After wrapping up Star Wars: The Clone Wars with the long-awaited final season last year, the Lucasfilm Animation isn’t slowing down, with a new trailer for Star Wars: The Bad Batch releasing ahead of its May 4th premiere in just over a month. And these clones mean business.
After appearing in last year’s season of The Clone Wars, the titular Bad Batch are a squad of enhanced Republic soldiers whose specific set of skills make them a little more independent than their fellow clone brothers. And as the Republic becomes the Empire, it becomes time to pick a side. The new trailer makes it clear that the Batch are in the crosshairs of the blossoming Imperial forces, with the likes of Peter Cushing’s iconic Grand Moff Tarkin on their tail. With rogue escapades ranging from street fights to taking mercenary work, you can bet The Bad Batch won’t be short on action.
Further tendrils into the greater Star Wars lore are evident here, with the appearance of Mandalorian bounty hunter Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) fleshing out the underworld side of things for good measure.
What’s most impressive here, I think, is the quality of animation. The Clone Wars only became more of a sight to behold as the show went on, the writing becoming more sophisticated and the budgets, no doubt, going up, resulting in some seriously beautiful Star Wars vistas. Headed by executive producer Dave Filoni, Athena Portillo produces, with Brad Rau and Jennifer Corbette acting as lead director and writer, respectively. Exciting also is the news that the first episode of The Bad Batch hitting May 4th will be a 70 minute premiere. Get psyched!
There’s a lot of Star Wars stuff going on these days, with fresh news on Obi-Wan Kenobi hot off the presses and a slew of other films and series in development. With The Bad Batch premiere on Disney+ so close, it’s time to take things one at a time and enjoy the ride.
