There's a good case to be made that Ray Park's Darth Maul (voiced by England's own Peter Serafinowicz, for those of you who remember him from Spaced, Shaun Of The Dead and Guardians Of The Galaxy) is the only really good thing about the three prequel movies. Plenty of diehard Star Wars fans would agree, and probably an equal number would disagree - that's the joy of fandom, but Darth Maul certainly struck a chord with fans in his single appearance in the franchise in The Phantom Menace. A lot of it's the look, of course - he looks like the Devil himself, all blackened fangs, horns and red and black etched, skull-like face, clad in trad Sith black. But the rest? That's Park's athleticism and gritted scowl, and that lightsabre fight between Maul and the Jedi interlopers Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi. For drama, it's not quite the equal of that climactic battle between Luke and Vader in Return Of The Jedi, but for sheer storytelling inventiveness, there's nothing else in the series to beat it... yet.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
