi-Wan who was going to plunge. “It was going to be Qui-Gon going over and hanging, and then coming back and having another fight, and then getting killed. But that seemed unnecessary. What we came up with was just more economical, and I think, really better for the audience.”
I’m including here a picture I found on Starwars.com. It appears to be an unused shot of Obi-Wan doing some sort of acrobatic move during the Hangar part of the 3-way lightsaber duel. Of course, there’s nothing to support this theory. The picture was just slapped up with no explanation as to what’s going on.
This could have just been Ewan hopping around during takes and they decided to color in the lightsaber for the picture for all we know. Either way, whether it’s just a snapshot or a cut scene, it’s still a nice picture and so…let it be posted.
Who knows how much actual deleted footage from the duel there must be somewhere, but many of the clips that have surfaced thus far are very short. In fact, the two clips featured here are so short that my friend Master Yan edited them both together so you can download them in one shot.
One is taken from a television show called “Ultimate Special Effects” which aired on the TLC cable station and the other is taken from the TV commercial spot called “One Destiny” which you might have seen on television when Episode I was in theaters. The screenshots were sent in by Sam Davatchi and enhanced once again by Master Yan.
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Download: Video clip of the end duel (bigger version of the first half of the clip – courtesy of Yannick Morin) |
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Download: Video clip of the end duel (two clips merged – courtesy of Yannick Morin) |
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Download: “One Destiny” TV Spot |