The Sith Apprentice DARTH MAUL has tracked QUEEN PADME AMIDALA to Tatooine, intending to assassinate her. Her Jedi bodyguard, QUI-GON JINN, narrowly ensures her escape, and then stays behind to dispatch the assassin. They engage in a furious lightsabre duel that eventually leads them into the dusty streets Mos Espa. QUI-GON retreats into a squallid-looking junk shop. The greasy, winged owner hovers up to him.
WATTO:
Hai chewba de nagga?
(Subtitle: Can I help you?)
QUI-GON waves his hand in the proprietor’s direction.
QUI-GON:
I’m just looking. You don’t need to pay attention to me.
QUI-GON ignores WATTO, taking up a position near the doorway of the shop, where he waits anxiously.
WATTO: You thinka you some kinda Jed—
DARTH MAUL rushes through the doorway, and straight into QUI-GON’s fist. He falls to the ground in a heap of robes, stunned.
QUI-GON leaps on top of him, punching him in the face several more times. He snatches the Sith’s double-bladed lightsabre from his hand and extinguishes it. He grabs ahold of the Sith’s thumb and bends it back to its limit.
QUI-GON:
You like chasing Jedi, do you? Well congratulations, you’ve caught me.
QUI-GON snaps the thumb, and DARTH MAUL howls in rage and pain. QUI-GON places the point of his lightsabre near the Sith’s throat, and is about to decapitate him.
WATTO: (off-screen)
Stoppa right there, ootmian!
Both combatants look up, and for the first time, notice that WATTO is hovering over them, brandishing a blaster rifle.
QUI-GON:
With respect, sir, this is none of your affair.
WATTO:
I’m-a makin’ it my affair. Now, droppa that lightsabre!
QUI-GON extinguishes the lightsabre and tosses it away.
WATTO swings the butt of the BLASTEK 1138 rifle down hard on QUI-GON, who collapses unconscious on top of DARTH MAUL. The Sith opens one eye, on the threshold of consciousness himself, and watches as WATTO flies over to a communication terminal on a cluttered countertop and punches a button.
WATTO:
Hey, Sebulba? Thissa be Watto. The Sarlacc’s a-caught a coupla Womp-Rats.
FADE TO BLACK
FADE IN, INTERIOR OF A BACK ROOM OF WATTO’S JUNK SHOP.
Both DARTH MAUL and QUI-GON are in repulsor-restraint chairs, wearing Huttese slave costumes fitted with spherical durasteel gags. WATTO is hovering over them, their confiscated lightsabres dangling from his belt. He is holding a portable pain-field generator, which he uses to jar both men back to consciousness.
WATTO:
Nobody is-a gonna kill-a anyone inna my place-a business, except-a me or Sebulba.
Outside, the thunderous bass rumble of a Pod-racer is heard pulling up. The engine is turned off.
WATTO:
Thatta be Sebulba.