{"id":718183,"date":"2026-04-10T13:27:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T13:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/718183\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T13:27:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T13:27:14","slug":"mauls-lightsabers-in-shadow-lord-are-powered-by-sam-witwers-screams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/718183\/","title":{"rendered":"Maul’s Lightsabers in ‘Shadow Lord’ Are Powered by Sam Witwer’s Screams"},"content":{"rendered":"

The new\u00a0Star Wars animated series\u00a0Maul: Shadow Lord<\/a> is doing some very cool things with lightsabers\u2014and not just spinning them around with reckless abandon because we\u2019ve got Maul himself and a couple of Inquisitors who all love to do exactly that<\/a> with their weapons. They look almost unlike any time we\u2019ve seen the weapons in Lucasfilm\u2019s past output: blades that flicker and snarl like their wielders do, living flames that carve paths of incandescent energy across the screen instead of that typically clean, minimalistic energy we see from them.<\/p>\n

It makes\u00a0Shadow Lord look even more visually impressive<\/a> than it already is, and of course, the idea of lightsabers as gouts of flaming plasma is also naturally very befitting everyone\u2019s favorite slightly pathetic but trying-his-best<\/a>\u00a0edgelord in a character like Maul. But it turns out Shadow Lord\u2018s lightsabers\u2014Maul\u2019s specifically\u2014are going the extra edgelord mile. Because there\u2019s\u00a0screaming in the sound mix.<\/p>\n

Not just any screaming either, but Sam Witwer\u2019s own howls<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The delightfully silly factoid was revealed by the supervising sound editor for the show, David W. Collins, in a new featurette about the process of creating\u00a0Shadow Lord, which also shows off Witwer performing some of his own moves for animation reference. While Lucasfilm creatives were quick to note that the show does\u00a0not use mocap for its animation, and the footage was strictly as a reference point, there\u2019s still something very funny about Witwer even giving himself some Maul tattooing makeup for the footage, to boot.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s long been clear that Witwer has put a lot of time and thought into his approach to Maul\u2019s animated legacy over the past decade and a half, but now at least he\u2019s put his vocals into it in a very different manner for\u00a0Shadow Lord.<\/p>\n

\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The new\u00a0Star Wars animated series\u00a0Maul: Shadow Lord is doing some very cool things with lightsabers\u2014and not just spinning…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":718184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[171,263173,53,263174,14398,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-718183","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-maul-shadow-lord","10":"tag-movies","11":"tag-sam-witwer","12":"tag-star-wars","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116380647288883297","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}