Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 2 Review: The Return Of The Rebel Clones On Disney+
Cast: Dee Bradley Baker, Cameron Hales
Creator: Dave Filoni
Streaming Platform: Disney+
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 2 kicked off today on Disney+ and so it’s time to finally ask one question: Is The Bad Batch ready to shoulder the honor and burden of being the heir to The Clone Wars? We’re not so sure yet, although we don’t have a negative idea of the latest Star Wars animated series at all (here you can catch up on our review of The Bad Batch). It’s just that, basically and looking at it in the most cynical way possible, about a year and a half ago the deeds of Clone Force 99 had laid some pleasant foundations and nothing more, focusing a lot on the adaptation of a group of rebel clones in a post-Order 66 galaxy. The themes were – and still are, we can assure you – the flagship of the production together with the characterization of the characters, an altar on which it was clear to sacrifice a lot in terms of plot, which flowed away between too many self-contained episodes for their own sake and few pregnant ones.
This is a missing balance that the second season of The Bad Batch seems to want to remedy. We had the pleasant opportunity to see many episodes in preview and the work of the writers focused precisely on expanding the range of the series as much as possible while keeping the theme of war or guerrilla operations constant. Many have wondered what Star Wars could still tell and Andor answered this question in an exemplary way: still a lot. In this regard, The Bad Batch seems to have learned a lot, although the narrative structure is still based on quotations, the connections with the saga and soul doppelgangers of well-known characters. Where is the novelty? Not everything has to be new, just think of the fact that with Avatar James Cameron has given us a spectacular film through a 90s canvas. Still, if a formula has proven not to work in the long term it is good to change it.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 2 Review: The Story
But let’s take a small step back: what is The Bad Batch about? The undisputed protagonists of the series are the components of Clone Force 99, nicknamed precisely the Bad Batch, whose peculiarity lies in being elite clones due to extremely useful genetic mutations on the battlefield. And we find the various Tech, Echo, Wrecker and Hunter, accompanied by the inseparable Omega, several months after the events of Kamino and the destruction of Tipoca City, mostly intent on staying off the radar of the Empire, which considers them dead. Everything runs smoothly until Cid assigns our heroes the dangerous mission of recovering, in full imperial territory, the war treasures of a certain Count well known to Star Wars fans.
Let’s not go around too much, the structure of The Bad Batch is unchanged from the first season, since on the other hand you only go from one theater of war or in any case from one insidious assignment to another, as The Clone Wars did at the time. A more of the same then? Not exactly, the series tries to highlight right from the first episodes that the focus of the production has expanded and not a little, putting in its viewfinder – yes, it is both a reference and a pun – also the imperial expansion and how the formidable political structure created by Palpatine evolved in the very first years of its life.
The second season of Star Wars: The Bad Batch seems to resume after a few months after the events of last year’s season finale. This is demonstrated by the uniforms of the group, now more brownish, and the recovery of Crosshair following the bombing of Kamino. Omega, as we said, has grown, and is now an integral part of the squadron from which it is no longer only defended. Her fighting skills have improved, and her voice resonates strong enough to be noticed even by Hunter. In the meantime, the Empire continues its plan of conquest, the Senate votes for conscription and the clones fear for their future.
Cid remains at the center of the narrative in the final episodes, providing new missions to the Bad Batch to make ends meet. A trick that we hope will end soon as it could tire in the long run. By abandoning the paths of the procedural, the series could find added value, but since it is a broad-based animation product, it may not happen so soon. That said, Star Wars: The Bad Batch is not a “children’s cartoon”, as it is the heir to the Clone Wars. Death and betrayal find new forms here, widely distancing themselves from the childish story.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 2 Review and Analysis
This is the strength of the series yet counterbalanced by old-fashioned and questionable comedy skits. Wrecker remains the comic relief, but without making people laugh. In this regard, the flow of the story is not linear, but discontinuous. The episodes are never similar or united, thus losing homogeneity. The detachment from the third to the fourth episode is felt predominantly, so much so that we wonder if we are looking at the same product or not. This for us is a serious mistake as it undermines what is beautiful about Star Wars: The Bad Batch. The direction has matured, the images are suggestive, and some moments are adrenaline-pumping. The problem remains once again the writing of the characters, almost two-dimensional.
However, a definitive judgment is still early. A series finds its meaning when viewed from beginning to end, but if the journey becomes tortuous something is missing and what something is for us is the flow, a certain homogeneity. Just like in the first season, old characters peep out here too, some known, some less. All this creates a union with the other Star Wars products, and for now, the quotation seems to be functional to the story, without ever falling into fan service; these days it’s a not inconsiderable value.
Furthermore, The Bad Batch seems to embrace some of Andor’s themes, actually integral to the DNA of Star Wars. The two series are part of two different directions but united by a single discourse: the rebellion of the oppressed against a totalitarian system. Much of this had been lost to the benefit of mere spectacularization and which now returns to the fore. The animated series shows the fallacy of the system and the hypocrisy behind the facade of order and peace. Not only that, but the rebel clones are also different, outsiders. Their colors, their style is heterogeneous, differing from the white empire. It is the war of diversity against massification.
From this point of view Star Wars: The Bad Batch performs its task perfectly, but unfortunately not everything is perfect. What is certain is that we are faced with a product of clearly superior quality to the live-action series with Kenobi and Boba Fett. The hope is that the third season of The Mandalorian doesn’t ruin the last bastion, given the cracks in the second. If that were to happen, the fandom would be lost forever, and the Star Wars serial universe would fall into oblivion. The animation remains once again a certainty if we also think of the excellent Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi. Finally, the second season of The Bad Batch reveals the progress made, but we hope for greater progression.
And yes, we are talking about other war scenes, but the ability to reverse the perspective by showing, in a sense like Andor (here we refer you to our review of Andor), why the Empire has been such a despised institution in the everyday life will always be considered by us a discreet breath of fresh air for the franchise. More variety, in short, and in the usual style of The Bad Batch equals more delicate issues to be addressed with admirable frankness.
In general, however, it is precisely the balance that seems to have improved a lot, i.e. there is much more often the feeling that these missions matter or add a piece of the mosaic compared to the past, where in the end they were mere means of entertainment or little more. If we then add to the table greater attention precisely to the missions, more accurate and more tactical despite the exhilarating existence of Wrecker, then it is evident that the qualitative leap made by The Bad Batch should not be underestimated at all. The only doubt remains the same: will the series be able to tell a satisfying story? The references to the sequel trilogy and Episode IX have long been evident and consequently, we hope that the whole plot does not just lead us to an obvious plot twist. There must be more, but unfortunately, we cannot say for sure now.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 2 Review: The Last Words
On the surface, it may seem like a simple more of the same and we won’t blame you for thinking so, as basically, the structure has remained fundamentally the same. Yet the improvements that The Bad Batch is showing in this second season, which we have been able to see almost in its entirety in previews, are by no means to be underestimated. The first season had laid some pleasant foundations and a little more, now the feeling is that the writers have focused their attention not only on making the individual missions more interesting, more refined, and more tactical (despite Wrecker), but also on improving the general balance of their creature. For example, now and then an attempt is made to reverse the perspective, showing how and how much the Empire evolved in its very first years. Or, in general, the deeds of the Bad Batch seem to count more, the objectives are much more defined and therefore intriguing, as well as more full of themes. The usual doubt remains: what story does the series want to tell? Let’s just hope there’s more to it than the constant Episode IX teasers.
