10 Biggest Star Wars Retcons

8. Darth Maul's Resurrection

Star Wars The Clone Wars Darth Maul
Disney Platform Distribution

As we mentioned, not all retcons are bad. Some can shed new light on a prior event, take a story in a more interesting direction, or - in the case of Darth Maul's unlikely return to the land of the living - give fans more time with a character they love.

When George Lucas was crafting his grand return to the Star Wars universe in 1999's The Phantom Menace, the devilish Dathomirian was intended to be killed off for good, something Lucas made clear with the image of Maul's bisected body falling down one of those ridiculously long Star Wars shafts.

However, after developing Maul's brother Savage Opress throughout the Clone Wars animated series, Lucas became more interested in Maul, and - feeling that he was underutilized in his sole movie appearance - decided to resurrect him.

Series lead Dave Filoni responded to this idea by saying "It's over. He's cut in half. How does that work?" only for Lucas to bluntly reply "I don't know. Figure it out."

Retconning Maul's death made him even more of a fan-favourite than he already was, and with the villain even returning to the big screen in 2018's Solo, there's always a chance he'll appear in another Star Wars project down the line.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!