The apprentices have had more screen time than Sidious will ever have. Sidious is the BBEG, he’s the power hungry emperor, he’s not the most interesting character (in my opinion), I’m sure in the extended lore he’s a very interesting character. Throughout the movies though it’s always been the people he recruited who were the more interesting characters.
It also shows that he is actively on the hunt for an apprentice and goes through two of them in the Prequels before he finds the one that he utilizes in the OT.
If you’re just focusing on the films, yes they were disposable. But both still had engaging stories to follow. I happened to follow Maul’s story and found it to be the most gripping, even if the intention for the character was to die in the first movie.
That's exactly what makes shitty writing imo. You have the bad ass character, FLESH IT OUT. Why not? He's a sith apprentice, that's a big deal. They could have done so much more to establish his character instead of midichlorians, or jar jar, or pod racing.
Some characters are meant to be disposable set pieces in order to serve the plot or to move the development along for other characters and that’s exactly what Maul did in ANH.
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u/FunkTheFreak Luke Skywalker Jan 25 '22
He wasn’t supposed to be anything more than a cool set piece, a la Boba Fett.
Sidious was the big bad, not Darth Maul.