Maul: Shadow Lord Movie Series EP1 RELEASED [4k, 5.1, Subs]

Hey all. Here is the thread for my Maul Movie series. The plan is to do a movie for each season.
I’m changing things up a bit for this release. It’ll my first animated feature released in 4K and after numerous requests for subtitles on my previous edits, I’ll be doing English (and probably French) subtitles.
I’ll also be slowly moving my edits over to a new GDrive structure where all my edits will be under a single link so that people don’t need to message for a new link for each future release.

So for Maul:

I loved the series and it had a beautiful through-plot with no side quests or filler.

My main goals are to:

• Focus on Maul and Devon and their journey to becoming master and apprentice.
• Remove secondary plots such as the Pykes, Mandalorian Rebellion & Lawson family politics - just enough has been retained to support the primary plot.
• All off-Janix scenes have been removed.
• Reduce the duration and number of action sequences.
• Retain as many relevant character moments as possible to help with pacing.
• Add reptilian modification to Master Daki’s voice.
• Replace Dryden Vos’ voice with a Paul Bettany AI voice.

Runtime 2h 28mins:
Act 1 (60mins): Maul’s plans and police Investigations
Act 2 (54mins): Imperial Intervention & Inquisitors hunting
Act 3 (34mins): Escaping Janix

It’s available in HD and 4K. Both have 5.1 sound and English subtitles.

Here are the detailed changes

Lucasfilm opening credits
ALAIAGFFA
Classic Crawl
Pan shot down to the metropolis on Janix.

Episode 1: [26mins to 22mins]
Trimmed opening sequence to remove the Mandalorians outside the cargo bay - the sequence follows the Bank transport into the cargo bay. Bursting through the blast doors is a far better introduction for Maul’s crew.
Cut Daki’s “be patient…….” line to Devon.
End Devon arrest scene with shot of Devon being led away, rather than Daki.
Cut scene in Demus’ office.
Cut Maul talking to the bank droid.
Cut Devon “is that your son?”
Cut Lawson to Devon “come on kid give me something….”
Cut Vario to Demus “I know we agreed on neutral territory….”
Cut 2 Boots & Lawson arriving at the building.
Trim the Vario chase scene.
Move scene of Daki waiting outside the Police Headquarters to act as spacer scene between Lawson interrogating Vario and delivering him to a cell.
Cut Maul and crew entering the police headquarters through the tunnels.
Cut Lawson looking at his data pad.
Cut 2 Boots releasing himself and Lawson asking him to get backup - sets up an easy escape for Maul with everyone dead, trapped or unconscious.
Moved second clip of Daki waiting outside the headquarters to immediately after Devon is discovered my Maul. Shows us that Daki can sense what is happening and acts as a spacer sequence, allowing me to cut the entire headquarters escape sequence.

Episode 2: [19mins to 12mins]
Cut entire sequence of Maul and his crew escaping the police headquarters.
Rearrange scenes to open with Maul and his crew arriving at the hideout, before the investigation scene at Police Headquarters.
Edit Maul’s dialogue to “you’re hiding an injury” to suggest that the injury is an old one.
Cut Maul mentioning Darth Sidious to Rook.
Transition from Devon in her cell to the Lawson and the team looking at her image on the crime board.
Cut Maul mentioning killing Krim to Vario.
Moved Lawson leaving the Casino to run directly after the in-casino scene.
Cut Maul stealing the Pyke shipment. The Pike plot is irrelevant to the main story. Only the interception of the Pyke shipment on Janix is kept. Maul’s interest in the Pykes is interrupted by the arrival of the Empire.
Cut Maul talking to Vario in his cell.
Cut Maul telling Devon to view the galaxy as it really is.
I’ve combined to two separate scenes at Mauls Hideout into a single sequence. Maul arrives, talks to Devon, Rook tells Maul about the Pyke shipment, Maul leaves, Devon escapes.

Episode 3: [19mins to 12mins]
Swap the first 2 scenes around so that we begin at the Police Headquarters, which provides a spacer scene for the two Devon scenes.
Cut 2 Boots talking about deviant connections.
Cut 2 Boots taking about the port search having little chance of a lead.
Cut 2 Boots talking about Riley’s match.
AI Lawson dialogue to replace “I’ll be there as soon as I can” with “ok, keep me updated partner”.
Cut Maul ”so you are beginning to see things from a new perspective”.
Tightened the Maul/Devon conversation by cutting Maul “I can tell that you are settled on who you believe I am”, “would you like me to be that person” and “I am capable”.
Combine the first 2 Maul/Devon scenes into a single sequence.
Cut Lawson going to Riley’s sports match.
Cut Lawson/Daki scene.
Cut Vario communicating with Krim.
Cut Scene where police chief tells Lawson that 2 Boots wants to contact the empire.
Combine the 3rd and 4th Maul/Devon scenes into a single sequence.

Episode 4: [20mins to 13mins]
Cut scene on Obiidia where maul kills Krim.
The first EP4 scene is Devon and Daki reuniting and deciding to contact Lawson.
Cut Daki “you’re injured”.
Cut Devon “thankyou for keeping it safe for me”
Cut reference to message to Lawson being from an Uncle Daki.
Cut 2Boots talking about abuse of protocol before Lawson deactivates him - the deactivation is much quicker.
Insert Episode 3 scene of Rook telling Vario to come with her. This fits with Vario then appearing with the Maul hologram. This shows that Maul knew the police were coming and also shows that Vario can be useful and fits with Maul keeping him around (this needs emphasising here because the Pykes plot ends as soon as the Empire arrive).
Cut Spybot spotting the police.
Trim Police team entering Maul’s Lair.
Cut Maul talking about Lawson’s honour and intelligence.
Cut Lawson telling Maul “here’s what’s going to happen……”
Cut Maul introducing himself to Daki.
Trim Maul v Devon/Daki fight.
Trim Lawson v Rook.
Cut Maul and Crew escaping through the tunnel.

Episode 5: [19mins to 14mins]
Trim Imperial arrival sequence.
Cut Vario and Maul talking about Krim’s death.
Cut Mandalorians talking to Rook.
Cut Riley turning up at Police Headquarters.
Cut Lawson telling Inquisitor about the ambush.
Cut Riley talking to his Mom.
Cut second part of the inquisitor crime scene investigation.
Re-ordering of scenes to aid story flow, such as Lawson being released immediately after Morrok realises that there are Jedi on Jannix.
Switch Lawson returning home scene with Spybot report scene.

Episode 6: [18mins to 15mins]
Cut Maul training sequence.
Cut Riley talking to Devon about sport.
Trim escape from the apartment sequence.
Cut Lawson in the LAAT cockpit & simplify chase sequence.
Combine the 2 scenes in Rheena’s office into a shorter, single scene.
Cut Maul/Rook scene outlining Mauls plans to rescue Devon.
Trim casino escape.
Cut Spybot spotting Devon and Rylee entering the subway.
Trim Devon v Inquisitor on the train.

Episode 7: [20mins to 16mins]
Re-order scenes to open with Maul, Devon & Riley walking through the tunnels.
The Cut to the external shot of stormtroopers and back to Maul, Devon & Rylee climbing down a level.
Cut Spybot finding Maul, Devon & Rylee in the tunnel.
Cut Marrok looking down on the city.
Shortened and moved Crow’s arrival forwards to replace the above Marrok scene.
Trim Crow’s arrival and move further forwards.
Cut Rook whispering to the Mandalorian Commando.
Cut first shot of Imperial probe droid and Spybot destroying it.
Trim LAAT arrival sequence.
Cut Rook telling the Commandoes to leave the credits.
Trim 2Boots interacting with Riley.
Cut Commandoes discussing treachery & Rook informing Maul of their unhappiness.
Move start of the bridge battle forwards and intercut it with Lawson & Devon rescuing Rylee.
Cut Crow & Marrok flying through the city in a LAAT.
Trim bridge battle.
Cut the run for the Mandalorian shuttle and it getting destroyed.
The whole bridge battle plays out before we see Lawson, Devon & Daki arrive at the police headquarters.

Episode 8: [16mins to 11mins]
Trim Maul in the cave & move to after Lawson makes contact with 2 boots. This creates a longer period of where Maul is missing to add suspense & compensates for me cutting Maul’s tunnel visions.
Cut Crow & Riley scene.
Cut Lawson, Devon & Daki outside the headquarters’s including Lawson’s conversation with Reena.
Cut Daki “your partner has already betrayed you once before”.
Cut Reena evacuation plan completely and any reference to it. Lawson tells Daki she’s gone dark since the raid, which closes off that plot thread.
Cut both Maul in the tunnels scenes - I really wish the flashbacks had covered the Son of Dathomir, but they didn’t so they don’t add a huge deal to the plot.
Cut Devon stealing the speeder… happens offscreen.

Episode 9: [20mins to 16mins]
Replaced Vos dialogue with AI Bettany voice.
Cut Lawson “If you haven’t noticed…”
Cut walk to the Power Station.
Cut SpyBot “go bye bye”
Cut Stormtrooper “Sir, comms are down”.
Out Lawson “Yeah, ironic”.
Cut Rook and Maul talking about Daki.
Cut 2Boots talking about reposting the illegally disposed toxic waste.
Trim SpyBot fetching the skiff.
Several trims to battle scene.
Cut Devon “Your friends, I’m sorry they’re gone”.
Overlay Imperial March as Vader appears from the fog.

Episode 10: [21mins to 14mins]
Cut wide shot of the Jedi & Vader.
Cut Vario talking to Vos as he approaches Janix.
Scene re-arrangement to bring the Lawson/Vario/Rylee scenes further forward.
Cut the Vario/Lawson “come on Mr Bigshot” scene.
Cut Rylee… “I Can help”.
Lots of little trims to the final episode fight scenes.
Rearranged final scenes to reduce delay between Vos arriving and Maul/Devon getting on the ship.

Impressive, most impressive.

honestabe said:

Interesting changes. I am rather curious to see if your rearranging and cutting keeps the narrative logical. Tough to tell from reading alone.

• Removing the Mandolorian “rebellion” is an obvious plotline to remove as it just ends with them getting killed by the Empire as opposed to Maul. That was a let down.

• I thought plenty of the action sequences and lightsaber duels were dragged out. More good choices.

• I am personally neutral towards the Pykes removal, but I did believe the Lawson family feud added extra flavor to their characters even though I did feel it got dragged out a bit.

• The potential voice changes, if they work, would be nice - in particular the consistency for Vos to align with Bettany’s voice in Solo.

==> I am half-joking about this: I was letdown that we did not get a single word out of Vader. I was eager for one of his snarky one-liners towards Maul.

The Lawson family politics was built up to have some sort of big payoff, but that never happened. I’ve left in references to Mrs Lawson working for the empire to give legitimacy to Brander’s anti-empire stance. Beyond that, nothing is really needed.

I toyed with adding some lines for Vader, but I quite like the silent assassin approach.

smudger9 said:

honestabe said:

Interesting changes. I am rather curious to see if your rearranging and cutting keeps the narrative logical. Tough to tell from reading alone.

• Removing the Mandolorian “rebellion” is an obvious plotline to remove as it just ends with them getting killed by the Empire as opposed to Maul. That was a let down.

• I thought plenty of the action sequences and lightsaber duels were dragged out. More good choices.

• I am personally neutral towards the Pykes removal, but I did believe the Lawson family feud added extra flavor to their characters even though I did feel it got dragged out a bit.

• The potential voice changes, if they work, would be nice - in particular the consistency for Vos to align with Bettany’s voice in Solo.

==> I am half-joking about this: I was letdown that we did not get a single word out of Vader. I was eager for one of his snarky one-liners towards Maul.

The Lawson family politics was built up to have some sort of big payoff, but that never happened. I’ve left in references to Mrs Lawson working for the empire to give legitimacy to Brander’s anti-empire stance. Beyond that, nothing is really needed.

I toyed with adding some lines for Vader, but I quite like the silent assassin approach.

Honestly, IMHO Vader doesn’t have to talk and I respect you for keeping that in mind.

Fantastic! Can’t wait…

StarmanSkywalker said:

I feel it would be a huge loss to get rid of those two “Maul being haunted by his past” scenes.
Also not sure if adding the Imperial March to Vader`s entrance is necessary. I’d be curious to see how it compares, though.
Everything else sounds perfectly reasonable and I am looking forward to checking it out.

We see Vader’s entrance twice in the show, at end of episode 9 and they repeat it start of episode 10 with the Imperial March. The Imperial March version works better for me. I’ve brought the music forward slightly so that we hear it before we hear Vader’s breathing and that adds ever more to his entrance IMO.

Maul’s tunnel visions were a tricky one. They are great scenes but the second act of the edit is quite bloated and having these scenes really slowed the pacing down. Ultimately they don’t tell us anything new and screaming Maul is something that’s been done to death in previous shows.
Maul has already revealed all this information to Devon and they don’t move the story forward - he descends into mental breakdown and then recovers.

Very close to releasing this. Here is the opening 10mins if anyone is interested.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDXa3T-zRaU&t=191s

“Are we there yet?” 😜

Can’t wait to see this one!

Regarding the crawl - did you maybe consider using a spinoffs-like crawl? (Like “Solo”, “The Mandalorian and Grogu”, etc)

Also, just an idea - since it’s a Maul story, maybe the ALTAIAGFFA could be in… red?

Anyway, I’ll be happy to watch your edit (I haven’t seen the show, so it will be my first time!)

PS
Are you also planning to do a movie fanedit of the upcoming “The Ninth Jedi”?

szopman said:

Can’t wait to see this one!

Regarding the crawl - did you maybe consider using a spinoffs-like crawl? (Like “Solo”, “The Mandalorian and Grogu”, etc)

Also, just an idea - since it’s a Maul story, maybe the ALTAIAGFFA could be in… red?

Anyway, I’ll be happy to watch your edit (I haven’t seen the show, so it will be my first time!)

PS
Are you also planning to do a movie fanedit of the upcoming “The Ninth Jedi”?

Interesting thought in the red GFFA text. I think that may be too much with the red logo and opening crawl.

We are there with the edit. I just need to tidy up the artwork and add my new logo to the start. Unfortunately the World Cup has been somewhat of a distraction. Only one week to go!

As for the Ninth Jedi - I’m not into the anime style so I haven’t seen them and won’t be doing an edit.

When can we see this?
The anticipation is killing me! 🤗

Finally, its all done and ready for viewing.
I have a HD.mp4 and 4K.mkv available.
5.1 sound mix.
English Subtitles.

This is the first release that will be added to my new G-Drive Star Wars folder. All future releases will be in the same folder to save everyone asking for individual links. I will be slowly going back to previous releases to tidy them up, add English subs and upgrade any remaining HD versions to a 4K release.

DM for the new folder link.

Enjoy

At last! FANTASTIC 🎉🎉🎉

honestabe said:

REVIEW

I had a chance to watch this, and will share some thoughts.

I do not have the best expertise on this, but I did not notice any jarring cuts or audio issues considering all the cuts, rearrangements, and new audio inserted. That was a plus.

• This edit was a fun and fast-paced movie. A major factor in this was the significant reductions in the action scenes. These were dragged out in the regular show, and I suspect because of the need to hit a minimum runtime. In a fan edit, that concern goes out the window.

• I thought the AI voice change for Dryden’s character to match his live action counterpart was largely well done. I am not so sure that the reptilian voice for Daki adds anything positive or negative, but maybe someone else will find it interesting.

• The complete removal of the Pykes subplot was done smoothly. Looking forward to season 2, I suspect we will not revisit the Pykes considering in the Solo movie Dryden mentions a tenuous truce with them. I suspect that means we will not see any further hostility from Maul against them. Therefore, it’s unlikely that removing the Pykes will be a problem in the future.

• Removing the Mandolorian subplot was mostly well done. However, I did find their absence a bit jarring considering a large number of Maul’s gang just disappear at the end without explanation. I would be be curious to see if a first time viewer would notice their absence. Perhaps leaving a portion of them getting blown away could help this.

• I think the tip to Lawson from Daki could be trimmed further. It came across as awkward that Lawson would flip flop on accepting the anonymous tips a few seconds after he was told that it was directed towards him. He can just accept it without dispute.

• I did miss the Maul visions in the tunnels. These were not essential to the overall plot, but I thought added critical emotional depth to his character without needing to watch or read outside material. The childhood visions give critical insight into how Palatine abused Maul in his childhood that robbed him of his innocence. It demonstrates to the audience why Maul is a damaged person.

• In my prior comment, I noted that I thought would miss some of the removed Lawson family material. After watching this, it was not as notable as I expected. You kept in just enough to avoid any plot holes or potential problems with the 2nd season as I suspect Mrs. Lawson and Riley will play much larger roles. I do believe more screen time for Riley and the one appearance by his mother could assist in setting them up for the future a little bit better. However, this material contradicts your stated goal of focusing on Maul and Devon.

Overall, this was a nice cinematic experience. From the opening crawl to the closing with the standard Star Wars credit music. I enjoyed this and hope others can give this a chance as well. Thank you for sharing and keep up the great work.

As an aside your poster/thumbnail is looks awesome. What is your method of adding the thumbnail to a video file?

Hi Honstable. Thank you so much for the review. It’s always great to get feedback on these edits. When you’ve been editing something for a few months it’s sometimes difficult to look at it objectively.

Firstly the thumbnail. I added that, along with the subtitles, in Subler. A superbly simple program. I’ve been messing around with my workflow for a long time, never quite happy, but have now finally got a flow that I’m perfectly happy with. I’ll be slowly updating all my edits using this workflow and adding them to the Star Wars folder.

It’s hard to disagree with any of your points and they are the same debates I was having with myself as I was editing. It’s always a challenge with these edits to keep the runtime reasonable without cutting out essential threads. I agree on the Mandalorian subplot, I’ll look back at tit to see if re-instating the shuttle destruction works.

Daki’s voice is something that I did largely for personal reasons. Dennis Haysburt is a phenomenal actor but his distinctive voice didn’t suit an alien character IMO, so I felt i needed to make it a bit more reptilian.

Maul’s visions were another challenge. Their presence really slowed the pacing of the middle act. Whilst they did give the audience essential background, if you’ve watched Clone Wars and Rebels, this has all been explained many times before so I decided to cut it out.

Imhotep said:

I really enjoyed this edit. The narrative flows much better in a movie format. While the TV show had some great moments, the constant intercutting and breaks between episodes fragmented the narrative. The way you have stitched these moments together into longer scenes works much better here. Also, I thought the reptilian voice for Daki worked well, it definitely made him feel more alien.

Some points I noticed:

• In the title crawl, I would capitalise “JEDI ORDER” in the first paragraph
• Consider cutting the first scene of Devon stealing and being arrested? The sequence is clumsy, and makes her seem incompetent even for a padawan. It should be fine to introduce her character after her arrest at the police precinct
• The cut to Daki on 24.36 is too abrupt; the transition might be less jarring if some of the chase sequence was retained? I also miss the scene with Daki here
• Consider adding a wipe transition on the cut at 27.40? I feel that more wipe transitions could be added throughout the film in general
• I wonder if Maul’s line at 45.00 “you did not simply think I would let you walk out of here?” could be cut? Clearly he’s trying to goad Devon, but he is also just going to let her leave at the end of the scene, so I find this line of dialogue contradictory and confusing for his character
• Possible abrupt audio cut at 48.55?
• I miss a few minor scenes from the show: the racket ball game, Pikes on Obi-Diah, the scene with Rylee’s mother, and Leena’s death scene; though I’d like to see these scenes restored, I understand wanting to cut them for brevity, and the narrative does flow well without them
• The overlapping audio on the imperial arrival (1.01.50) feels a bit too chaotic and loud to me
• I find Maul’s vacillation on whether to fight Devon or let her go frustrating and inconsistent; I wonder if their brief duel at 1.35.00 could be trimmed or cut?
• The action sequence from episode 7 (the Mandalorian subplot; approximately 1.40.00 in your edit) seems inconsequential to the overall plot, and could be cut entirely? Personally, I don’t find a fight between three characters who die in other Filoni TV shows very compelling… I suppose this scene shows Maul’s Mandalorians failing to escape, but I feel that this is sufficiently explained when they meet Lawson again later on
• Consider adding a fade in from black on the new shot at 1.53.50. I’m not sure about having a hard cut after a fade to black
• Audio volume seems to increase substantially at 2.05.45 and then drop at 2.07.10?
• I feel like Vader being unable to kill Devon at 2.25.00 could be cut? It would make more sense if Vader was still on the bridge; stories in this era (like Jedi Fallen Order and Kenobi) rely too much on dropping things on Vader to prevent him killing all the main characters

Hopefully some of these points are helpful! Overall the edit was fantastic and a great improvement over the fragmented structure of the TV show.

Thanks for the feedback. It’s always greatly appreciated.

I like your idea about cutting Devon and Daki’s intro scene. It’s something I hadn’t considered at all. It is a very weak intro scene, but it felt essential.
I could then include the police headquarters escape and use the bridge scene as Daki’s intro, which would actually be an unbelievably strong introduction.

Reducing the number of wipe transitions was a conscious decision, due to the lack of time jumps and no planet transitions.

Good point about that Maul line. I’ll remove that.

The minor scenes had to be cut for pacing reasons. The second act was very bloated so any scenes that had no payoff were cut. I also wanted to have the whole movie to be on Janix.

I actually wanted to cut the brief duel between Devon and Maul, but it’s not possible. I have trimmed it as much as I could.

The episode 7 action sequence would be great to cut out too, but a lot of crucial things happen in that sequence. In particular the death of Mauls two “brothers”. You could get away with the three missing Mandalorians, but not the two Zabrek as well. In addition, they have to make some attempt to get to their ship, or their need to Vos to extract them makes no sense.

Good spot on the audio increase. Central channel had an inadvertent dB increase.

Whilst I agree with the overuse of that Vader neutralisation technique, there are a couple of crucial lines between Maul and Devon in that sequence which warrant its inclusion.

Thanks Again. I’ll have a play around with the opening episode and upload the adjusted file as soon as I can.