The Siege of Mandalore: the good, the bad, and the soon to come

The Bad

Maul’s Incessant Monologue

Did you know that Maul only had three lines throughout the entirety of The Phantom Menace? He was originally meant to fulfill the “silent warrior archetype,” but this show has transformed him into a full-blown, loquacious edgelord who delivers speech after speech on how the Republic will crumble and how Darth Sidious will have a new apprentice and yadayadaya.

Kevin Johnson of the A.V. Club said it best:

"I was never huge on Maul as a villain, whether he could talk or not. His grandiose, Shakespearean speeches about his dreams and visions of events to come (Order 66, the fall of the Republic, Darth Sidious, the Jedi/Sith being useless–both as a force and as pawns in the inevitability of what’s to come) feel meaningless, since we already know all about this stuff."

Alright, I’m Drawing a Blank

But that’s basically the extent of my criticism towards this story arc so far. I guess it feels jarring for Prime Minister Almec to suddenly be a proficient fighter, but I can’t genuinely criticize anything else. Ashley Eckstein was right to call it “some of the best Star Wars ever made.”