Darth Maul's Forgotten Phantom Menace Setup Reveals His True Role As A Sith

The Phantom Menace perfectly set up Darth Maul in its original marketing for the first Star Wars prequel movie, revealing new dialogue confirming his true role as a Sith Lord. The first dark apprentice to serve Darth Sidious, it was confirmed before the movie’s release that Maul would be defined by one core trait.

Leading up to The Phantom Menace’s release in 1999, Lucasfilm put out a series of television spots featuring footage from the first prequel movie paired with “tone poems”: lines of unique, defining dialogue spoken by individual characters from the movie. Darth Maul was given one of these tone poems, setting up his role in The Phantom Menace and beyond.

The Phantom Menace’s Tone Poems Confirmed The “One Truth” About Darth Maul

Enтιтled “One Truth”, Darth Maul is heard sharing the “truth “about fear and his relationship to the emotion so intertwined with the power of the dark side:

“Fear. Fear attracts the fearful, the strong, the weak, the innocent, the corrupt. Fear. Fear is my ally.”

The footage reveals sH๏τs of various characters besides Maul himself, including some key foreshadowing with a sH๏τ of Palpatine when his apprentice says the words “corrupt”. The poem itself also sets up Yoda’s iconic quote in The Phantom Menace, sharing the wisdom with young Anakin Skywalker that fear is the first step on the path to the dark side.

Additionally, the poem serves to give us an exact idea of how Maul is: an agent of the dark side and fear itself, his true ally.

Keeping that in mind, it’s fascinating to think about where we next see Maul in the Star Wars timeline following his defeat in The Phantom Menace, broken and driven mad on a garbage planet for over a decade, mindlessly chanting the Sith Code alongside other dark ramblings:

“Always remember that I am fear…always remember that I am a hunter…always remember that I am filth! Always remember…that I am nothing.“

Once his mind his restored in the Clone Wars thanks to his brother and the Nightsisters, Maul is a very different wielder of the dark side, more patient and cunning in the wake of Palpatine’s rejection of him, who’s since accepted a new apprentice with Count Dooku/Darth Tyranus.

Ultimately, the concept of Darth Maul as the embodiment of fear and/or that it is his greatest ally remains. Without question, fear is one of Maul’s most defining traits, and it’s remarkable to see how that was set up even before The Phantom Menace’s release.

Darth Maul’s Tone Poem Gave Us Nearly As Much Dialogue As In The Actual Movie

Darth Maul's head turned speaking to Darth Sidious in The Phantom Menace — Darth Maul’s head turned speaking to Darth Sidious in The Phantom Menace

It’s also worth noting that this tone poem ironically gave us nearly as much dialogue from original Maul voice actor Peter Serafinowicz as we get in The Phantom Menace itself.

In effect, the poem is essentially two full sentences along with the single-word use of “Fear”. The actual movie only gave Maul two lines while speaking with Darth Sidious on Coruscant (albeit with a few more words).

Beyond The Phantom Menace, Maul was voiced by actor Sam Witwer, both in animation and for Maul’s live-action cameo in 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story. Nevertheless, it’s pretty cool to hear this original dialogue from Serafinowicz ahead of The Phantom Menace’s release, perfectly introducing us to one of the most popular villains in the entire Star Wars franchise.