Maul’s Lightsabers in ‘Shadow Lord’ Are Powered by Sam Witwer’s Screams

New star wars animated series Maul: Shadow Lord is doing some pretty cool things with lightsabers – and not just swinging them around casually because we have Maul himself and some of the Inquisitors who like to do exactly that with their weapons. They look unlike almost any time we’ve seen weapons in Lucasfilm’s previous output: blades that flicker and growl like their wielders, living flames that create paths of incandescent energy across the screen, not the typically clean, minimalist energy we see from them.

he makes shadow lord It looks more visually impressive than ever before, and of course, the idea of ​​lightsabers as gouges of flaming plasma also naturally fits into a character like Maul, everyone’s favorite slightly pathetic but edgelord at his best. but it happened shadow lord‘s lightsabers—especially Maul—are going the extra Edgelord mile. because there is screaming In sound mixing.

Not just any screams, but Sam Witwer’s own screams.

This extremely silly fact was revealed by the show’s supervising sound editor, David W. Collins, in a new featurette about the production process. shadow lordWhich also shows Witwer performing some of his moves for animation reference. While Lucasfilm creatives immediately noticed that the show goes No use mocap for its animation, and the footage was purely as a reference point, there’s still something very fun about Witwer, even giving himself some Maul tattoo makeup for the footage to boot.

It’s long been clear that Witwer has put a lot of time and thought into his approach to Maul’s animated legacy over the last decade and a half, but now at least he’s brought his voice to it in a very different way. shadow lord.

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