Shadow Lord’ Is a Positive Prequel to a Nice TV Present

For nearly 20 years now, Lucasfilm Animation has advanced and altered its narrative relationship with Star Wars animation. From the arc-based format of Clone Wars kicking a whole new Star Wars legacy off, to extra broadly episodic exhibits with narrative-advancing character work like Rebels, Resistance, and The Unhealthy Batch, to condensed, tight anthologies just like the Tales sequence—the studio has at all times been open to experimentation. Subsequent week, it begins a brand new one: the return of a personality saved from fleeting intrigue by animation, the previous Darth Maul, in a 10-chapter, closely serialized narrative.

That experiment, Maul: Shadow Lord, offers the studio some good house to have attention-grabbing concepts about an underdog character who, up up to now, has largely pushed different folks’s tales. It offers it even higher house to iterate on and advance its home type, celebrating the leaps and bounds which have occurred within the final twenty years.

Does it use that house effectively? Not solely. However does it make that potential all of the extra promising? Completely.

Shadow Lord is ready not a lot additional after the occasions of Revenge of the Sith, because the galaxy nonetheless reckons with the transformation of the Republic into the Galactic Empire—particularly Maul (the returning Sam Witwer). Now the top of a small, however potent legal syndicate known as the Shadow Collective working on the planet Janix, seemingly effectively out of the purview of his former grasp’s gaze, Maul whiles away the time strong-arming native thugs and police forces (spearheaded by Captain Lawson and his droid associate Two-Boots, performed by Oscar-nominated actor Wagner Moura and Richard Ayoade, respectively). However when a rogue pair of Jedi, grasp and apprentice, cross paths together with his operation (Eeko-Dio Daki, performed by Dennis Haysbert, and the younger Devon Izara, performed by Gideon Adlon), Maul finds one thing brimming with the identical potential he as soon as had—a brand new device for revenge.

Over the course of the primary eight episodes of the season supplied for evaluation, Shadow Lord begins to put out this determined revenge plan (and it’s determined; in some ways, that’s part of Maul’s charm) in a world that’s dripping with seedy crime-noir charms. Lucasfilm Animation has hardly ever appeared higher than it does in Shadow Lord, with lush background artwork smearing neon hues and soiled haze, and refined, however noticeable texture work giving character fashions an nearly painterly look, enriching that worn-in Star Wars really feel because the galaxy slowly begins to fade from the aesthetics of the prequels. This particularly pops in Shadow Lord‘s moments of motion, particularly when lightsabers are concerned: blades flare up as if comprised of residing flame somewhat than managed power, reflecting the frantic anger of their wielders, dousing scenes in shades of purple as a stark distinction to the cool hues of Janix or the shadows of the Empire’s eventual arrival on the world.

It’s in capturing this crime-story vibe that Witwer brings out a way more sophisticated layer to his efficiency as Maul, as effectively. Since his return in 2012, we’ve seen many sides to Maul, from the broken shell his brother discovered him as to the determined, wizened crone with a tragic streak that he’s by the point of his finish in Rebels, however Shadow Lord brings us a Maul on the prime of his sport. That doesn’t imply he’s a out of the blue good particular person, removed from it—he’s nonetheless a sizzling mess haunted by the best way Palpatine discarded him, beset by failure after failure round him, and at all times in search of a brand new approach out and in direction of an increase we all know won’t ever fairly come for him. However that enables Witwer to play Maul as a manipulator, far much less grandiose and liable to snarls and shouts, with a calculated craving that turns into nearly obsession when he encounters Devon and realizes her potential.

Adlon brings a efficiency to match that with the younger Jedi padawan as effectively, balancing a fragile line between somebody whose entire life has been formed by the noble views of the Jedi Order, and the comprehensible bitterness of getting that wrenched from her as she and her grasp are left begging for scraps on shadowed streets. She is as essential to what works in Shadow Lord as Maul is himself, and after they’re on display screen collectively, enjoying the cat and mouse of pushing one another’s buttons, the present is at its most electrical—simply how their relationship will ultimately unfold is among the driving forces of the entire season, and there’s loads of house for the present to discover that pressure.

Nonetheless, the place Shadow Lord‘s debut season stumbles is in how typically it fails to successfully use that house. The primary eight episodes are gradual, and never at all times in a measured sense, and when it will get on to a good suggestion, it gestures to it greater than it does take the time to discover it, leaving it feeling concurrently skinny but dragging. When the present does begin to choose up the tempo and depth in its again half, it’s largely as a result of Shadow Lord has traded the majority of that crime-mystery thriller tone for the extra typical and acquainted story of individuals on the run from the Empire coming to name, as teams of characters get extra unfold out from the central narrative and even Maul himself begins feeling misplaced within the weeds of all of the operating and explosions. Whereas it in the end represents a enjoyable catalyst for Maul’s plans slowly falling aside once more with the Empire respiration down his neck, it largely signifies that the season is one the place not lots of issues occur till they out of the blue do, and so they’re largely issues of visible pleasure somewhat than extra cerebral ones.

It doesn’t assist that lots of this motion and purported pressure is pushed by acquainted faces that we all know find yourself having to indicate up elsewhere. The Empire’s presence on Janix is basically pushed by two members of the Imperial Inquisitorius, the Eleventh Brother (from Tales of the Jedi), and Marrok the First Brother (from Ahsoka). We’ve already seen each these characters die in these respective tales—not like that’s stopped a Star Wars character earlier than, least of all of the protagonist of this present—so after they’re squaring off in opposition to Maul, who in fact dies for seemingly good in Rebels, it’s all very cool and visually hanging, however there’s little or no imperiled within the narrative, and even the presence of recent characters like Lawson or Devon doesn’t result in them feeling threatened sufficient so as to add some.

It’s an rising downside of Star Wars‘ fondness for a type of prequelized obsession, and Shadow Lord is at its emptiest when it falls into these moments—much more so starkly when contrasted with when the sequence makes use of that prequel nature at its greatest, to bridge the character arc of Maul himself between Clone Wars and Rebels and discover his character in apparently significant methods, or when it ignores it solely to flesh out extra attention-grabbing elements of the Empire’s arrival on Janix, particularly with Lawson and Two-Boots’ roles as members of the native police (it’s a subplot that’s by no means actually fairly on the tone of an Andor, however a vibe that’s surprisingly mature for an animated present).

It’s that the present nonetheless does this in moments, beneath the slick veneer of lightsaber battling and the simpler evils of the Empire operating across the place, that provides it an intriguing potential that sequence can by no means fairly stay as much as, very like its wayward titular anti-hero. We now know, not less than, that the present will return for not less than another season, so it’s not like Shadow Lord has to out of the blue slam into excessive gear and wrap all the pieces all up within the two episodes not proven to press but. However even when it does, and people episodes present a satisfying path in direction of that second season, what’s right here within the first is only a bit too off for its personal good.

What is obvious is that, regardless of that, Lucasfilm has a eager curiosity in Maul as a personality and the concepts he can characterize and play with within the galaxy far, distant. Shadow Lord lays the trail for the studio to discover these, and will repay into one thing fairly particular—nevertheless it doesn’t really dig into their potential meaningfully fairly but.

Maul: Shadow Lord begins streaming on Disney+ with a two-episode premiere in the present day, April 6.

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