Bad Batch (Spoilers)

General Discussion
#51

Gobi: “But if we give up our weapons to a tyrannical government, we’ll be defenseless!”
Me: “Yup.”

Awesome episode all-round. I loved the political maneuvering, which was one of my favorite parts of Clone Wars.
I also love how the Bad Batch was the thumbnail for the episode, but they only got about a minute of screen time.

“Tech won’t let me fly until I can recite the ship’s specs from memory,” is definitely up there for top quote of the show.

However, on the point of flying as a feeling, don’t. READ YOUR INSTRUMENTS, PEOPLE! They’re there for a reason. Humans weren’t made to fly, which is why craft like me do that for you. Sure you can feel while you’re doing it, but read your instruments. Please?


I think Howzer is great. I especially like his haircut, I don’t think we’ve seen that on a clone before. I do, however, want to question his lucidity. I would have thought he’d be more “Good soldiers follow orders,” all stiff and “What happened to you, Howzer? We used to be friends!” kind of thing. Perhaps Order 66 didn’t reach Ryloth in the same way, or perhaps the clones are returning to “normal,” the further away from the event they get? It just doesn’t seem quite right compared to what we’ve seen earlier. He had too much hesitation and (almost) free thought.


Their approach to incriminating Cham was interesting. In their position, I’d have taken a different tack. Sure, if I were really in control and could do whatever, I’d have an entirely different method of government, but I’m talking about this specific situation.

What I’d have done is free Hera and use her presence to further incriminate Gobi. “He tricked a young, impressionable little girl into helping him smuggle weapons so that he could use her and her father as a shield if he were caught.”

Not only does that buy you some “merciful” points, but it casts a hero of the war, a potential rallying symbol, in a bad light, and may turn the populace against him. Additionally, you already have Cham wanting to believe in you and believe in peace. Doing this should bring him over to your side by justifying some of his “warm fuzzies.” That, in turn, should make the populace more willing to go along with you.

Doing it this way, killing one leader (albeit unpopular) and then imprisoning the other (much more popular) leader is asking for trouble.


Orn Free Taa’s death: STOP MESSING WITH YOUR OWN CANON. Sure his later appearance was a novel, but it was an “officially canon” novel. Shooting Taa in the head kinda screws that up.

#52

Hunter: “Omega… it’s a big galaxy.”
Me: “Yeah? Well you haven’t been acting like it.”

So Taa didn’t die. Well, that’s a very dangerous way to almost kill him. YOU SHOT HIM IN THE HEAD! That has to be an extremely precise shot to not be fatal. If he’d shifted slightly, or if Crosshair had twitched, Taa’d be dead. Would the Empire care? Maybe not. But still.
Glad they didn’t mess up their canon.

Excellent, excellent episode all around. Other than the small galaxy jibe, no complaints.

I’m fascinated to find out more about Howzer’s situation. The inhibitor chip seems to either not be as effective as advertised, or to be wearing off. I’m inclined to believe the latter, it’s more interesting. But yes, Howzer is awesome, and my initial “Ooo, cool!” seems to have been borne out.

Omega’s comment about “If you were captured, I’d come for you, so we should go for her parents” is actually something of a non sequitur. Sure, Omega’d go for the Bad Batch and they’d go for her, but it doesn’t logically follow that they’d therefore go for someone else’s parents. In fact, it could be all the more reason why they wouldn’t. If they do, it would put them at serious risk of losing one or more of the “family,” for no relevant gain. So while it elicits sympathy, it does not actually provide a good reason to go rescue Hera’s parents.
Did they do the “right thing”? Sure. But her argument wasn’t great (as expected from a ten-year-old).

The animation, as always, was utterly fantastic. Right down to the subtle lines at the corner of Howzer’s eyes.

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#53

Agreed and all fronts.

I was actually rooting for Hunter to stand his ground and refuse to go. The arguments for were weak.

Edit:

It would have been cooler in my opinion if she went with Hera alone to try and make a plan and the Bad Batchs hand is forced to go and help her after she gets captured or something at the refinery.

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#54

I agree, though I am amused that the Bad Batch keeps getting dragged into “charity cases.”

Doing the “right thing” in spite of the costs can be an admirable quality (“can” because it can certainly go too far), and their willingness to sacrifice for others is commendable. Now, at a certain point, it becomes imprudent, but I’m not going to object to anything that’s happened so far.

They are first and foremost soldiers, bred to have intense loyalty for their brothers and a great sense of self-sacrifice. It’s one of the things that drew me to the clones initially.

#55
#56

So basically, “yes, Star Wars has a small galaxy problem, but they also have stories in a different, earlier era that can’t really be connected so no”?

High Republic is disconnected simply by time. They can’t be connected except in some certain ways, like locations or very long-lived characters, and I don’t know enough about High Republic to address either. For all I know, High Republic may have its own small galaxy problems.

I’m not saying they can’t connect stuff. When you connect bits of the story, you’re weaving a cohesive whole. If everything was completely separated from everything else, Star Wars wouldn’t be as interesting as it is. But when practically every major character from every show runs into practically every other major character from every other show (timeline allowing), yes, it’s a small galaxy problem.
There are ways to defray that or minimize the impact, but at a certain volume or with certain characters (especially when “chance” or “coincidence” are involved), you can’t justify it.

I very much enjoyed The Mandalorian season 2, and some of those characters were long-time favorites of mine, but I was disappointed that they took something that was doing its own thing in a corner of the universe, and then tied it back in to everything else.
For some of the particular tie-ins, they had good reasons. Same as in Bad Batch. But when it’s tied in to so much, the significance of all of the tie-ins is cheapened and it creates a small galaxy problem.

#57

As always, mileage varies.

It’s often a case of the great paradox once mentioned by Bartholomew Jojo Simpson: “Well, you’re damned if you do, and you’re damned if you don’t.”

Because it’s just as easy to skew too far in the other direction. For example, one of the (if not the) best super-hero shows on TV right now is Superman & Lois. If you haven’t seen it, it’s part of the CW’s “Arrowverse.” (And, in 20 seconds in the premiere, it displayed more understanding of the character than a decade or more of movies have.) Like the rest of those connected shows, it’s been off doing its own thing in this, its inaugural season. But, as the storyline’s been building, it’s been harder and harder to avoid asking the question, “So…why isn’t he calling Supergirl? Or Flash? Or the Legends?” And, at least for me, that finally reached a breaking point in the past two episodes.

—SPOILERS BELOW FOR THE PAST FEW EPISODES OF SUPERMAN & LOIS–

Once it was revealed that Morgan Edge was Superman’s half-brother, the question of why he didn’t call Supergirl became harder to ignore. Then, when Superman pledged loyalty to Edge to save his family, I had to question Lois calling John Henry Irons - a relative stranger from another Earth who specifically came to kill Superman because the Superman in his reality was evil - rather than Superman’s own cousin. Then finally, the most recent episode had John Diggle - former sidekick on Arrow - show up, someone who’d worked alongside the various characters before, and who had spent previous weeks appearing on Batwoman and The Flash respectively, but not suggesting calling in any of the other shows’ characters, despite the level of the threat posed by Edge and a now-possessed Superman. Now…the answer to that is simple: the show is called “Superman & Lois,” not “Every Arrowverse Super-Hero,” Irons is a character introduced on the show, and the David Ramsey/Diggle appearances were a throughline for this year’s shows in lieu of a full-on crossover. But, if Star Wars has a “small galaxy” problem, then the Arrowverse, for example, has the opposite “large world” problem.

It’s one thing to keep the various strands of a shared universe to themselves to tell their own stories, but at the same time, part of the appeal of a larger stable of characters is using them and seeing them interact.

#58

In that case, however, it actually is a small world. There is a very limited selection of characters to choose from, and they all are in fairly close proximity.

The key is to treat your world according to its expansiveness and the characters’ relevance to each other. It sounds like “Superman & Lois” isn’t doing that well.

So I would not say it’s damned if you do and damned if you don’t, but rather that there is a medium to strike, and you must “size” your world appropriately. So yes, in some cases skewing too far to the other side can be a problem, but that is just not the case for Star Wars. Star Wars is far too far on the small world side of things, and you’d have to push it pretty dramatically in the other direction before you ran into any problems with it suddenly becoming “too big.”

#59

Again, mileage varies.

Despite being set throughout a literal galaxy, the storytelling of Star Wars has never really paid more than lip service to that scale. I’d chalk that up, even unconsciously, to the initial inspiration being the Flash Gordon serials, and their relatively contained setting. From a practical business standpoint, it becomes a question of why a new series, movie, etc should get that Star Wars (or Marvel, or DC, or Harry Potter, or whatever) branding if you’re not going to be using the pieces on the board. For every person wanting a new Star Wars story to stand completely on its own with few (of any) direct connections to any others, there’s someone who wants to see them intersect. And for each of them, there’s someone, who doesn’t have a hard and fast preference either way, and if a story works with or without that cross-pollination, great.

#60

Well, season 1 of The Mandalorian sure did pretty well for being completely unconnected to preexisting characters. As for “pieces on the board,” the Star Wars setting is itself a piece on the board. It isn’t like something set on Earth, where there’s nothing tying it to the property. By its very nature it is inextricably connected to Star Wars. “Pieces on the board” can apply to species, planets, cultures, equipment, etc., not just characters.

Something Star Wars does very well is equipment and vehicles. Those are things you’d expect to see in a variety of places because they aren’t unique, but they’d also be fairly rare. So seeing a YT-1300 in the background adds to the worldbuilding, as does introducing new gear and new equipment. It’s a big place; there will be many varieties of just about any piece of gear you could ever hope to want.

And just to reiterate, I’m not against connections. I’m against the unnecessary connections and against overconnected stories. Sometimes, a story by its very nature will be connected to others. That’s fine. Again, I’m against the excesses.

Like I’ve said throughout, there are good reasons why characters would encounter each other Cade Bane as “the best bounty hunter in the galaxy” is a good example, as is Bo Katan in the second season of The Mandalorian (though I have my issues with that. That’s a discussion for another time, however).

But when you overdo it, or rely too much on coincidence to make it happen, it detracts from the worldbuilding, and it detracts substantially.

#61

I enjoyed this episode a lot, but there was something that bugged me (pardon the pun).

They should’ve just burned Cid and been done with it. For clone commandos, they’re pretty soft. Sure, she’s a “friend,” but not a very good one. She’s also a liability at this stage, and to take her job they’d risk angering the Pykes. They would have, too, if the crates had split open and spilled the spice everywhere.
I’m no murderhobo, but in this case, their best move would’ve been to burn Cid (and possibly the other two, depending on what they knew) and find a place to lay low, not get involved in something that doesn’t involve them. Especially as they were just complaining about Cid not telling them everything. What could she have been withholding in that scenario? Even aside from the bugs.
And on top of all that, she isn’t the greatest of people.
Yes, I know this is a Disney show, but still. These boys are a bit too soft.

Secondly, compliments to them on introducing a new character this time. As soon as I saw the thumbnail, I thought this was going to end up being Cikatro Vizago’s backstory, but luckily it was not. And I know it wasn’t because they chopped off the wrong horn. Early on, my fears were assuaged. But then were they had the knife, I feared I would have to take it back. Fortunately, wrong horn.

Nicknames so far:
Tiny
Goggles
Bandana
Muscles
Not sure if there’s one for Echo yet.

#62

Of course, mileage varies on what is “unnecessary” or “overdone.”

Otherwise, may as well just file off the serial numbers and make it an “original” Netflix project. Y’know…like Zack Snyder’s doing with his rejected Star Wars pitch.

#63

Excellent episode, not much more to say than that, besides:

I like the proto-stormtrooper armor. It bears an interesting resemblance to the “patrol stormtrooper” armor seen in Solo.
Also, either that was Scorch in the elevator fight scene, or someone who looked a lot like him. Very interesting.

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#64

Both Star Wars Explained and Eckhart’s Ladder have pegged that as Scorch.

#65

Latest ep had the best music. Very Star Wars-y. Made me and my fam squirm with excitement.

#66

The stormtrooper armor looks a lot like the stormtroopers in Star Wars the force unleashed. I found that cool.

#67

Well…after that finale, my Rebellion era Kamino planet sheet definitely needs some revision…

#68

Is your old version now a Bad Batch?

#69

I enjoyed the finale, but I don’t have a whole lot more to say specifically about it than that.
(Though I did find it odd that AZI was waterproof. Life on Kamino, I guess.)

As for a retrospective on the series, the first thing that sticks out to me is the darker tones of the series. No, not in content, but actual colors.
The darker colors engender a conception of darker themes, yet said themes were hardly touched upon. Indeed, they in many ways sanitized what could have been far darker themes, like the Kaminoans. The Kaminoans were much more serious and weighty in previous iterations, be that Legends or even the canon Clone Wars.
Additionally, they only brushed with certain themes regarding the Empire and its relationship with the clone troopers, such as what happens to them when they’re decommissioned, whether some like Howzer are able to resist their chips (or the effects are wearing off, or defective), etc.

Finally, the darkness makes it really hard to watch sometimes, because I can’t see anything that’s going on. Especially in the last episode, where most of the time I could see their glow rods and that was it.
In fact, it was so dark that at first I thought Wrecker shot Crosshair before I realized that the flash from Crosshair’s chest had come from his rifle. I had no idea there was even anything chasing AZI and thought he was about to shoot one of the other members of Bad Batch.
If I had been watching in pitch-black, perhaps it would not have been so bad. But it wasn’t all that bright either.

A more general comment, applicable to a few things but prompted by AZI: It takes away the emotional impact of a last stand or heroic self-sacrifice if the character doesn’t actually die. So we get “yay, the character was willing to die” but that’s it. I think it would’ve been far better for AZI to actually “die.”
As I watched it, I had no suspense and felt no stakes, because I did not believe in the slightest that AZI was going to die. It takes all of the punch out of what could have been a powerful scene. Especially if you throw in some line about “It’s okay, Omega. I am just a droid,” something that can be readily contrasted against the frequent perception of clones as “wet droids” and the oft-said “I’m a clone! This is what I was born to do!”

Sacrifices like Hevy, Hardcase, Keeli, Thorn, 99, and Gregor (before Rebels) really hit you. They could’ve had that, to some extent at least, for AZI.

#70

Rumor has it that season 2 has been confirmed.

I sure hope Omega kills someone because of one of her “Rescue Rants” and we don’t have the “Small Galaxy Syndrome”

EDIT: Found an article that backs up my rumor.