The first of the two major scenes I’ve envisioned for Maul in Episode II takes place when Anakin and Padmé are isolating themselves for Padmé’s own safety, away from any bounty hunters who would otherwise find her and kill her. That whole plot line stays, complete with a good amount of the secret romance involved (minus any appallingly creepy dialogue). What changes is when Anakin decides to go find his mother back on Tatooine, he doesn’t come up with the idea on his own. Now, instead, Maul tells him to go see her, the reasoning being that the Jedi fully believe that Anakin will be on Naboo with the princess, allowing him to go without seeking their permission. Maul tells Anakin that he’ll watch Padmé from afar while he’s gone. As much as Anakin trusts him, he knows what evil Darth Maul is capable of, and threatens to take Maul’s life if anything happens to her. Maul promises she’ll be safe.
Anakin goes, finds his enslaved mother and holds her as she draws her final breath, temporarily relieves his heart-brokenness by slaughtering a slew of sand people, then returns to Naboo. Anakin discloses to Padmé the horrible thing he has just done and it visibly makes her frightened of him. This marks the beginning of her strengthened relationship with Obi-Wan. She cares about Anakin, understands the state of mind behind his actions, and does her best to comfort him. Even still, the princess begins to feel like Obi-Wan provides her with a father-like protection from her lover’s new-found dark side. Anakin, throughout the remainder of the prequels, develops feelings of jealousy towards Obi-Wan for having Padmé’s unfaltering trust — the kind of trust he threw away when he let his anger and fears get the best of him that one awful night on Tatooine.
Darth Maul knew when he sent Anakin to his mother that the consequences would detrimentally affect Anakin to some degree. Directing young Skywalker straight to the source of his fears was an attempt to bring out the worst in him. It went exactly as Maul had hoped it would. Now that he’s at least had a sample of the rush of power only the dark side of the Force can allow, Anakin is susceptible to Maul’s more direct attempts to turn him to the Sith.
The first of such attempts takes place at the end of Attack of the Clones and is the second important new scene of the movie that I’ve imagined for Darth Maul. In addition to taking on more of the deviant influence that Palpatine had in the original prequels, my reinvented Maul-centric prequels see Darth Maul also replace the character of Count Dooku. Obviously, this Sith-swapping has to happen because of the Sith ‘rule of two’, but I also made this change because I just prefer the pure evil of Maul over the Graybeard with a bent lightsaber. So Maul is in, Dooku is out. Now on to my scene…
