Star Wars: The Bad Batch Review

Star Wars: The Bad Batch is an action-adventure sci-fi animated series created by Dave Filoni. He is the creator of Star Wars Resistance and Star Wars Rebels, and supervising director of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi. This series was produced by Lucasfilm Animation, which has headed all Star Wars-related animated series since 2008, a studio built “from the ground up” by Filoni. This review will have spoilers.

The plot of Star Wars: The Bad Batch focuses around a group of elite clone troopers (all voiced by Dee Bradley Baker), Hunter, Wrecker, Tech, and Echo, known as Clone Force 99. They become fugitives following the genocidal Order 66 to kill all Jedi as “traitors of the Republic.” They join a genetically deviant clone and replicate of Jango Fett, who works as a medical assistant in Kamino, named Omega (voiced by Michelle Ang).

These characters form a family-of-sorts, akin to the “Space Family” in Star Wars Rebels, or the chosen family in Star Wars Resistance. This family, called the Bad Batch for short, faces adversity in the forms of their arduous mercenary jobs, avoidance of bounty hunters such as Fennec Shand (voiced by Ming Na-Wen), and their old clone brother, Crosshair (voiced by Baker), both of whom have it out for them.

The latter becomes part of the newly formed Galactic Empire, helping to restore order, headed by Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine (voiced by Ian McDiarmid). He is assisted by Admiral Tarkin (voiced by Stephen Stanton), a high-ranking officer in the Empire, and  an Imperial officer named Vice Admiral Rampart (voiced by Noshir Dalal), and new Imperial elite squad troopers.

The first season consists of the Bad Batch on the run from those accusing them of treason, gathering supplies, beginning their mercenary work with Cid (voiced by Rhea Perlman), removing their inhibitor chips, meeting with other renegade rebels (and clones), and fighting the Empire. All these actions strengthen their family-of-sorts as they are pulled into the criminal underworld of the galaxy. All the while, Tarkin and Rampart scheme to phase out the clones entirely with conscripts.

A major theme of The Bad Batch is the importance of cooperation and working together toward a common goal. Often this is to engage into mercenary missions, while the Bad Batch tries to figure out where their loyalties lie in early days of the Empire.

This is tested in the final two episodes of season one, with the tearful destruction of Kamino by the Empire, with Tipoca City falling into the sea, with the Bad Batch and Crosshair inside. They barely escape Kimono with their lives.

Throughout the series, the Bad Batch is shown as “good.” In contrast, the Empire is portrayed as “evil,” through their destruction of Kamino, a massacre of rebel forces ordered by Rampart, and the capture of Nala Se (voiced by Gwendoline Yeo) as a scientist. The latter is somewhat akin to what the U.S. did with Nazi scientists in Operation Paperclip, following the end of World War II.

Furthermore, the Empire is portrayed as honoring order and stability, while cracking down on anyone who disobeys. This manifests in Rampart’s idea of a chain code registration system, which has the potential to create a database of everyone in the galaxy, and the issuance of new currency. Everything is done to erase the Republic and replace it with the Empire. Even one clone commander, Wilco (voiced by Baker) who refuses to falsify a report is killed at gunpoint by Rampart.

The Bad Batch and Omega resist these measures. They indirectly battle the Empire through daring actions, leading to countless near-death experiences. In the process, any past allegiance to the Republic fades away as battle droids fight on their behalf in one episode and they rescue a former Separatist politician in another.

The second season of The Bad Batch brings a host of new characters to enliven the cast, including a pirate, voiced by Wanda Sykes, named Phee Genoa. She gives the Bad Batch a tip on the location of Count Dooku’s former war chest, which portends to free them from Sid (and the criminal underworld), allowing them to begin their own future. Like many aspects of the show, nothing is that simple. At the same time, they occasionally have to free Sid from her lapses of judgment.

Both the Bad Batch and the show’s villains prove to be highly relatable characters. This includes Crosshair, who seriously questions his loyalty to the Empire after a mission with Commander Cody (voiced by Baker) to free a kidnapped imperial governor, Grotton (voiced by Max Mittelman). He is held hostage by the Desix system governor, Tawni Ames (voiced by Tasia Valenza). She opposes the Empire’s occupation and hopes to use the kidnapping of Grotton as leverage, and a bargaining chip, to convince the Empire to recognize them as an independent system. However, the Imperials will not let this “dissent” stand.

Ultimately, by the end of the second season’s third episode, the elite Imperial force led by Cody and Crosshair overthrows a legitimate government, after Crosshair shoots Ames in the head (shown below). The Empire then occupies the planet by military force, scaring the populace. In many ways, the common refrain of “good soldiers follow orders” comes back to haunt him, as he is all alone, with no one to bear the brunt of his actions except himself.

While the story of The Bad Batch feels somewhat familiar, in some ways, to previous Star Wars series, it is also new and different, with various moral quandaries and huge action sequences. While the protagonists of The Bad Batch could be seen as predictable and banal, in actuality, each clone has a unique personality, especially since all of them share the characteristic of being “defective.”

The Bad Batch was simply a sequel and spinoff to Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Jennifer Corbett remained the head writer and Brad Rau as the supervising director, as they were in the other series. Like the aforementioned series, the value of fighting for what is right is emphasized. The importance of preserving history is emphasized, including by a Serenno local, Romar Adell (voiced by Héctor Elizondo) who has a datacore holding records of the culture, art, music, and memories of his people.

Unlike Star Wars: Clone Wars, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, Tales of the Jedi, and Young Jedi Adventures, the Jedi are not a major part of the series. That sets it apart in many ways. Even so, The Bad Batch has still garnered praise for hiring female-identifying people, and has received an award in sound editing.

Apart from Ang, who is of Malaysian Chinese descent, the series voice cast is composed of actors with Singaporean, Iranian, Japanese, Jamaican, Haitian, Taiwanese, Puerto Rican, and Dominican roots. It also includes those with Indian, Chinese, Sudanese, and Maori ancestry, along with a few Black actors, such as Phil LaMarr, Dahéli Hall, and Sykes, with Sykes and LaMarr as two of the most well-known of the lot.

Unfortunately these cast members only comprise about 25% of the total cast, including starring, recurring, and guest characters. Instead, many of the characters are either White men (like Baker, who voices 11 clone troopers) or White women. Although the series has as much diversity in its cast as Star Wars Resistance, an often overlooked animated series which stands out with its diverse cast, The Bad Batch tends to reinforce the Whiteness which is often present in Star Wars films.

This is because Resistance features Black actors (Suzie McGrath, Scott Lawrence, Gary Anthony Williams, Daveed Diggs, and Donald Faison), those of Filipino and Indian ancestry (Sumalee Montano and Nazneen Contractor), Chinese ancestry (Nikki SooHoo and Tzi Ma), Mexican ancestry (Myrna Velasco and Jason Hightower), Costa Rican ancestry (Tasia Valenza) and Japanese ancestry (Sean Christopher). Of these characters, all but six are in the main cast. In contrast, The Bad Batch effectively features four White men and one person of color, in the main cast, meaning that racial diversity of the series is reduced as compared to Resistance.

Although The Bad Batch has no LGBTQ+ characters, reportedly typical of Filoni productions, even while some fans argued that Omega is either intersex or a trans woman, it shares one aspect with Resistance: romance is not a big part of the series. That is in contrast to Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Clone Wars, which have scenes showing the secret relationship between Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala.

Otherwise, while it is strange that Omega is older than the rogue clones she is with, but still is portrayed as a little kid (due to her height), she does mature over the course of the series. She becomes more sure of herself, even though she takes foolish risks which put her in harm’s way.

In addition, Resistance features a gay couple (Ortka and Flix), as did Star Wars: The Clone Wars, with a brief lesbian couple (Cassie Cryar and Ione Marcy). Both subtle portrayals were confirmed outside the show, however: Lucasfilm creative executive Pablo Hidalgo confirmed the latter, and executive producer Justin Ridge confirmed the former in a podcast. Apart from these instances, LGBTQ+ characters in Star Wars have primarily been relegated to comics and graphic novels – with a recent live-action queer couple confirmed (and playing a key supporting role, unlike in some blink and you missed it elements of Star Wars live action films) in the recent series Andor. Hopefully future episodes of The Bad Bach bring in such characters, although I am not optimistic this will happen.

Despite my criticisms of the The Bad Batch for its lack of diversity, LGBTQ+ characters, and falling into common tropes, the series still has its positives, especially when it comes to the chosen family Omega has formed with four rogue clones, and the emphasis on tricky moral quandaries.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch is currently streaming on Disney+.