Dave Filoni Discusses the Key to Darth Vader's Presence in "Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord" Season Finale

On Monday afternoon, May the 4th, Walt Disney Studios in Burbank hosted a special first-season finale screening of Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord from Lucasfilm Animation. During a 25-minute Q&A session that followed the two-part screening, Lucasfilm President and Chief Creative Officer Dave Filoni had some interesting thoughts on the presence of Darth Vader in these episodes.

"The key to Vader for me is that he's not Anakin," Filoni began when asked by moderator David W. Collins about his team's approach to bringing Vader into Maul - Shadow Lord. "He doesn't recognize that. Anything that reminds him of Anakin, he's going to destroy. So when he sees a Jedi, he's going to destroy the Jedi, because the Jedi would remind him unconsciously or consciously that he betrayed all of his friends and everything he knew and the life he grew up with. For what? For nothing. He lost everything. He made a bad trade. He was lied to. He's deceived. He can't accept that truth, so he's even farther down the path than Maul. Maul is struggling to let go of hate, but Anakin got consumed by it. If he were to face what he did, it would destroy him more. I find a lot of pity for him because of what he did and the depth of his treachery, and that's Darth Vader. Anakin's trapped in there somewhere, and Darth Vader won't let him surface. So, to me, the key is not to actually give him a character. He's devoid of it because he doesn't care."

"Darth Vader does not care," he added. "He does not have compassion. He does not see you. He sees the thing he wants to destroy, and he will do that. It's the same feeling you got in Rogue One when he comes down the hallway. He doesn't talk to those guys; he's going to destroy them. He has one mission, and all of his remorse and all of his anger and all of his hate is in every swing that he does. That's how it resolved when he saw Ahsoka [in Star Wars Rebels]: he wants to destroy her. She of all people would remind him of who he was. I gotta destroy that, I can't face that-- like Obi-Wan, he wants to destroy that. He is a destroyer, Darth Vader, and critically only his son, only his offspring could make him spark, could make him see something. But at first, selfishly, [he says] 'You and I can rule the galaxy.' That's where he goes. He doesn't come all the way back [in The Empire Strikes Back]; it's a long process."

Next Filoni segued into how he didn't want Vader's appearance in Maul - Shadow Lord to take away from Anakin Skywalker's narrative in the larger Star Wars saga. "This is George [Lucas's] character. [Vader's character arc] is the backbone of the whole thing, and you don't want to do anything that interrupts that or changes that or diverts that. And this this [appearance] doesn't do it because this is the price you pay when you give into your anger, when you give into that terrible side of yourself. And it should terrify all of us because we're all capable of that depth of terror. We're all capable of doing the wrong thing. Daki's capable, Devon's capable, Maul's very capable, but so [are] Lawson [and] Rylee]. All are capable of doing terrible things. It's not something that's just for the Sith or the Jedi. Han, he can be more selfish: 'I'm only in it for money,' or by the end, 'I'm sorry.' He chooses to care about somebody more than himself.

"These are the lessons that George is trying to teach us and wants to show us in these stories, and so that was the important thing to reflect. If you dare to put Vader in a story, you have to do it for the the right reason and then show him the right way. So yeah, he's a powerful character and they studied the heck out of the animation. The movement [and] the physicality, I think, surpassed what we did in Rebels. And it's funny, it's a lot of the same team [that] would have been there on Rebels, and and had to animate him the first time. You want to always get better, and I think that's hopefully what the team has done here," concluded Dave Filoni. "They've gotten better and gave you a better Vader than we gave you before."

The first season of Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord is now streaming in its entirety, exclusively via Disney+.