Hello there! Been a hot second since I talked about a Star Wars show on this site, hasn’t it? Last time I was in a galaxy far, far away, I was covering the first season of Resistance, which was… fine. Forgettable, but fine. To do this day, I still haven’t gotten around to the second season and I’m assuming I didn’t miss much. But today, this May 4th, we’re not talking about Resistance, we’re talking about The Bad Batch!
Now, this was a show I’ve been curious about ever since it was announced in the wake of the final season of The Clone Wars and today I finally got to sit down with the whopping hour plus long first episode, “Aftermath.” And, boy, what an episode it was. I have… several thoughts. Ten, to be exact. As always, there will be spoilers down below, so don’t read on if you haven’t seen the episode. This isn’t a “Should I Watch This?” piece because the answer is obviously yes.
1. From The Ashes Of The Clone Wars
I had something of a working theory that part of the reason the final season of The Clone Wars got made was on the mandate that they follow it up with another show to utilise the assets created to finish up the final season and I think The Bad Batch might have proved me right. From the opening seconds of the Clone Wars logo burning away to reveal the Bad Batch title card, “Aftermath” firmly places itself as a sequel show to The Clone Wars. Not only does it open in the final days of the war, but we get to see more of the clone perspective of Order 66. While Anakin was off killing younglings and Obi-Wan was blowing Grievous to bits and Ahsoka and Maul were trying to survive a crashing Star Destroyer, Clone Force 99 had to watch their brothers change.
It’s a solid hook because even for fans of Star Wars in general and The Clone Wars in particular, it was kind of hard to gauge what this show would actually be about, but this short film of a premiere gives us everything we need to set up the coming show. We get to see the dying days of the war, the execution of Order 66 and a reasoning for why it doesn’t affect (most of) Clone Force 99, what happened to the clones in the wake of Order 66 and the early transition from Republic to Empire. This is a stacked pilot and covers a lot of ground in its hour and fifteen runtime to get the audience to the point where they are on board with this journey going forward.
2. What Are We, Some Kind Of Bad Batch?
The Bad Batch as they were introduced in the first arc of the final season of The Clone Wars were a pretty neat idea. While one of the more interesting ideas The Clone Wars presented was giving an army of genetically identical clones distinct personalities, Clone Force 99 took it one step further by introducing genetic deviants who were not only distinct characters who had unique battlefield archetypes, but they were different. This wasn’t just the subtle character differences between the likes of Cody and Rex, but a team of, ostensibly, four of the same guy who just turned out different.
This episode really pushes the audience into their space, letting us see the inner workings of the team and their distinct personality traits beyond their obvious archetypes. Things like Hunter’s sentimental streak and Wrecker’s childlike nature behind his strength and penchant for starting fights and blowing stuff up. Even Crosshair’s betrayal (which we’ll get to) is handled in a way that feels organic, even if it was obvious that he was the creepy guy of the team from the off. These are characters that I will gladly follow for the rest of this show, for as long as it runs and it only took this episode to convince me of that. That’s good telly, right there.
3. A New Era For Star Wars Animation
I was, to put it mildly, blown away by the presentation of the final season of The Clone Wars. It felt like the show had finally grown into its own art style in a way that would be impressive to even the most die hard naysayers of the show’s art style in the beginning. The Bad Batch picks up that ball and charges across the end zone with it, being one of the most visually impressive outings of Star Wars animation I have every seen. Every close up brings a new level of detail to the character model. Every environment is simply gorgeous. The lighting is incredible. The shot composition? Impeccable. This looks like it could have had a fully fledged theatrical release and it’s just the first episode.
Continued belowI remember hearing once upon a time that George Lucas was kicking in like a million dollars of his own money to every episode of The Clone Wars to achieve a level of cinematic quality he thought the show needed and it really warms my heart that The Bad Batch is following suit. That’s not to say Rebels or Resistance are bad looking shows, but this episode is already of a much higher calibre of animation and I sincerely hope they can keep it up as much as possible. Do I expect every episode to be able to go to three fully fleshed out locales with incredible environmental art and open with a huge battle scene? God, no, I know how hard these shows are to make, but if they can keep up the feel of how good this episode looks, we have a strong contender for one of the best looking animated shows in a long, long time.
4. So… I Guess That Kanan Comic Isn’t Canon Anymore, Huh?
Yeah, huh, who had money on this episode opening with the death of Depa Bilaba and Caleb Dume’s escape from the execution of Order 66? I sure didn’t, so it was a lovely treat to not only see that in action, but for it to be the catalyst for this episode’s entire story. This was the centre point for Hunter’s arc throughout this episode as he sees what is becoming of the Army of the Republic, soon to be the Imperial Army. Having to track down and kill a child when he doesn’t have the programming of the other clones to override his, well, his humanity is a perfect set up for why CF99 break away from the fledging Empire and forge their own path. It cements him not only as their leader, but as a man of heart and principle which then echoes in his interactions with Omega. For a guy who looks like if I tried to redesign Rambo when I was 14, he’s the real heart of this episode and it’s nice to see a Star Wars thing where the big, tough army guy in the centre of it all is actually just a big softie. I like that about Hunter and I really wasn’t expecting to.
Now, will we see more of Caleb Dume as the show progress? Hell if I know, but Filoni loves weaving these little nods throughout the shows he works on, like how Ahsoka’s story was woven through The Clone Wars to Rebels to The Mandalorian and beyond, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Caleb is one of the elements that allows this show to work not only as a sequel to The Clone Wars, but as a bridge between that show and Rebels. It just goes to show that Star Wars can make anything important by referencing it in other stuff.
5. Dee Bradley Baker The GOAT
It’s actually incredible to me that the majority of the characters in this episode, both the main cast and the side characters, are all voiced by one guy. Like, it was the kind of thing that felt novel in The Clone Wars because, let’s face it, most clones had pretty much the same voice with subtle character and personality inflections depending on their importance to the story. But here? Christ, all five members of Clone Force 99 all have truly distinct voices that carry all of their personality and character and are still recognisably rooted in the vocal grounding of Baker’s Clone Voice™ and have to stand apart from all the other normie clones in the show. That takes real, genuine talent. Most of this episode, which, I must remind you, is over an hour long, is full of scenes of Dee Bradley Baker talking to himself and not only does he never slip, each character voice is instantly recognisable.
I don’t know if Dave Filoni realises just how lucky he is to have found Dee Bradley Baker because none of The Clone Wars would have worked nearly as well without him, but finally giving Baker his own show to stretch his muscles (vocal cords?) by voicing the entire main crew makes me think he does. I can only hope Baker wins some sort of award for his work as every single clone in animation.
Continued below6. Whatever Happened To The Clones After The War?
One of the weird unintended consequences of the Prequel Trilogy styling the clone troopers as the aesthetic predecessors of the stormtroopers is the assumption from a surprising amount of the audience that the stormtroopers were still clones during the Galactic Civil War. It was one of the driving excuses people used to decry John Boyega playing a black stormtrooper in the Sequel Trilogy by trying to hide their obvious racism behind being simply wrong about Star Wars continuity. It’s always been an important thematic point during the transition from Republic to Empire that the clones, who are genetically identical but were encouraged to form their own personalities and express that in the armour, were replaced by indoctrinated and rigorously trained citizens of the Empire who had their innate individuality stripped from them and replaced with a faceless, mass produced armour.
I am therefore a huge fan of this show being a window into what it was like, from a clone’s perspective, to live through that change. To go from being an important (if morally questionable) tool of the Republic to being discarded by the Empire at the drop of a hat. Adding on that the fact that our perspective is through the eyes of clones were seen as defective in the first place and have the ability to see through the indoctrination of the inhibitor chips that has stripped away much of the personalities of their brothers is a heartbreaking undertone to this episode. I don’t doubt that this is something the show will continue to grapple with as it goes forward, and I can’t wait to see more of it.
7. Omega Said Trans Rights
I’ve only known Omega for half a day and if anything happens to her, I will kill everyone at Lucasfilm and then myself.
8. Impressing Tarkin
This episode is packed full of impressive action sequences. From the opening battle with the droids where CF99 get to show off their skills in battle to Hunter and Crosshair tracking Caleb through the forest (which, by the way, had one of the most effective uses of lightsabers acting as a light source I’ve seen in Star Wars) to the fight in the mess hall, but what easily stole the entire episode for me was Tarkin’s test of CF99. It was a brilliantly paced and shot action scene with tension that built throughout, a couple of real swerves that dramatically ratcheted up the stakes and was a genuine turning point in the story of the episode. While it may not be the flashiest action scene in the episode and while likely pale in comparison to people’s memories of the final season of The Clone Wars, it showed me that every care was put into the directing of the episode were even a training exercise with ulterior motives can be one of the more thrilling moments in what is, in point of fact, a cartoon about lasers and spaceships for children. This is exactly what I want from Star Wars.
9. The Spark Of Rebellion/The Downfall Of Crosshair
Filoni loves dropping in connections to his other shows, huh? While I knew The Bad Batch was always going to be the link between The Clone Wars and Rebels, I wasn’t expecting them to go this hard this early with it. Sure, I thought, maybe we’ll see some elements that could spin off into Rebels later on down the line, but Caleb Dume and Saw Gerrera showing up in the first episode? I know it’s called “Aftermath,” but this episode really went hard on picking up the pieces from The Clone Wars and starting to lay the tracks for where they end up in Rebels. To see that the freedom fighters who fought with the Republic being left with nothing in the wake of it becoming the Empire and knowing that that will be a spark that will light the fires of Rebellion is one of those touches that really makes Star Wars feel like a living history beyond just the stories being told.
Meanwhile, as much as I was not expecting to fall in love with Hunter’s sentimentality, I was equally unprepared for how much Crosshair’s betrayal would hit me. Sure, he’s easily the creepiest guy on the team right from the off and the expectation that he would turn against his brothers in favour of his loyalty to the bigger picture was something I expected to file away in my back pocket for future episode. But just the way his autonomy was taken from him, to see him turn into this walking shell of a soldier loyal to a regime that doesn’t even see him as a person in order to turn him on his brothers? That’s the kind of character writing that takes this from being a dumb cartoon about laserguns and robots in space to something genuinely emotionally affecting and this, again, is only the first episode. I don’t know if I’m prepared for what is to come.
10. If I Ever Meet Dave Filoni, I’m Going To Kiss Him On The Mouth
Big Daddy Dave did it again, folks. I’m not all together unsurprised that the guy who studied directly under George Lucas himself while serving as Supervising Director of The Clone Wars seems to knock it out of the park every time he works on a project, but, boy, did he knock it out of the park here. Obviously, The Bad Batch isn’t singularly his doing. This episode was written by Filoni and Jennifer Corbett and directed by Steward Lee, Saul Ruiz and Nathaniel Villanueva with Brad Rau serving as the series’s supervising director. A lot of work from a lot of different people goes into not only making a show like this, but any given episode and given that this episode is an hour plus, I’m assuming a lot of work went into making this work. That being said, The Bad Batch is as much Filoni’s baby as The Clone Wars or Rebels or even, in some ways, The Mandalorian. His fingerprints are all over this and I only point this out to say how happy it makes me that he is passing on his teachings to a new generation of Star Wars storytellers in the same way he learned from Lucas when he entered this galaxy. Star Wars is better for having Dave Filoni work on it.
