The dark side warrior known as Maul, formerly known as Darth Maul, was the breakout character from The Phantom Menace. But then, George Lucas decided to cut the Sith Lord in half and tumble him down a pipe. Luckily, Lucasfilm later resurrected Maul in animation. First in Clone Wars, then Rebels, and now, in Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord. Voicing him throughout has been Sam Witwer, who brings an evil ferocity to the character only glimpsed in live-action. In fact, his screams and snarls have become so iconic, the Maul creators have layered his anguished screams into his lightsaber sounds for the series.
In a behind-the-scenes video for Maul, we see Witwer doing all kinds of things in the recording booth to prepare. One of those things is having a rough form of Maul-like tattoos on his face to get into the spirit of the character. In the video, the show’s creators explain how they took snippets of Sam Witwer’s tortured screams and layered them into the lightsaber sounds. You might not notice them at first, as they remain somewhat buried under the iconic noises designed by Ben Burtt. But once you hear them, it’s pretty hard to ignore.
Another cool sonic element in Maul-Shadow Lord is the echo of Sanskrit chanting when Maul appears. This is a callback to the ominous voices we’d hear whenever Darth Maul entered a scene in The Phantom Menace. The full Sanskrit chanting could be heard in John Williams’ “Duel of the Fates.” But snippets of it appeared whenever Maul made an entrance. Dave Filoni and the creators of Maul-Shadow Lord have continued that tradition for the series, which is a cool callback to the character when we first met him. What we want to know is, will Witwer get a Maul scream as iconic as his yelling “Kenobi!!!” in Rebels? We’re crossing our fingers we get another scream for the ages.