I don’t care that it’s part of a larger universe, I care that unless you followed the exact right part of that universe it makes zero sense, and that’s the case for a large majority of the people that watched this movie I’d bet.
I get that. I’m just saying that nowadays they expect you to; either know Maul is alive in advance, be motivated to go watch the cartoons, simply google it, or just wait and see what potentially happens in the following movies.
Love it or hate it, that’s just how movie franchises work now, they follow comic-rules.
And that’s why I don’t enjoy modern comics.
Modern? They’ve always been like that.
A DC comic from f.ex. the late 70’s wouldn’t have any qualms about suddenly reintroducing some random villain from the 50’s and just expect you to accept it. And Marvel does this all the time. A story I read recently from the early 90’s made a bunch of references to a story from the early 60’s. And there was no wikipedia back then.