Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Season 4 Episode 21: Brothers
What is it ? : So we're picking up the story of Savage Opress a a fairly disjoined fashion. Firstly Savage is in a cafe beating up a waitress, then he's communing with Mother Talzin in a back alley. Ahsoka and Anakin wander into the same cafe and get a free meal, during which Anakin feels the presence of Savage.
Savage finds some dust which sets off his brother locating amulet, so boards the ship which dropped off the dusty cargo and bullies the captain to take him there.
Arriving on the trash world where the dusty cargo was from, and is joined by a talking snake which guides him through the wreckage and junk of the planet avoiding "the fire breathers" which seem to be various droids melting down and recycling the trash.
They get ambushed by the junkers, cyborg savages living among the trash, who he makes short work of with his lightsaber.
His snake companion tells an "old" legend of a horned man that drags people below, and as an acid rainstorm begins they take cover inside some of the wreckage as Savages amulet begins glowing again.
Savage attempts to contact Mother Talzin again, but she doesn't respond, taking advantage of his distraction, his snake companion reveals he works for the one beneath in exchange for the scraps that remain, and drops Savage into the caves below where he is stalked by a spider-like creature.
The creature is revealed to be Darth Maul, his legs replaced by mechanical ones, his mind broken he mutters and rants. The snake comes for his scraps and is killed by Savage, and as they talk he brings Maul somewhat to his senses, his only nearly rational thoughts being of revenge on the one that did this to him.
Meanwhile on Coruscant, Obi-Wan is informed by Yoda that he senses Darth Maul seeking revenge, and that he fears for him.
High Points : The portrayal of Maul in this is really interesting, the mechanical legs seem to be animated, possibly by the force, similar to Tetsuos arm in Akira. They are made of junk, like cables and metal and move without any seeming mechanisms, twisting under their own volition. It's interesting to watch and nothing we've seen before, completely different to what I imagined when I heard that Maul was going to appear in his cyborg spider form from Visionaries.
Lotho Minor is a very interesting setting, and I'd be fascinated to read the background on it, a junk world covered by droids and scavengers living from the trash around them. I wonder if it was a populated world that got trash dropped on it, or wrecked civilisation that just had more added, or perhaps the scavengers came later? Anyway, in a galaxy of commerce the trash has to go somewhere, and we've now seen where.
Low Points : Okay, they really need to get around to explaining why the hell Maul is still alive, how he got to a junk world in the outer rim, and how he ended up with Spider legs, because at the moment it just feels like fan service, and doesn't feel much above fan fiction levels here ("imagine Darth Maul had survives and made himself new legs on a junk world").
The story doesn't make a bunch of sense, why is Savage beating on waitresses in bars, why is he still in contact with Talzin even though she's dead, why were Anakin and Ahsoka there at the same time? And with the chaos of the Clone Wars, with their powers fading and them not even able to sense Palpatine as a Sith Lord when he's in the same room, Yoda senses Maul from across the galaxy.
So what do you really think ? : I thought this one was a bit of a mess, and a massive disappointment after making us wait a season for it.
Final Words : If they don't tell us how Maul got here, then I'm going to throw out my own massively speculative version.
Maul keeps himself alive with hate, much like Darth Sion in Kotor 2, his body is collected with the trash on Naboo and shipped here and dumped. His shattered mind, still powerful with the force melds the trash machinery around him with his body, creating the spider legs, but this further destroys his sense of self and he forgets who he really is. Seen as a beast by the inhabitants of the planet, he becomes the beast, feeding on those that fall into his domain.
Score : 6.5/10
Comments made about this Article!
There are currently no comments for this article, be the first to post in the form below
