With no feature film set to hit screens again for quite some time, television has become an excellent format for the Star Wars galaxy.
We got a trio of major Star Wars television shows this past year, featuring the return of the ultimate bounty hunter in “The Book of Boba Fett” (2021), the rematch of the century in “Obi-Wan Kenobi” (2021), and the surprising maturity of “Andor” (2021).
“The Bad Batch” Season 2 was recently released and has been getting positive reception from fans across the globe. The Bad Batch has been able to successfully establish a connection with the Star Wars: Skywalker Saga as well as with the potential future movies and series.
Let’s dive into the further details.
1. Where is The Bad Batch during prequel trilogy?
The prequel trilogy of the Skywalker Saga consists of
- Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace
- Star Wars: Episode II The Attack of the Clones
- Star Wars: Episode III The Revenge of the Sith
Whatever your opinions about the prequels, The Phantom Menace set-up is incredibly effective. George Lucas challenged his fans. We love Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi. They might be heroes but Lucas took our idolization and tore it down.
The Jedi may be “the good guys.” But they seemed to act foolishly, unable to look beyond the battlefield.
The Phantom Menace revelation will eventually arrive for Clone Force 99. They just need another conversation or two with Rex, or even Tano, to get to the bottom of why they were created. And that answer will not be as important to them, or us as the answer to the Omega riddle.
“Star Wars: The Bad Batch” made sure to pay homage to the “Attack of the Clones”. An episode of “The Bad Batch” shows how Clone Force 99’s actions have started to catch up with them, The Bad Batch is forced to land on the planet of Pantora after retrieving their power capacitor from the Ordo Moon Dragon.
We see them come face-to-face with a new threat and evoke a scene from Attack of the Clones.
The Bad Batch’s place in the Star Wars timeline sets the show in the immediate aftermath of Revenge of the Sith, dealing with the fallout of Palpatine forming the Galactic Empire.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch run concurrently with Star Wars: Episode III- Revenge of the Sith, and shows just how confusing the prequel movie’s timeline is. Much Like Star Wars: Clone Wars season 7 before it, The Bad Batch overlaps with the end of the prequel trilogy.
Episode 1, “Aftermath,” opens with the execution of Order 66, shown from the point-of-view of Clone Force 99 alongside the Jedi Master Depa Billaba and her Padaway, Caleb Dume, while recreating scenes from Revenge of the Sith itself.
The final prequel movie is a particularly curious case regarding the timeline, as Revenge of the Sith spans just four days, despite the sheer amount of story packed into it: Anakin’s fall, Order 66, Palpatine’s unmasking, and the commencement of the Empire, to name but a few key elements.
We see The Bad Batch episode I play upon this and make the weirdness of the timeline stand out even more.
It begins with recreated footage from Revenge of the Sith where we see Obi-Wan and Anakin rescuing Palpatine and Grievous fleeing Coruscant, then mentions Obi-Wan is facing Grievous on Utapau, and then Order 66 is executed (both of which seem to happen on Day 3).
All of this including the commencement speech of Palpatine in the Senate happens in a condensed manner in “The Bad Batch” Episode 1, packed within the first 15 minutes, compared to the longest span in the movies, because the presentation varies.
In “The Bad Batch”, information comes through that Obi-Wan is engaging Grievous just seconds before Order 66 commences.
Despite accounting for the lag, it seems strange those events are so incredibly close together, especially given the liberation of Utapau running alongside it and how Revenge of the Sith frames Anakin’s story with Palpatine in between.
Although Revenge of the Sith’s timeline feels short and a little odd, the different presentations of it in the movie itself, The Clone Wars, and Star Wars: The Bad Batch all add fascinating context to the end of the Clone Wars, and the prequel era.
2. Where is The Bad Batch during original trilogy?
The original trilogy consists of:
- Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope
- Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back
- Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi
Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 2 continues the masterful universe-building that began with earlier offerings The Clone Wars and Rebels.
“Star Wars: Season 2” executive producer Jennifer Corbett recently clarified Season 2’s place in the overarching Star Wars timeline.
Corbett explained how the animated series fits within the wider canon in an interview. “When we first meet [Omega] it’s been a couple of months since the end of Season 1, and she’s a little more trained, has her helmet, has a new look, and she’s just blending in with [the Bad Batch],” she said. “It’s very much exploring her growth as things get a little more complicated for the group and the galaxy.”
Considering The Bad Batch Season 1 is set in 19 BBY, Corbett’s comments indicate that Season 2 unfolds either later that same year or early in 20 BBY. This means that the show is still set roughly two decades before the events of Star Wars: A New Hope.
All the fans witnessed the connection The Bad Batch made to Return of the Jedi which broke many hearts.
During the events of “Rampage,” Hunter struggles to find out who hired Fennec Shand to hunt down Clone Force 99 and retrieve Omega.
This leads the squad to Ord Mantell, where Echo contacts a former Jedi informant who goes by the name of Cid. The spy offers them his help, but only if they return it in kind by rescuing a child named Muchi from slavers.
The Bad Batch ultimately manages to track down the slavers and rescue the child, realizing that it’s a juvenile Rancor. But what’s ultimately interesting about this ordeal is when Hunter takes the child back to Cid, who then proceeds to hand him to none other than Bib Fortuna, Jabba the Hutt’s chief of staff.
Putting two and two together, Star Wars fans have now realized that Clone Force 99 went through all that trouble to save the Rancor only for Luke Skywalker to nonchalantly kill him in Return of the Jedi.
“Star Wars: The Bad Batch” is the Perfect Bridge between the Prequels and the Original Trilogy.
Though the era has been explored to some degree in other forms of media, there’s been little on-screen presence for the immediate aftermath of the Star Wars prequel trilogy.
However, “The Bad Batch” has given the fans the perfect bridge to see how the Empire’s rule spread throughout the galaxy.
Exploring the Galactic Empire era through The Batch allows the focus to swiftly shift away from the Empire itself, while at the same time, the Clones aren’t intrinsically linked to the growing Rebellion- for the moment at least.
The show has the potential to examine the daily impact of the Empire’s rule on different societies and the individuals within them.
One of the most interesting aspects of “The Bad Batch” is the Empire’s insistence upon exploring new alternatives to the Kaminoan Clone armies.
Vice Admiral Rampart seems intent on investing in elite human operatives, with Crosshair placed in charge of what appears to be a squad of proto-Death Troopers, as seen in Rogue One.
This might offer the potential for some in-universe explanation and understanding of the inconsistent Empire Stormtroopers across the series.
Using an animated series to kickstart the next round of storytelling in this era was the right decision.
The show has done an exceptional job at using detritus from the Clone Wars in episodes to create beautiful vistas and interesting set pieces, with the ship scrapyard and droid recycling plants standing out so far.
This also serves to show how the Empire transitioned away from Republic technology in the intervening years between the prequels and the original trilogy.
3. Where is The Bad Batch during sequel trilogy?
The sequel trilogy consists of:
- Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens
- Star Wars: Episode VIII The Last Jedi
- Star Wars: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker
The Bad Batch has a direct connection to the Mandalorian and Star Wars: IX -The Rise of the Skywalker.
From The Bad Batch’s beginning, the Empire has treated the clones and their creators as disposable assets. “Kamino Lost” represents the ruthless disposal of most of those assets, with the remainder reapportioned for Imperial purposes.
Well, that explains their decision to halt the use of clone troops and begin using “TK” troops drawn from normal recruits.
It’s clear that they never abandoned the use of cloning technology and indeed kept experts like Pershing and Nala Se close to utilizing their expertise. Their need for cloning continues past the fall of the Empire and Palpatine’s remaining minions scramble for the baby.
The connection to both the Mandalorian and Star Wars: Episode IX- The Rise of the Skywalker is made clearer. The last film in the Skywalker Saga reveals an Emperor reborn through cloning: manipulating his “puppet” Snoke before revealing himself to Rey and Ben Solo.
We saw him hint at such powers during his conversation with Anakin Skywalker at the opera during Revenge of the Sith, indicating his ambition to become immortal.
That presumably includes contingencies for his minions to continue moving the project forward in his absence, which now explains clearly why Gideon and the Client are so eagerly pursuing Grogu in The Mandalorian.
In the process, it brings The Bad Batch full circle with the Emperor’s plan.
Now we know, the Kaminoan scientist who created them may just be responsible for bringing the Emperor back to life.
“Star Wars: The Bad Batch”: How the future of the franchise shapes up
We know that the central characters on “Star Wars: The Bad Batch” were first introduced in a project outside the foundational nine-installment film saga- in this case, “The Clone Wars,” an animated series that was cherished among die-hards yet never grew into a national phenomenon.
The show has the potential to play an outsize role in the future of the “Star Wars” franchise, providing Disney, the corporate owner of Lucasfilm, with relatively untapped characters and storylines it can mine for a seemingly endless cycle of original, movies and shows, including content it drops on the annual “May the Fourth” commemorative day.
4. About Star Wars: The Bad Batch
Star Wars: The Bad Batch is an American animated show created by Dave Filoni for Disney+. It is both a sequel and a spin-off of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The series’ renewal was announced right before season 1’s two-part finale.
Dee Bradley Baker reprises his role as voice actor for all the clone troopers from the previous Star Wars animated projects. Additionally joining him are Ming-Na Wen, Stephen Stanton, Andrew Kishino and Michelle Ang.
The Bad Batch follows the elite and experimental troopers of Clone Force 99 as they find their way in a rapidly changing galaxy in the immediate aftermath of the Clone Wars. Choosing to become an independent group of mercenaries the show will see them undertake dangerous missions.
No Comments on How is The Bad Batch connected to the Skywalker Saga?