What Star Wars: The Bad Batch Reveals About the Rise of the Empire

Sometimes information technology seems like every inch of territory in the Star Wars galaxy has been explored. From the fate of the Jedi later Lodge 66 to every minute detail of the Galactic Ceremonious War, the franchise has always been interested in tracing and expanding its own history.

That tradition continues with the new Disney+ animated serial The Bad Batch , which explores the lives of clone troopers in the aftermath of the Clone Wars. This night period of transition from Democracy to Empire was previously chronicled in the at present non-catechism Legends continuity, just now we have a canon interpretation of it that lines upwards with The Clone Wars (mostly).

The Bad Batch follows a group of clone outcasts who get a kickoff-mitt wait at what the Clone Army has go during the ascent of the Empire. So far, the prove has fabricated three principal points about this drastic sea change: the transition from the Republic to the Empire was a smooth 1 (it seemed to happen overnight), it was violent, and information technology's left the clones with few choices.

Stream your Star Wars favorites correct here!

At this point in the saga, Emperor Palpatine's plans have come to fruition. Anakin Skywalker, now Darth Vader, and the clones have helped him exterminate the Jedi who would exist the most likely force to stand between him and his grip on the milky way. The Clone Army, created to fight the mostly-droid forces of the Separatists, is now a weapon to oppress those they'd once sworn to protect. And the Empire can use a bid for peace to restrict criticism of their own coming atrocities. Later all, if we're no longer at state of war with droids, how bad can the authorities that's installing new ID requirements and on its way to creating the Death Star be?

During a Zoom call, caput author Jennifer Corbett describes the time period in which The Bad Batch is set every bit a moment of cracking unrest. "Even though the state of war's over, there are going to be groups that aren't happy with the sudden shift," she says. (We saw the founder of one of those groups, Saw Gerrera, in the premiere episode.) "Suddenly the Jedi are gone, Emperor Palpatine is in power, and there's a massive regular army at his disposal. Putting it in real world terms, at that place'd exist what the Empire would phone call insurgent groups, and of form the Empire wants to extinguish that in gild to expand their control in different systems. Of course, they're trying not to seem evil in the very beginning only information technology's a slow progression to get the galactic dominance that nosotros encounter in the Original Trilogy."

That slow progression plays out visually as well every bit in terms of story. Star Wars has always used a lot of colour equally motifs, from the red of Sith lightsabers to the world tones of the heroes. Producer Brad Rau says The Bad Batch uses a desaturated color palette to mark the transition between the twilight of the Commonwealth and the rise of the Empire.

"Seeing the clone troopers now as the bad guys was really interesting," he says. "Nosotros started taking all the color off their uniforms, off their ships, off the tanks, and putting that Imperial cog in there. When you run into an Imperial cog on gray, wow! That's the Empire. We also tweaked the sound of their voices."

The clone troopers are proud of their part as protectors of the galaxy, but they were also essentially created as the property of the Democracy. It's Emperor Palpatine who secretly introduced this idea, nudging the Jedi and the Senate down a moral path in which they were fine with a perpetual war against a droid army fought past expendable lab-grown soldiers. The Clone Wars has shown some cases of clones questioning why they were created, particularly when Fives discovered the secret plans for Guild 66. Needless to say, non everyone in the Republic treated clones like they were people. But under the Empire, The Bad Batch creators say, things are near to get even worse.

Corbett sees the attitude toward the clones from the Republic to the Empire as very different. "The Commonwealth allowed the clone troopers to have names and embraced them having opinions, where once Lodge 66 happens and the Empire comes over, equally Brad was maxim, their armor colour is completely bleached and they're a number. In worse cases, they're less than a number. The wild bill of fare is the Batch. They never fit in with the Commonwealth and definitely not with this Empire!"

While the Bad Batch, also known by their official military designation equally Clone Strength 99, escape the transition relatively unscathed due to their genetic modifications, the galaxy is in turmoil all around them. The first episode of the season shows liberty fighter Saw Gerrera well on his way to becoming the leader of a faction in rebellion confronting the Empire. Meanwhile, the Imperials debate that any rebellion is an endeavour to prolong the state of war instead of end it.

Palpatine'southward long-term plans bear on virtually every era of the Star Wars saga. They span from the Commonwealth commissioning the Clone Army in the first identify to some clones joining the Rebellion confronting the Empire. And the era of The Bad Batch shows the myriad ways in which people have to scramble to survive it.