“I Wouldn’t Call It the End.”
The Bad Batch showrunners reflect on whether this season is truly the end of the 15-year-old chapter of Star Wars history.
The current era of Star Wars animation could be considered a Golden Age.
Since the release of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie in August 2008, the stylized animation covering the prequel era of the Clone Wars and beyond has bridged the gap between the prequel trilogy and then some, building a strong foundation that’s now being used by live-action television series like The Book of Boba Fett and Ahsoka.
The last animated series purely about the Clones is The Bad Batch, a Clone Wars spinoff focusing on a ragtag group of defective clones who form a found family with Omega, a young unaltered clone of Jango Fett herself. Over the course of two seasons, the group has bonded, worked freelance missions, and suffered betrayals and losses. But after the third season, The Bad Batch — and the Clone Wars Saga — will end.
But to quote Luke Skywalker, “No one’s ever really gone.” Now that live-action sibling series The Mandalorian is being launched into a feature film entitled The Mandalorian and Grogu, it’s possible the animated universe could find a similar fate. At least, Bad Batch executive producer Brad Rau and head writer Jennifer Corbett haven’t ruled out the possibility.
Viewers have watched unaltered clone Omega grow over the three seasons of The Bad Batch.
“I would watch that,” Rau tells Inverse. Even though this show is ending, both of them would jump at the chance to work on an animated feature. “How could you say no to that?” Corbett tells Inverse. “Working on this show and with the entire team, they're just incredible. That sounds like a fantastic idea and if that does happen, I will watch it.”
But whether the movie will happen or not, Rau doesn’t want to treat this final season of The Bad Batch as the end of the Clone Wars Saga. “I wouldn't call it the end of the Clone Wars universe,” Rau says, “But as the end of the story of this group of clones, yes. There's always hope that there'll be more stories in the future, but just speaking of the Bad Batch, wrapping up our story here with this final season is great. It's a great thing.”
Rau and Corbett spoke to Inverse about The Bad Batch Season 3, the two big cameos that are already revealed, and saying goodbye to this newfound family.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Even though it’s the last season, The Bad Batch Season 3 explores multiple greater Star Wars plot points.
Why end the show after three seasons?
Brad Rau: Well, early on, we had high hopes that we could tell a story in three seasons, and you never know how things go. As we got into the third season, we knew this was going to be our last one, so we were really excited at that opportunity to be able to hopefully land the plane the way we wanted and be able to wrap up our story with these characters the way we wanted. Hopefully the fans enjoy it as much as we do.
What can fans expect from the last handful of episodes?
Jennifer Corbett: A lot more action, twists, and I'd say a lot of emotion. You're going to be feeling things. I will say that.
Was there any pressure in wrapping up such an integral part of Star Wars animation?
Corbett: Oh, sure. Just being a huge fan of The Clone Wars and this being a spiritual successor to it, the pressure wasn't from really anyone else, but us of just wanting to tell a proper story that felt a little different from The Clone Wars given the time period, but also emotionally relatable like The Clone Wars was.
I love telling misfit stories, and these are the misfit clone squad that adopts a kid and goes off and finds adventure. The pressure is what we put on ourselves. But we’re very happy with how we've ended the series and we just hope that the fans enjoy it as well.
Assajj Ventress makes a surprising return in The Bad Batch Season 3.
Why bring Ventress back? How has she changed?
Rau: Well, so there's a lot to it, and it was not just up to us. When we knew that we had an opportunity to have one of our favorite characters come into our show, we were so, so excited. And one thing we did is we went and looked at the unfinished arcs in The Clone Wars where some of her story takes place, which was actually the inspiration for the novel Dark Disciple. So we went back to the original designs. There were story reels that were created. She had the cool hairdo, the lightsaber. All of this came from that arc.
And so in close discussion with the team, we wanted to honor that look and that feel and that version of interest. Even working with Nika Futterman, who's so, so incredible as Ventress. We talked with her a bunch, her performance is a little bit different than the last time you saw her in The Clone Wars. Some time has passed. So really, the big thing for her is why she is important to Omega's story. And I'm not going to get into those details. You'll have to watch to find out, but that's where all of our storytelling came from: If we're going to use this really cool character, how does it impact Omega and our characters?
This season ties way more in with Palpatine's plan and the cloning experiments. Was this season written more in line to connect it with Palpatine’s return, or the cloning experiments in The Mandalorian?
Corbett: Well, I think when you talk about cloning, that's been a part of the Star Wars story very early on. So I won't say that we're building towards one thing or the other, but the story team is very much involved with what we're doing and everything in Season 2 and 3.
Any mention of what's going on on Tantiss, stuff that you guys haven't seen yet, we've all had group discussions about really what we're saying and why we are saying it. So people are aware we are connecting some things, and that's really all we can say about that.
