The Clone Wars finale will change “the way you think about…Star Wars”

Sam Witwer began his Star Wars career when he was hired to voice Galen/Starkiller in 2008’s The Force Unleased video game. After that, the actor went on to voice Darth Maul in The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels, and even played Maul in the flesh in Solo: A Star Wars Story. “I wandered into Lucasfilm, god I think it was 13 years ago, to start working on Force Unleashed,” Witwer told io9. “I thought at the time I was like, ‘Great, it’s a bucket list thing. I get to do a Star Wars project, this is fantastic.”

"It’s my favorite thing ever, and I just feel lucky, you know, and move on from this very good mood.’ Here I am 13 years later and they’re still hiring me for things. I’m very surprised that I get to keep working with these people. And I’ve worked with them all for some long, they’re friends, they’re my friends who work on this stuff. I’m so very proud of my friends for what they’re accomplishing."

Witwer will be voicing Darth Maul again in the final season of The Clone Wars, where his character will clash with Ahsoka Tano (Ashley Eckstein). That meeting between two fan-favorite characters will likely happen in the final episodes of the series, and Witwer is psyched for people to watch.

“Dave [Filoni, Clone Wars’ executive producer] is not just finishing The Clone Wars, he’s also been showrunner of The Mandalorian,” Witmer said. “So he’s bringing with him into these last four episodes a lot more cinematic language than has ever been used on Clone Wars. A lot more experience, a lot more crazy cinematic tricks. I really cannot wait for people to see it.”

"The finale, that script, was the best Clone Wars script that I ever read. I think Dave has done a really very very cool thing. When I say script I don’t mean—when I’m talking about the finale, I’m talking about the last four episodes because it’s really meant to be seen as a movie. These Clone Wars arcs that go on for three to four episodes, they could also be cut together as movies and they work as one story, but this one really is meant to be seen in its entirety together, more so than anything else we’ve ever done."

According to Witwer, the finale will change “the way you think about certain things in Star Wars, change the way you think about certain characters, and shows some really interesting core mythology stuff. I’m thrilled, and I’m shocked.”

In 2015, Disney canceled The Clone Wars — which was airing on Netflix at the time — and Witwer was frustrated that the George Lucas-produced show would never be finished. Happily, Disney gave it a chance to wrap up on Disney+, where it’s currently in the thick of its final season. “What may be my most favorite thing about this, what we’re doing is, Clone Wars is the last George Lucas-produced Star Wars,” Witwer said. “To be able to finish George’s story is tremendously meaningful to all of us, so that’s really the big deal right there.”

"These are stories straight from George, and we get to execute upon them, and that’s kind of the end of the era. You have to appreciate that this is a crazy maverick independent filmmaker, and only one of his Star Wars movies was a studio movie. The rest, past the very first Star Wars movie, these were independent films that he funded himself. And Clone Wars was an independent production by an independent film studio, just a crazy guy with crazy ideas issuing marching orders to people like Dave Filoni, and through Dave to me. And here we are doing this again, and it feels very familiar. I thought we had lost this, and now we get to finish it. It feels really really great to finish the last George Lucas-produced Star Wars."

Maul and Ahsoka will meet in the highly-anticipated “Siege of Mandalore” story-arc, which will apparently contain some surprises. “[Darth Maul’s] got a few more things to say,” Witwer said. “Like every other great opportunity to tell a Star Wars story, you want to make sure that what the audience is seeing is something they’ve never seen before from these characters.”

"I do believe we give that to you as far as Maul, I believe you get to see sides of this character you’ve not quite seen. We see him trying things he’s never really quite tried—things he’s maybe not so good at. This will be really fun to see how people respond to it."

I’m very excited to see how Maul’s story ends on Clone Wars. And who knows, with Rosario Dawson playing a live-action version of Ahsoka in The Mandalorian season 2, maybe Witwer will get to reprise his live-action Maul from Solo.

The Mandalorian season 2 will air this October.

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