Disney has announced 11 new Star Wars shows that will be coming to Disney Plus. In less than two weeks, fans will get a look at Disney's first offering, The Bad Batch. The animated series will pick up where The Clone Wars left off. It will dive into the depths of the Empire's early days.
Star Wars has a bad habit of repeating itself. The Disney era has especially suffered from narrow horizons. The Bad Batch is a soft-sequel to The Clone Wars where its main characters first appeared. Despite those light tie-ins, there's a good chance this show will be an all-new Star Wars experience. It's set in a period of the galaxy's history that hasn't been explored on-screen. Its characters aren't tied to a famous bloodline, and they haven't already been killed off in a previous piece of Star Wars media. Hopefully, The Bad Batch represents a turning point for the franchise.
Who's in the Bad Batch?
Clone Force 99 is the formal name for the team that became known as the Bad Bad. The Bad Batch is a very special team of clone troopers. They first appeared in The Clone Wars show and were massively popular, partly because they were so new.
What sets this team apart from other clone troopers is that each member of the Bad Batch has a genetic variation that makes them unique. They're described as "defective clones" with "desirable mutations". That's both the team's hook and a useful way to distinguish the characters who make up the Bad Batch.
Hunter has "enhanced sensory abilities", making him well-suited for the role of team leader. The team's marksman, called Crosshair, has enhanced eyesight, of course. The team's muscle-bound tank character is Wrecker. No team would be complete without a hyper-intelligent computer expert, and in the Bad Batch that role is covered by Tech.
The team we meet in The Bad Batch could potentially have one additional member. On Kamino, the world where clones are manufactured, the Bad Batch met a mysterious child named Omega. She knew all of them by name, but her origins have yet to be properly explored.
Where are they now?
We know that The Bad Batch will be taking place during the early days of the Empire era. That should provide plenty of drama for the show. We'll get to see how the Bad Batch dealt with Order 66. The Clone Wars showed that most clone troopers had no choice but to kill the Jedi. They'd been implanted with chips that removed their free will.
There's no definitive answer yet, but it's likely the Bad Batch didn't have those chips. We know the new show will follow the Bad Batch trying to make their way in a galaxy under the control of the Empire. We also know that at some point Admiral Wilhuff Tarkin declared them enemies of the state, though it's unclear exactly why.
In the new show, the Bad Batch will be looking for freelance work while trying to dodge Imperial run-ins. They'll be pursued by Tarkin and possibly other eyebrow-raising villains. After all, Anakin Skywalker is well aware of who the Bad Batch are.
The show will also more fully explore the origins of Omega. A trailer for The Bad Batch has fans wondering if Omega is really a female clone. That would make her more or less genetically identical to the members of the Bad Batch, which would go a long way towards explaining how exactly she knows who they are.
In addition to Omega, the new show will also likely revisit a previous friend of the Bad Batch. In a past outing the team went on a mission to rescue another trooper by the name of Echo. The Bad Batch and Echo had a number of experiences together, but Echo wasn't "defective" like they were. That means Echo probably had a control chip that will force him to serve the Empire. There's a good chance Echo could appear as a friend-turned-enemy in The Bad Batch. Or the Bad Batch already killed Echo off-screen, and we'll never see it.
Time to Get Excited
Whatever Disney has planned for the Bad Batch, one thing is certain. This is new Star Wars content. Star Wars is always best when it's focused on telling new stories about new characters. That's part of what made the original The Clone Wars show such a hit.
More recent Star Wars properties have also proven that new is better. The Mandalorian is a smash success because it's focused on explored bits of the galaxy. The best film of the sequel trilogy was Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi because it pushed boundaries and dared to tell a new kind of Star Wars story. With this new show, Disney has an opportunity to really bring a new era to Star Wars. Finally, we can get stories that aren't strictly about Skywalkers and Palpatines. It's time to let the messier, "defective" characters have the spotlight.