Revenge of the Sith Almost Brought Back a Surprise Star Wars Villain
Darth Maul's resurrection which happened in The Clone Wars CG series, and was followed by his appearances in other Star Wars media of the Disney era (including the Solo movie) is one of the more infamous recent cases of undoing a villain's death not only in Star Wars but anywhere in media.
After a character survived and returned as a cyborg after getting cut in half and then falling down a bottomless well, we can only expect any Sith to stay safely dead if his body got obviously disintegrated (or we could, until the Emperor managed to return from the dead despite even that in Episode IX).
But what if we told you that resurrecting Darth Maul initially was an idea pitched way back, during making of Episode III? But not just resurrecting him. Do you remember an obviously cyborg character, lacking lower body in Revenge of the Sith? Yes, at the stage of initial concepts General Grievous and Darth Maul were supposed to be the same character.
As The Clone Wars writer Henry Gilroy revealed in an interview with Slashfilm:
"George was considering that Grievous was Maul behind the armor plate. It made sense. He's cut in half, and he's in this robot body or whatever. I'm glad that Grievous is his own thing anyway, but I thought it was interesting that the concept guys almost talked George into that."
Well, as Henry Gilroy was not responsible for writing the episodes where Darth Maul was brought back and as in fact they were written by Katie Lucas, he has no reason to speak anything but truth. And it sounds quite plausible that George Lucas was considering the idea back in the time. Fortunately he had enough taste to abstain from using it in Episode III.
But it probably remained floating in the air and mentioned in conversations, until it was finally used.
There most likely are some traces of it left in even Episode III's final script, namely General Grievous acting as if he has personal enmity towards Obi-Wan, even though both in the movies and in the supplementary materials, predating Revenge of the Sith, the two characters had very little interaction before their final duel.