So having finished the first and second Maul quadrilogies, I then took a look at two of the most prominent TV-to-movie cuts of these arcs.

The first I watched, Outbound Flight’s MAUL: SON OF DATHOMIR, was fantastic. It presented the first and second Maul arcs as one, intercut with Maul’s encounter with Kenobi in Rebels. Since this was released at a time before Maul returned for the Clone Wars finale, its ‘present’ occurs up until Palpatine comes to put his house in order, and the shots from Maul-Kenobi are really well chosen to suit the present day plot - until they catch up to that moment. It’s effective! Outbound Flight also made a few neat cuts, most notably cutting most of Revenge, since many of its beats are covered by the next episode, Revival. The video quality was a bit low but I think that was just the version I had. If you wanted a complete story of Maul (other than the Clone Wars finale), it was a great cut.

The second, Smudger9’s RISE OF THE DARK SIDE, was also great. It started a little earlier, focusing on the Nightsisters arc followed by the first return of Maul episodes. The usual extremely competent technical cuts were present many of which I’d likely borrow for my own edits, especially in the Nightsisters episodes.

Both very good edits and each a great way to do a deep dive into these elements of the story if that was what you sought. But to me, as I’m sure you already know I’m going to say, compiling all of their episodes into tight movies like this felt like the elements weren’t given time to breathe, and they were dependent on implied time jumps. They were strong character studies, but the pacing felt a little too intense and full. Having watched those episodes with a mentality to split them over a longer time, I remain convinced that this is a good idea.

Still - both very strong edits which absolutely achieve the goals they intended to.