Star Wars is coming to the theaters! Again! In 3D! And it’s starting from the beginning, the classic 1976 adventure that millions fell in love with… wait, what? It’s starting with Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, the lackluster beginning of the downfall of America’s greatest sci-fi series? Oh, well – at least we get to see the pod racing and lightsaber duel (you know, the 11 minutes of Episode 1 that are admittedly pretty awesome). To celebrate, Lucasfilm has released the Darth Maul Me app on the Android Market, allowing you to mimic everyone’s favorite double-lightsaber murder master.

The app is pretty simple: take a photo with your Android phone’s front-facing camera, make a few adjustments, select a creepy facepaint and horn pattern, and bam, you’re sporting the look of the baddest alien mamajamma since Boba Fett. The app uses Adobe AIR, so it requires the seperate download, but should work on just about any phone running 2.2 Froyo or later. The app is naturally full of Star Wars-themed animations and sound effects, but someone call in R2 – the camera is fliped upside down on my Galaxy Nexus. After a little coordination, I managed to get a gruesome visage of my very own.

The app is free, which is sort of surprising, considering how much George has been milking his franchise for the last couple of decades. Notably, you can’t buy or rent any of the six Star Wars films in the Android Market, though Darth Maul Me is getting an early release on Android before it assaults iOS. When the inevitable sequel to this app comes out (I’m putting my money on “Meesa Jar Jar”)  we’ll probably be skipping it.