It seems like a very George idea. I’m still skeptical (at best) of it, but thinking on it there’s probably a way to do it that’d be really cool and actually benefit the thematic through line of the trilogy and saga as a whole. If he’s just the big bad reborn again, that’ll be silly. But if he’s more of a specter, if it’s more about the long shadow that he cast and maybe his spirit is playing some role to carry out his legacy, it’d make sense if that’s one of the final sort of challenges that these characters have to overcome.
Nothing in Lucas Star Wars Saga supports he would have resurrected a character that way. Maul wasn’t his idea. It’s a very JJ idea on the contrary (i.e. trying to look cool while making silly mmies such as TFA…).
Am I crazy? Wasn’t Maul entirely Lucas’s idea?
His resurection in TCW ? I thought it was Filoni’s idea. I may be wrong.
Google search tells me yes (https://ew.com/article/2011/10/12/star-wars-clone-wars-darth-maul/):
Filoni acknowledges that the order to resurrect the Sith Lord came from George Lucas himself
Worth mentioning that Lucas declared Boba Fett not dead too.
But Lucas certainly not the one who made him appear in a subsequent movie (Kasdan and Howard did…).
…so?
Here is a part of the interview with the Dark Empire author.
TOM: Our original proposal was to bring back Darth Vader’s costume and mask, with somebody else inside it. We felt the Empire would want to maintain the fearsome image of Vader and wouldn’t much care who was wearing the armor and breathing mask. George vetoed that idea (although he did allow us to have Vader appear in dreams and memories). He said, no, you can’t bring back the Vader costume…but if you can figure out how to bring back the Emperor, that’s o.k.
The obvious way to bring back the Emperor was with cloning, which George immediately approved.
Now, Zahn has said in an interview that bringing back the Emperor goes against the story of Return of the Jedi, where we see the Emperor destroyed by Darth Vader. But Zahn misses something essential about that scene: When the Emperor dares Luke to “strike me down”, he seems utterly indifferent to his own death! He feels that whatever the outcome of this confrontation with Luke, he, Palpatine, will conquer.
http://www.starwarsunderworld.com/2016/08/interview-with-dark-empire-writer-tom.html?m=1
Yeah, a clone of a character isn’t the character itself. And it’s in a book (no longer canon). Not in a movie Lucas made.
The point is that Lucas was for the idea then so it’s not hard to see why he might be again later. I’m not sure why it really matters either way, just speculating. Evidence says it’s not unreasonable to suspect Lucas could have come up with the idea (yes, also possible he didn’t). Worth mentioning too that beyond those initial treatments he wrote, JJ also met with him before he started writing IX.
Interesting to read that Lucas was against the idea of bringing a (lame) wanabe Vader’s figure. Something Kasdan and JJ eventually did (Kylo Ren, lame in TFA, way better in TLJ), which was a very bad idea Rian tried to fix (“remove this stupid mask”); but sadly JJ is directing again for the finale 😕
A version of the Kylo Ren character was born out of Lucas’s ST treatments. Not exactly the same character, but considering you think that having a mask is what makes him lame, I should mention that it was a masked character in George’s version.