Maul Shadow Lord

Disney

When critic reviews came in, Maul: Shadow Lord, the new Disney Plus animated series, set an all-time Star Wars record with a perfect 100% Rotten Tomatoes score, higher than even the original trilogy. Now that fans have seen it, more records are being set in a number of categories.

As it stands, Maul: Shadow Lord has a 95% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. That does not pass the original trilogy, at least not entirely, but it is ahead of Return of the Jedi, and everything else. That score makes it the best-reviewed Star Wars project by audiences in the entire Disney era, the best animated project, and also the best Star Wars TV series period. Here’s the entire list, and where Maul: Shadow Lord falls:

• The Empire Strikes Back – 97%
• A New Hope – 96%
• Maul: Shadow Lord – 95%
• Return of the Jedi – 94%
• Tales of the Jedi – 92%
• The Clone Wars (series) – 91%
• Andor – 89%
• Rogue One – 87%
• Rise of Skywalker – 86%
• The Force Awakens – 84%
• The Bad Batch – 84%
• Skeleton Crew – 79%
• The Mandalorian – 78%
• Rebels – 77%
• Revenge of the Sith – 66%
• Ahsoka – 64%
• Solo – 63%
• Obi-Wan Kenobi – 61%
• Visions – 60%
• The Phantom Menace – 59%
• Attack of the Clones – 56%
• The Book of Boba Fett – 48%
• Tales of the Empire 46%
• The Last Jedi – 41%
• The Clone Wars (movie) – 40%
• The Acolyte – 19%

You may notice at least a few oddities on here. Andor is below a 90%, which is at least a little surprising. The Mandalorian, which had been reviewed extremely well, tanked with audiences in season 3. We also have the wildly hated (I would argue overhated) The Last Jedi and especially The Acolyte, buried in the ground with fan voting.

This audience score for Maul: Shadow Lord is based on only the first two episodes of the series, which will now air weekly from here, whereas critics have seen the entire season. It could go up or down from here, though a 95% will be admittedly hard to maintain.

We have no idea what viewership is for this project, but in an era where Disney is spending eye-watering amounts of money on its live-action productions (Andor and The Acolyte being above $200 million, to start), an animated hit like this is welcome, no doubt.

Disney’s Star Wars TV future has been nebulous, to say the least. They are focused on movie projects now, returning to theaters with…a TV show finale first, in the form of The Mandalorian and Grogu. Only Dave Filoni, who is now running all of Star Wars, is making a second season of his show, Ahsoka, which will air roughly three years after the first. We don’t know of any other existing show getting more seasons now that Andor has wrapped. But at least we’re still getting good content like Maul: Shadow Lord.

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