Ultimately this scene resonates with me in part for centring on two of my favourite characters, not just in Star Wars, but in fiction. But disregarding my bias, it serves as the conclusion to each of their arcs up to this point. Of course both these characters have further stories following this, which were actually explored prior to the release of the Siege Of Mandalore in 2014’s Star Wars: Rebels, but chronologically this is a true climax for two of the best arcs we get to experience in the Prequel time period.

Ahsoka is the protagonist of The Clone Wars, and was initially one of the most despised characters in the franchise when it first released in 2008. She was never quite Jar Jar Binks, but fans really didn’t emote with her. She was cocky, bratty and annoying, and the audience were generally offput at Anakin having a padawan we never saw in the movies. Despite the backlash, Filoni knew what he wanted the character to be and persevered with the story he wanted to tell. 17 years later, Ahsoka is one of the most beloved characters in the Star Wars. She evolved over the course of the series, became stronger and more mature and fans started to relate to her. It all came to a head in Season 5’s final arc, which saw Ahsoka falsely accused of terrorism against the Jedi, and resulted in her abandonment of Anakin and the order. This solved the issue of her absence from the films and fleshed out Anakin’s fall to the dark side in ‘Revenge Of The Sith’ even further than the Clone Wars already had, retrospectively improving that set of films.

But why is this important? This is an analysis of the Siege Of Mandalore, not of the entire show. Well, I needed to give some background to reinforce why this scene is so effective. Their confrontation sees Maul, one of the most powerful beings in the galaxy and former apprentice to arguably the most powerful, Darth Sidious, trying to convert Ahsoka to his side in what could’ve been a festival of cliche’s. It even has the age old trope of the villain extending their hand to the hero in a gesture of partnership. But what sets this scene apart is a little technique called pathetic fallacy. Dave Filoni has been criticised for many of his choices over the years, but one thing nobody can deny is that he knows his audience. He’s not trying to bring in fresh fans here. It’s the 10th episode of the 7th season of a show that was cancelled in 2013 and renewed for one last hurrah in 2020, which itself is a spinoff of the prequels to the original Star Wars trilogy. Suffice to say, everyone watching knows these characters, and more importantly, knows what’s happening adjacent to this scene in the timeline.

The Siege Of Mandalore takes place at the same time as the events of ‘Revenge Of The Sith’, a fact the audience is made painfully aware of before this. Because of that, the viewers know that as Ahsoka confronts Maul, Anakin is discovering Palpatine’s secret identity as the Sith lord. A discovery which sparks a catastrophic chain of events that causes nothing but death and suffering for the characters the audience has come to love. The reason this matters so much, the reason this scene has such an impact, is because it offers a chance for a different outcome. Nobody can explain it, it’s a phenomenon that seems entirely unique to this movie, but anybody who has seen ‘Revenge Of The Sith’ multiple times will tell you that on rewatches they prayed for it to end differently, genuinely thought Anakin might not turn despite knowing how it ends. The movie is able to elicit this response because it offers so many, and I mean soo many opportunities to play out differently, so many decisions that make the audience ask ‘what if they hadn’t’ or ‘what if they had’. 

The conversation between Maul and Ahsoka offers up yet another chance for Anakin’s fall, and the Empire’s rise, to be prevented. We watch the scene, experience Maul’s excellently written monolgue, understand he’s finally realised Palpatine’s plan, and in the back of our minds that senseless question we had watching the third prequel movie pops back up, ‘maybe Anakin doesn’t turn this time’. Then, Maul delivers the cliche to end all cliches, the infamous ‘join me’ proposition. And it’s brilliant. Brilliant, because where most of these scenes have us want the protagonist to decline the offer and stand against the villain, and always make it painfully obvious the hero won’t turn, here we want nothing more than for Ahsoka to take his hand. I remember mentally begging her to join Maul in this moment, even though I knew it couldn’t change anything.

And then, we get a subversion of expectations on the level of Game Of Thrones’ red wedding. “I will help you.” We…got what we wanted? She joined him as we all desperately wished. Only, a new question starts brewing at the back of the mind. How does this go wrong? It can’t stop the rise of the Empire, Anakin falling to the dark side, Padme dying, all that still has to occur. All that runs through our brains unconsciously in the mere second long gap in the dialogue. And then the crushing blow comes. Ahsoka’s next line. “But you must answer me one thing.” The dreaded ‘but’. “What do you want with Anakin Skywalker?” The audience already knows the answer. Maul has seen what Anakin becomes. Darth Vader. But it’s the nail in the coffin. Tension, better than I’ve seen it executed since Walt begged for his brother to be spared in ‘Ozymandias’. Pathetic fallacy plays in again. As the viewer we know Maul is right, we know Ahsoka has a chance to stop the brutal events of the coming hours, but we also understand she’d never believe him. “You lie. Your vision is flawed.” And there it is. Filoni shatters our desperate desire for a different outcome with the whirr of a lightsaber ignition. And begins one of the best duels in the franchise.

That’s a very basic overview of what makes this scene so narratively potent. It’s missing much of the nuanced interpretation that only hardcore Star Wars fans will be privy to, but it covers the bulk of the scene’s quality from a storytelling perspective. Take all that emotional weight and personal connection with the audience and accentuate it with Sam Witwer’s ever-unrivalled excellence in voice acting (Ashley Eckstein’s Ahsoka is great as well but few can dream of matching the performance of Witwer as Maul) and you have the building blocks for an absolute masterpiece.

But as I mentioned earlier, a truly perfect scene can’t stand solely on the legs of masterful storytelling and incredible acting, it needs to excel in every single area of filmmaking. And this one absolutely does. The cinematography is perhaps one of the most standout aspects of its identity. The scene is initially composed primarily of over the shoulder shots and close-ups reversed for both characters to place them in opposition. Maul and Ahsoka don’t know each other, she’s only heard of him as the ruthless revenge-driven Sith who killed Qui Gon Jinn, he’s only heard of her as the apprentice of Anakin Skywalker, the man he knows will become Darth Vader. To highlight this they are framed with very distant proxemics.

But this changes as the scene progresses. The shots push in to become mostly close-ups of the characters as Maul forms a personal connection between the pair by referencing Ahsoka’s abandonment of the Jedi and highlighting the similarities between their betrayal of her and Sidious’ betrayal of him. Maul is consistently framed with split lighting, the fires of battle outside the throne room casting an orange-white glow on his face symbolic of his enlightenment to the tragedy to come. On the other hand, a shadow lingers over him, representative of his never ending lust for power and revenge that ultimately motivates his offer to Ahsoka. As their confrontation reaches its climactic moment, an explosion outside shatters the throne room’s window, leading to one of the most visually stunning shots in the franchise, of course a wide two shot as so many great shots are. Then, closed framing through the shattered glass, but not separating Maul and Ahsoka. They are both central to the conflict now. It’s 20 seconds of silence between them, ensuring the audience feels the weight of the decision Ahsoka has to make.

When she decides to help Maul, the camera reaches its closest point. The confrontation has become personal to both characters, and to the audience. When Maul reveals Anakin’s fate, it’s through an uncomfortably oppressive close up. That’s the moment that shatters the connection between them, and we return to the distant over the shoulder shots present at the start of the scene. And another detail can be seen, one that’s been in the background since the window exploded. Embers. The start of fires. And what takes place a few hours after this confrontation? Anakin and Obi Wan’s fateful duel among flames on the volcano planet Mustafar, and Darth Vader’s baptism by fire. The embers of that duel were sparked here, when Maul offered Ahsoka what the audience knows would’ve been a chance to prevent Anakin’s fall, and she refused, making the birth of Darth Vader all the more inevitable.

Then the duel initiates, which itself has incredible cinematography, sound design, editing etc. And the choreography. Just phenomenal, performed by professional stunt actors using motion capture suits, including Ray Park, Maul’s actor from ‘The Phantom Menace”, but enhanced thanks to the medium of animation. But this analysis isn’t about the duel. I’d like to quickly touch on the classic motifs of the red and blue lightsabers, a symbol of the conflict between good and evil, hero and villain, an association of colours that was formed for many people in large part thanks to this iconography in Star Wars. But here, Ahsoka and Maul each have two blades. Of course it’s really because those are the styles of weapon fans are accustomed to seeing these characters with, but it’s also symbolic of the fact that Ahsoka is no longer a Jedi (A notion she embraces in her similarly incredible duel with Vader in Star Wars: Rebels) and Maul is no longer a Sith (Which he himself admits in the first of that two part episode from Rebels). They don’t use the classic weapons of their order, they aren’t defined by those codes and rules anymore, and the division between them and the people who raised them is ultimately what connects them.

But on top of all that amazing cinematography, the editing is phenomenal also. It’s incredibly slow, a rarity for Star Wars, and really lets the audience linger with the dialogue. Filoni understands his audience, he trusts them to acknowledge the significance of this moment, and as such he lets Maul’s monologue be the sole focus of the scene. Just words, no action, a technique which this franchise has only truly taken advantage of a handful of times. And it’s so much more effective than anything else could’ve been. If Maul’s dialogue had been written to a lower standard, if the editing had let the scene down, if the cinematography hadn’t supported it, this monologue couldn’t have worked. But all of those things do come together, allowing for one of the best lines I’ve heard from a show. “Too late for what the republic to fall? It already has and you just can’t see it! There is no justice, no law, no order, except for the one that will replace it.” It does what an excellent piece of dialogue always should. It serves as a singular definition of an entire arc. That being, one of the primary explorations of The Clone Wars. The failings of the Jedi. The show always makes clear just how many opportunities there were for things to play out differently, for the events of Revenge Of The Sith to change. But they never do, because the Jedi are inherently flawed and cannot themselves change. Ahsoka realises this, Anakin realises this, and it’s this realisation that in the end drives him to Sidious’ mentorship.

It should be pretty evident why I regard this scene so highly when it executes perfectly on every single aspect of filmmaking. But even a scene that is perfectly constructed in all areas can’t be called a perfect scene unless it’s underlined with a potent influence on the themes and arcs of the story. So is this one? Well, simply, yes. It serves as an excellent culmination of Maul and Ahsoka’s arcs to this point chronologically, it is absolutely filled with thematic potency and weight in the context of the story, importantly not just the story of The Clone Wars, but the story of Star Wars. It’s for all these reasons and frankly so many more nuances that the confrontation between Ahsoka and Maul has cemented itself as one of my favourite scenes in all of cinema.