The rise of crime syndicates in the Star Wars galaxy was an idea that originated in multiple forms from George Lucas, and Disney's Lucasfilm has been doing their own version with clear inspirations from those core concepts. With the knowledge that Lucas intended crime syndicates to play a major role in his version of the sequel trilogy, it's interesting to look at how those ideas still manifested in places such as The Clone Wars animated series. In that same vein, Disney has also taken one of Star Wars Legends' biggest events and put their own twist on it.
Confirmed in an interview for Paul Duncan's The Star Wars Archives (1999–2005), it was revealed that Lucas had big plans for Darth Maul after surviving his fall in The Phantom Menace, just as he does in the canonical The Clone Wars show. However, this would have been to position Maul as a major crime lord decades later during his version of the sequel trilogy, prior to Disney. Here are Lucas' original plans, and how both Legends and the current canon modified them for other eras of the Star Wars timeline.
