Star Wars: The Bad Batch

Premise

In the Star Wars universe, the Clone Wars is a series of conflicts between the Galactic Republic and a Separatist movement; the name comes from the Republic's army, which consists of clone troopers created from the genetic material of bounty hunter Jango Fett. Clone Force 99, also known as "The Bad Batch", is a unique squad of clones with genetic mutations that were introduced in the series Star Wars: The Clone Wars. These mutations allow most of the Bad Batch to resist Order 66, which brings the Clone Wars to an end by triggering secret programming in the clones that forces them to execute the Jedi and become obedient to Emperor Palpatine and the new Galactic Empire. Star Wars: The Bad Batch follows the titular team as they become mercenaries on the run in the early days of the Empire. They are joined by Omega, a young female clone of Jango Fett.

The series also tells the stories of other clones following the end of the Clone Wars, including how some begin to question Order 66, how the Empire phases out the clone army in favor of conscripted Stormtroopers, and how Imperial cloning resources are re-directed to "Project Necromancer"—a secret project to clone Palpatine that helps explain his return from death in the film Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019).

Episodes

Cast and characters

Starring

Dee Bradley Baker as the Bad Batch:Also known as Clone Force 99, the Bad Batch are a unique squad of clone troopers with genetic mutations. Star Wars creator George Lucas wanted them to each have special abilities that made them different from other clones, but he did not want them to be superheroes. The Bad Batch includes: Hunter, the leader of the team who has enhanced senses and is described as a "master tracker"; Wrecker, who has enhanced muscles and a reinforced skeleton making him very strong; Crosshair, a skilled sniper; Tech, a genius who specializes in technology; and Echo, a former regular clone or "reg" who was turned into a cyborg through horrific experimentation and can now interface with computer systems. Despite being clones, Baker made sure the team had noticeable differences in each voice, such as Tech's precision and Crosshair sounding like a "coiled snake".

As he did for Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Baker also voices most of the other clones in the series, including: Grey, the captain under Jedi Master Depa Billaba during Order 66; Cut Lawquane, a Clone Wars deserter who goes into hiding with his family; Rex, a former captain who was believed killed at the end of the Clone Wars and now works in secret to help other clones and resist the Empire; Howzer, a captain on Ryloth who supports local freedom fighters over the Empire; Gregor, a commando working with Rex; Wilco, a captain stationed on Serenno who is murdered by Vice Admiral Rampart for refusing to falsify a report; Cody, a commander who deserts after starting to question the Empire during a mission with Crosshair; Cade and Slip, clones who are killed by Rampart as part of a conspiracy to cover-up the destruction of Tipoca City; Scorch, a commando who leads the Advanced Science Division's forces; Mayday, the commander of a desolate outpost on Barton IV whose death is a catalyst for Crosshair turning on the Empire; Fireball and Nemec, members of Rex's group of rogue clones; the Clone X assassins; and Wolffe, a commander sent to capture Omega who is talked down by Rex. Baker added subtle differences to the voice of each clone.

Baker reprised the role of Barton Coburn, an Imperial admiral who attends Tarkin's summit, from The Clone Wars. He also provided the sounds for Batcher, a lurca hound that Omega befriends.

Michelle Ang as Omega:A young female clone who joins the Bad Batch. She is an unmodified replication of Jango Fett, so she ages normally unlike the Bad Batch and other clones who age at twice the normal speed. This means Omega is technically older than most of the other clones, despite appearing to be much younger. Her name is a reference to the first unmodified clone of Jango Fett, "Alpha", who is better known as Jango's son Boba. To create Omega's voice, Ang used her own New Zealand accent but altered her pitch and state of mind to give the character a "youthfulness". Ang also took inspiration from watching her young son have new experiences.

Recurring

Ben Diskin as AZI-3: A medical droid from Kamino who helps the Bad Batch

Bob Bergen as Lama Su: The prime minister of Kamino

Gwendoline Yeo as Nala Se: The Kaminoan scientist in charge of the cloning process

Stephen Stanton as

Wilhuff Tarkin: A high-ranking Imperial officer

Mas Amedda: The Grand Vizier of the Empire

Jennifer Hale as Riyo Chuchi: A Pantoran senator who advocates for the clones

Noshir Dalal as Rampart: An Imperial vice admiral who is responsible for the new conscripted Stormtrooper program

Liam O'Brien as Bolo: An Ithorian regular at Cid's parlor

Sam Riegel as Ketch: A Weequay regular at Cid's parlor

Rhea Perlman as Cid Scaleback: A Trandoshan and former Jedi informant who provides mercenary work to the Bad Batch

Shelby Young as

Bragg: An Imperial captain stationed on Raxus Secundus

Yanna: A Wookiee elder

Bayrn: A Tarlafar who is a young Project Necromancer test subject with a high M-count

Helen Sadler as Scalder: A doctor in the Empire's Advanced Science Division

Guests

Archie Panjabi as Depa Billaba: A Jedi Master who is killed during Order 66. Her death is depicted differently from how it was established in the Kanan comic book.

Matthew Wood as

The battle droids of the Separatist army

Bib Fortuna: The majordomo and right-hand of crime lord Jabba the Hutt

Freddie Prinze Jr. as Caleb Dume: The Padawan learner of Depa Billaba who escapes Order 66. This is depicted differently from how it was established in the Kanan comic book.

Ian McDiarmid as Palpatine: The Emperor of the Galactic Empire and a Dark Lord of the Sith

Andrew Kishino as Saw Gerrera: A freedom fighter from Onderon

Tom Kane as the narrator of a The Clone Wars-style opening sequence. Because the Clone Wars come to an end in the first episode of the series, the narration is not used for subsequent episodes.

Nika Futterman as

Shaeeah Lawquane: The stepdaughter of clone deserter Cut Lawquane

Asajj Ventress:The apprentice of Count Dooku during the Clone Wars who later becomes a bounty hunter. The character's last appearance in the Star Wars timeline was the 2015 novel Dark Disciple, which was adapted from unproduced The Clone Wars scripts and story reels. In the book, Ventress falls in love with rogue Jedi Quinlan Vos and sacrifices herself to save him. When executive producer Dave Filoni suggested the character be brought back for the third season of The Bad Batch, the producers worked out a way for Ventress to survive those events which they planned to reveal in a future Star Wars story. Her appearance in The Bad Batch is based on design work done for the unproduced The Clone Wars episodes, including longer hair and a new yellow lightsaber. Futterman was excited to portray a lighter version of the character.

Production

Development

After Disney acquired Lucasfilm in October 2012, the animated Star Wars television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars was canceled in March 2013. A new animated series, Star Wars Rebels, was prioritized. Lucasfilm said some unfinished episodes of The Clone Wars would still be released as "bonus content", including a four episode arc that introduces a squad of clone troopers with genetic mutations known as the Bad Batch. The idea for this story came directly from Star Wars creator George Lucas. The four episodes were shown as unfinished story reels at Star Wars Celebration Anaheim in April 2015. By September 2016, The Clone Wars and Rebels supervising director Dave Filoni had stepped back from that position on Rebels so he could focus on writing that series and on developing future Star Wars series with Lucasfilm Animation.

In July 2018, Filoni announced that a final season of The Clone Wars was being produced for the new streaming service Disney+. The unfinished Bad Batch episodes were completed for the season, with some changes, while development on a spin-off series focused on the Bad Batch began at the same time. Disney+ announced the spin-off series, titled Star Wars: The Bad Batch, in July 2020. The announcement described the series as being Filoni's vision, and he was executive producing alongside Lucasfilm's Athena Portillo, supervising director Brad Rau, and head writer Jennifer Corbett, with Lucasfilm's Carrie Beck and Josh Rimes as co-executive producer and producer, respectively. Filoni described the series as being "very much in the vein" of The Clone Wars and said it would stay true to Lucas's vision for that series of telling epic, exciting adventure stories.

A second season was announced in August 2021, before the first-season finale was released. At Star Wars Celebration London in April 2023, a third and final season was announced. The producers intended to tell a three-season story from the beginning and were glad to be able to complete their plans as intended. Rau said the series would end the Bad Batch's story, but would not be the end of the "Clone Wars universe".

Casting and voice recording

The first trailer for the series, which was released in December 2020, confirmed that Dee Bradley Baker would return from The Clone Wars as the voice of all the clone troopers, including the members of the Bad Batch, Captain Rex, and many others. Baker replaced New Zealand actor Temuera Morrison, who portrayed the clones—as well as the bounty hunter Jango Fett whose genetic material the clones are created from—in the Star Wars prequel films. Also starring in The Bad Batch is Michelle Ang as Omega, a young female clone of Jango Fett. Ang was cast in-part because her New Zealand accent aligns with Morrison's, and she was grateful for the opportunity to embrace that side of her identity considering she does not look like "what the world thinks of when they think New Zealander" as a person of Chinese and Malaysian descent. Baker and Ang recorded the first episode of the series together, but other work commitments forced Ang to travel home to New Zealand soon after and the COVID-19 pandemic prevented her from returning to record with Baker for many subsequent episodes. Ang instead recorded much of her dialogue for the series remotely over video calls. Ang and Baker were able to record the series finale together in-person, which they said was an emotional experience for them and the crew.

Emerie Karr, an adult female clone, is introduced in the second season. Voice actor Keisha Castle-Hughes was not told that Emerie is a clone at first, but she suspected that the character was related to Omega after the producers asked her to use her natural New Zealand accent for the role. Castle-Hughes previously had a brief non-speaking role as Queen Apailana in the film Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005). Daniel Logan, who portrayed Boba Fett and other young male clones in the prequel films and The Clone Wars, returned to voice a younger clone named Mox in the third season of The Bad Batch. Mox is accompanied by two even younger clones, Deke and Stak, who are voiced by Logan's fellow New Zealand actor Julian Dennison.

A younger version of the character Fennec Shand from The Mandalorian was revealed to be appearing in the series with the first trailer's release, and actress Ming-Na Wen soon confirmed that she would reprise her role as Shand. The trailer also revealed that Stephen Stanton and Andrew Kishino were reprising their respective The Clone Wars roles as Tarkin and Saw Gerrera. Other actors who reprised roles from The Clone Wars in the first season include Ben Diskin as AZI-3; Matthew Wood as the battle droids; Bob Bergen as Lama Su; Gwendoline Yeo as Nala Se; Nika Futterman, Kath Soucie, and Cara Pifko as the family of clone deserter Cut Lawquane; Brigitte Kali and Elizabeth Rodriguez as the Martez sisters; Corey Burton as Cad Bane and Seth Green as Bane's droid Todo 360; and Tom Kane, who narrated the opening of each The Clone Wars episode, provided similar narration for The Bad Batch's premiere episode.

Music

Kevin Kiner was confirmed to be composing the score for the series in January 2021, after previously doing so for The Clone Wars and Rebels. As with the other animated Star Wars series, Kevin collaborated with his children Sean and Deana. David Glen Russell and Peter Lam also provided additional music. Sean and Deana Kiner are credited as co-composers with Kevin Kiner for the third season.

Kevin described the score for The Bad Batch as a continuation of his work on The Clone Wars, using a mix of electronic and orchestral music, and said it would continue to evolve just as the music of The Clone Wars evolved over its run. He took influence from the scores for The Guns of Navarone (1961) and The Dirty Dozen (1967) which both feature a similar band of heroes to the Bad Batch.

Walt Disney Records released the first track from the series' score, titled "Enter the Bad Batch", as a digital single on May 13, 2021. The label then released Kiner's score for the series in two-volume soundtrack albums for each season: music from the first eight episodes of the first season was released on June 25; from the final eight episodes of the first season on August 20; from the first eight episodes of the second season on February 17, 2023; from the final eight episodes of the second season on April 7; from the first eight episodes of the third season on March 29, 2024; and from the final seven episodes of the third season on May 3.

Marketing

Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy promoted the series at Disney's Investor Day event on December 10, 2020, revealing the first trailer for the series. Jacob Oller of Syfy Wire felt the trailer made the series look like a more action-heavy version of The Clone Wars, and compared it to the 1980s television series The A-Team. Ahead of the series premiere, characters from the series were also added to the mobile role-playing game Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes as unlockable, playable characters.

Release

Star Wars: The Bad Batch premiered on Disney+ on May 4, 2021, which is Star Wars Day, with a special 70-minute episode. The rest of the 16-episode first season was released until August 13. The 16-episode second season was released from January 4 to March 29, 2023; it was originally expected to premiere on September 28, 2022. The final 15-episode season was released from February 21 to May 1, 2024.

Reception

Viewership

Whip Media, which tracks viewership data for the more than 1 million daily users of its TV Time app, calculated that Star Wars: The Bad Batch was the most anticipated new television series in May 2021. It later ranked as the fourth most anticipated returning series in September 2022. Nielsen Media Research, which records streaming viewership on U.S. television screens, estimated that Star Wars: The Bad Batch was watched for 251 million minutes, making it the seventh most streamed original series, from May 3—9, 2021. According to Whip Media's TV Time viewership tracking app, the series ranked as the third most streamed original series across all platforms for five consecutive weeks, from January 8 to February 5, 2023. It subsequently remained within the top ten rankings from February 12 to March 19. Nielsen Media Research announced in 2022 that Star Wars: The Bad Batch and What If...? each appeared on its streaming charts for a combined total of seven weeks from May to October, collectively accumulating approximately 2 billion minutes of viewing time. Luminate, which measures streaming performance by analyzing viewership data, audience engagement metrics, and content reach across various platforms, calculated that Star Wars: The Bad Batch was watched for 923 million minutes in 2024.

Critical response

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an 86% approval rating with an average rating of 7.3/10, based on 92 reviews for the first season. The website's critics consensus reads, "The Bad Batch's beautifully animated adventure may be too lore heavy for casual viewers, but fans will enjoy diving deeper into this dastardly cast of characters." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 67 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". The second season has an 90% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 7.2/10, based on 21 reviews. The website's critic consensus reads: "The second bundle of The Bad Batch retains all the same virtues and vices as the first: a slick Star Wars adventure geared toward diehard fans at the expense of more casual viewers." The third season holds an 87% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 8.0/10, based on 15 reviews. The website's critic consensus reads: "Mobilizing for one last hurrah with plenty of easter eggs and rousing action still left in its arsenal, The Bad Batch ends on a good note." On Metacritic, the third season has a score of 68 out of 100, based on 4 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Joel Keller of Decider called the series a "worthy" spinoff of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and praised the introduction of Omega as a female main character, writing, "Star Wars: The Bad Batch should satisfy Clone Wars fans and give completist fans of the franchise a chance to see what happened at the very beginning of the Empire." Joshua Rivera of Polygon gave the show a positive review and stated, "The prequels are just as full of rich potential as the original Star Wars trilogy, and The Bad Batch, like The Clone Wars before it, is set to do a lot of slow, careful work to tease out that potential." Wenlei Ma of News.com.au gave the show a positive review and stated, "The Bad Batch is catnip for the dedicated Star Wars fans. It's an animated action-adventure series with thrills, relatable characters on the right side of the war, blaster guns and enough lore and easter eggs to invoke a few excited squeals."

Vincent Schilling of Indian Country Today gave the show 8.5 out of 10 stars and stated, "I'm not a superfan of Star Wars animated series, but I am impressed with this one, a team of certifiable rejects, each with their own skillset, is a winning formula for me – excellent actually." Jesse Schdeen of IGN gave the premiere episode an 8 out of 10 rating, stating that the series is "a worthy successor to The Clone Wars, so much so that it could easily be rebranded as an eighth season" and that "it uses a loose end from that show to build a brand new story about the plight of clones after the war's end, and it's one that immediately resonates". He also added that the show "captures a lot of what made The Clone Wars so great (including the slick animation style and the vocal talents of Baker), but it doesn't entirely escape that show's flaws, either". Julian Lytle of idobi.com gave the show 8 out of 10 stars and stated, "The Bad Batch feels familiar but also starts a new journey with new characters in a cool setting. I can't wait to see what happens with this group in the Empire." Marty Brown of Common Sense Media gave the show 4 out of 5 stars and a '10+' age rating, stating, "This series delivers on precisely what fans would expect from a Star Wars story: world building, unique new characters, and big action sequences with a moral allegory at the center."

Accolades

The first season is one of 200 television series that received the ReFrame Stamp for the years 2021 to 2022. The stamp is awarded by the gender equity coalition ReFrame and industry database IMDbPro for film and television projects that are proven to have gender-balanced hiring, with stamps being awarded to projects that hire female-identifying people, especially women of color, in four out of eight key roles for their production.