Disney's Star Wars Officially Calls Out The Prequels' Power Scaling

Disney’s Star Wars has officially addressed the power scaling of George Lucas’ prequel trilogy of movies over two decades after Revenge of the Sith. Power scaling in Star Wars is usually relatively easy. Thanks to the litany of Star Wars movies, Star Wars shows, video games, books, and comics that have been created over the years, there are plenty of opportunities for characters to fight against each other and prove who is stronger.

For example, the Star Wars Expanded Universe, which is now considered Legends, created dozens of characters who were stronger than Darth Vader and made existing people, like Luke Skywalker, even stronger. Even canon Star Wars has given fans countless duels, Force feats, and moments of strength to gauge the relative power levels of the myriad of characters inhabiting the galaxy far, far away.

The Star Wars prequels, however, threw a bit of a wrench into the efforts to scale the power of some very important characters. While it was understood that characters like Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker were the strongest characters in the franchise, the prequel trilogy made it easy to forget that thanks to its visual effects and CGI. Luckily, Disney directly addressed that problem with power scaling through Maul – Shadow Lord.

The Star Wars Prequels Made It Seem Like Older Characters Were Stronger Than Original Trilogy Characters

One of the many effects the Star Wars prequel trilogy had on the franchise was that it made the characters of the original trilogy look weak in comparison. That’s mostly due to technical limitations. Compare the final fight between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader in A New Hope, for example, to Obi-Wan and Anakin’s duel in Revenge of the Sith. The latter is a fluid, high-speed and high-energy blur of lightsaber blades and acrobatics, while the former is a stiff and clunky exchange of a few light taps between lightsabers.

The original trilogy was limited by practical effects while the prequels had CGI to rely on, but the effect is the same: prequel characters seem faster, stronger, and more powerful than characters from the original trilogy. While it’s still clear that Darth Vader is a massive threat in the original trilogy, there’s no denying that General Grievous, say, seems like a much stronger combatant than him based on how they’re depicted on screen.

The prequel trilogy had cyborgs that wielded four spinning lightsabers at once, master duelists who could flip through the air and cut a group of master Jedi to ribbons, and more. Even the most normal Jedi of the prequel era seemed inherently stronger than original trilogy Jedi like Luke and Obi-Wan. The sheer speed and strength of every lightsaber duel in the prequel trilogy skewed the entire franchise’s power scaling and made it seem like the Force users who survived past Order 66 were simply weaker than the ones who came before.

Maul – Shadow Lord’s Darth Vader Fight Is A Reminder That Original Trilogy Characters Are Just As Strong As Ever

Maul versus Vader in Maul - Shadow Lord — Maul versus Vader in Maul – Shadow Lord

Though the prequel trilogy skewed Star Wars‘ power scaling efforts, Disney recently made a conscious decision to fix things. In the years since the prequel trilogy ended, Star Wars has admittedly done some things to bridge the perceived skill gap between the prequel and original trilogies. Luke Skywalker’s hallway scene in The Mandalorian, for example, is still the best live-action display of his power to date, and it put the most prominent Jedi from the original trilogy on equal footing with Jedi from the prequels. Star Wars Rebels, as well, featured a fight between Obi-Wan and Maul that proved he was on equal footing with the prequel villain even in old age.

It wasn’t until Maul – Shadow Lord, however, that Star Wars truly put the power scaling debate to bed. At the end of Maul – Shadow Lord season 1, Darth Vader arrives and fights Maul, Devon, and Eeko-Dio Daki. There’s no grey area in this fight: Vader absolutely trounces all three of them. Vader dominates Maul for almost the entire fight, and the only reason the former Sith manages to survive is that he sacrificed Daki to save himself.

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Maul – Shadow Lord is proof that with technical limitations being equal, the characters of the original trilogy are just as strong as characters from the prequels, if not stronger. The prequels only made its Jedi and Sith look stronger and faster by virtue of CGI. From an in-universe perspective, original trilogy characters like Darth Vader can move just as quickly and hit with just as much power as prequel characters like Maul.

Darth Vader’s fight in Maul – Shadow Lord also works better at closing the skill gap between the trilogies than anything else Disney has produced. Shows like Obi-Wan Kenobi did give original trilogy characters better visual effects to work with, but Obi-Wan and Vader were fighting each other. Maul – Shadow Lord, on the other hand, is definitive proof that characters from the original trilogy weren’t weaker or slower than characters from the prequel trilogy.

Interestingly enough, this interpretation of Darth Vader’s power actually contradicts some of George Lucas’ own statements about Star Wars. In a featurette for The Phantom Menace, Lucas said that the Jedi of the prequel actually were faster and more “energized” than Vader, as he was an old man with extensive cybernetic augmentations. Evidently, Disney and Maul – Shadow Lord are breaking away from Lucas’ own power scaling efforts.