For “Star Wars” fans, it’s hard to believe that after six years off the air, the first episode of the new season of “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” has finally arrived on Disney+. After a five-season run on Cartoon Network, the series was suddenly canceled in March 2013 after the acquisition of Lucasfilm by the Walt Disney Company. As a result, the series showrunner, Dave Filoni (“The Mandalorian”), was assigned to another animated television project called “Star Wars Rebels.” While positively received, it failed to reach the popularity that the previous series had. Some of the remaining episodes of “The Clone Wars” were released on DVD and Netflix, while some were only released unfinished, and in other forms such as comic books and novels.
With a huge following from devoted fans and a new owner desperate to please “Star Wars” fans, it was announced in 2018 that “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” would be revived for a final season on the new Disney+ streaming service. The series is well beloved by fans for its mature themes and storytelling, fast pace, characters and world building, but will this new season hold up?
The first episode, “The Bad Batch,” is a solid, yet ultimately flawed, start to the season. This episode introduces us to four new clone characters, members of the titular “Bad Batch,” a group of defective clone troopers with “desirable genetic mutations.” While they’re certainly a likeable bunch, the character traits of these new clones are what truly holds this episode back from greatness. The writers relied on certain character tropes to differentiate them from each other, which ultimately comes off as lazy and stereotypical. “The Bad Batch,” has about as much characterization as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles do, where each member has a certain set of skills. The overused “brute” and “tech whiz” types make an appearance in this episode. Some of their dialogue also comes off as childish and unnatural. Aside from this, the rest of the episode is pure fun. The animation, although updated, keeps the same look and feel that the rest of the series had. The new episode certainly feels like “The Clone Wars” should, with high amounts of action. After the critical disappointment that was “The Rise of Skywalker,” it’s refreshing to see that high-quality “Star Wars” content is still coming to viewers.
Still, for the first episode in a series that hasn’t aired in years, some viewers may find it disappointing that other well-known characters from the series don’t make an appearance in this episode, and those that did were brief. However, their significant appearances in trailers should calm any worries about them not getting any screen time. Even though the “Bad Batch” arc is set to take up the first four episodes, with the rest of the season eventually dedicated to exploring events taking place immediately before and simultaneously with “Revenge of the Sith,” it still feels that for such a long awaited comeback, the small and intimate nature of this episode wasn’t appropriate for a season opener. Regardless, even with basic writing and cringe inducing dialogue, “The Bad Batch” is an overall solid addition to the series, it just needed to do more to excite fans for the season to come.
Image from Star Wars via YouTube
