WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Solo: A Star Wars Story, in theaters now.


With every new Star Wars film, fans have come to expect a cameo by a familiar face. It might be characters like C-3PO and R2-D2 making a brief appearance as they did in Rogue One, or the familiar visage of actors like Warwick Davis, who has appeared several times throughout the Star Wars franchise as different characters, beginning with one of the ewoks back in Return of the Jedi. And yes, Davis returns once again in Solo: A Star Wars story, this time as one of Enfys Nest's gang of marauders.

However, that's not the film's most surprising cameo -- not by a long shot.

Fans made several predictions prior to the film's release concerning which character would make a brief appearance in the film. Names such as Darth Vader, Boba Fett and Jabba the Hutt were thrown around, and not without reason. Darth Vader made an appearance in Rogue One, not once but twice, and though he appeared for just a few minutes in total, his role was significant. In fact, it led to one of the most memorable scenes in that film, connecting Rogue One directly to A New Hope. Alas, neither Boba nor Jabba appears in Solo: A Star Wars Story, although the latter is subtly alluded to several times in the film and will likely be featured in a sequel.

The cameo came as quite a surprise, even to fans of the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars and its follow-up, Star Wars: Rebels, which suited the time frame and expanded on the story of the character. In Solo, Darth Maul returns from his apparent death in The Phantom Menace.

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Phantom-Menace-Darth-Maul

He appears at the very end of Solo, where he's revealed to be the leader of Crimson Dawn and the enigmatic master Dryden Vos and Qi'ra allude to several times. With Vos dead, Maul instructs Qi'ra to join him on Dathomir where they will work together more closely. Ray Park reprises the role from The Phantom Menace with Sam Witwer providing Maul's voice. Audiences might have guessed the figure beneath the holographic hood after first glimpsing the cybernetic legs. The character then reveals a double-bladed lightsaber with a design identical to the one he wields in the animated series, which is significant for several reasons, but we'll get to that in just a minute.

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Despite his fearsome, striking appearance, Darth Maul was meant to be a minor villain in the prequels. He was Darth Sidious' first apprentice and a talented assassin, which was why Sidious sent him to capture Queen Amidala and eliminate the Jedi assigned to protect her. During the battle for Naboo, Maul confronted the Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn. He was able to defeat Jinn but met defeat at the hands of Obi-Wan, who sliced the Sith Lord in half.

Even though Maul only had three lines in the entire film, the character was well received by fans, who praised his almost devil-like character design and lamented the fact that the Sith Lord was wasted in the prequel film as a villain made for very little beyond one epic duel. It prompted writers to resurrect the character in the expanded universe, where he was given an origin story and a future, one that was fully explore on television, where he featured as a prominent character on The Clone Wars and Rebels in which he is voiced by Witwer.

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The animated shows reveal that following his defeat in Phantom Menace, pure hatred and anger kept Maul alive long enough to climb to a trash compactor, where he was transported from Naboo to Lotho Minor. There, he constructed a spider-like apparatus to replace his lost legs.

Darth-Maul-Lotho-Minor

He remained on Lotho Minor for more than a decade, gradually losing his sanity until his brother, Savage Opress, found him and took him to his home planet of Dathomir, where he was given new cybernetic legs and his sanity was restored. After this time, Maul and his brother go on to form the Shadow Collective, a criminal organization comprised of several syndicates including Black Sun, Death Watch and the Pyke Syndicate. Together, the collective attempted to bring Darth Sidious down, though they were ultimately defeated and disbanded.

There are several reasons why Darth Maul's cameo is so surprising. For one thing, despite it being known that the events of the animated series and comics are canon, this is the first time the live-action films have acknowledged the events of the expanded universe. This is plainly evidenced by the design of Maul's lightsaber, which is the one he used toward the end of Star Wars Rebels, where he acquired it during his time on Malachor. This raises several more questions, most pertaining to the existence of Crimson Dawn, which has never before been mentioned in Maul's story.

The story is not finished. Qi'ra is on her way to Dathomir and we've yet to discover what kind of job Han and Chewie went off to undertake for the gangster we assume to be Jabba. It's likely that Darth Maul will appear once again in future films, which an exciting prospect for fans of the decades old character as it'll give greater attention to the depth of a character with a backstory that definitely deserves it.


Directed by Ron Howard, Solo: A Star Wars Story stars Alden Ehrenreich as Han Solo, Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian, Emilia Clarke as Qi’ra and Joonas Suotamo as Chewbacca. They’re joined by Thandie Newton as Val, Phoebe Waller-Bridge as L3-37, Paul Bettany as Dryden Vos and Woody Harrelson as Tobias Beckett. The film is playing in theaters nationwide.