Almost A Decade Later, Star Wars Recreated One of Last Jedi’s Best Moments (& Did It Even Better)

Star Wars is, as George Lucas likes to say, “like poetry… It rhymes.” Ever since the Star Wars creator uttered those words, the franchise has been a saga of circular echoes, passed down through generations of heroes and villains alike. When it works, it feels like the best kind of reward a major franchise can offer; when it doesn’t work, it feels like the worst kind of contrivance. Lucky for fans, this time it’s turned out to be a case of the former.

The latest Star Wars TV series Maul – Shadow Lord tells the story of how Maul (Sam Witwer) rebuilt his criminal empire during the Imperial Era, after losing it all at the end of the Clone Wars. To reclaim one key piece of the former Shadow Collective, Maul has to get even trickier than usual and pulls off one of the gnarliest assassinations seen since Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

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Kylo Ren Learned That Trick From Maul

Who can forget the infamous moment in Star Wars: The Last Jedi when Kylo Ren is brought before Supreme Leader Snoke and ordered to kill Rey (Daisy Ridley). Instead, Kylo goes full Ben Solo and spares Rey, killing Snoke instead. But it was the way that he did it that left moviegoers with their jaws on the floor: Snoke had taken Rey’s lightsaber as a trophy, leaving it on the arm of his throne; when he gave Kylo Ren the final order to kill Rey, Rey managed to appeal to the light side of “Ben Solo,” and Ben used his Force abilities to turn Rey’s lightsaber, ignite it, and slice Snoke clean in half. What followed was a duel that many consider one of the best in Star Wars (Rey and Ben Solo vs the Praetorian Guard).

Maul – Shadow Lord is set more than 50 years before the events of The Last Jedi, and Episode 4 reveals that Maul had used that same trick of lightsaber assassination we saw in The Last Jedi, and in even better fashion.

Maul Is A More Cunning Killer Than Kylo

In “Chapter 4: Pride and Vengeance”, Maul makes a move to reclaim a major piece of his lost criminal empire by taking out Marg Krim, leader of the Pyke Syndicate. The Pykes are heavily guarded and cunning, so Maul puts a scheme in place using a triple-double-cross with a Trojan Horse twist. He makes his hostage gangster, Looti Vario (Chris Diamantopoulos), go to the Pyke homeworld Oba Diah, under the premise that he’s betraying Maul to Krim. Instead, a hooded Maul springs out in ambush, killing most of the Pykes, until Vario really does betray him and shoots Maul down with a stun ray.

Maul gets hauled before Krim, but when the hood is removed, the ganglord realizes that it’s an imposter: one of Maul’s Dathomirian thugs has been playing the part, until the real Maul storms the door. Like Snoke, Krim had arrogantly taken “Maul’s” lightsaber as a trophy, and is still holding it in hand – which is the perfect place for Maul to Force grab it and make the Pyke leader cut himself down.

Obviously, there’s not supposed to be any direct connection drawn between Maul assassinating Marg Krim and Kylo Ren taking Snoke out; Ben Solo didn’t study from the ‘Book of Maul’ or anything like that. As George Lucas saw it, Star Wars is a saga that echoes like poetry – this is just one more (badass) example of how.

Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord Season 1 is streaming on Disney+. Discuss Star Wars with us on the ComicBook Forum!