SPOILER Bad Batch Season 3

"Life is at best bittersweet" Jack Kirby

I will miss this show.

 

I mean... I like Clone Force 99. I like the characters, but many of the stories seem pretty pedestrian. "Oh-meee-guh" annoys me most of the time... but is a good center to the story other times.

I really just think a lot of things got rushed.

I think Rebels and Clone Wars were better, but I hope to see this story carry on in something else, down the road.

 

You know, for all the awesome episodes sprinkled here and there during the whole series, The Bad Batch to me is quite a flat show. I found even the Rebels more interesting in comparison.
Is it me or does anyone else feel like the plot points in the show are way too stretched and the character development isn't as interesting as it might be?
Because it's not a bad show per se, but I always remember Rebels S1 being visually quite boring and not giving much after Clone Wars, but the character development and build up with Grand Inquisitor was actually very well done!
I am mostly watching the show because it's Star Wars, it's nice to look at, but I guess I am oversaturated with stuff like, yay, emperor again and yay, cloning - huge mysteries and I wonder where do they lead! Wake me up and let me know if there will be a Star Wars media in the future, which will set up some compelling plot points and mysteries with some actual pay off, that won't be adressed years in the future or if ever at all. So far, only Ahsoka has managed to do it, but left the interesting things on cliffhanger with basically no pay off at all.

But what I have to say is, that the show is visually amazing. The best looking 3D animation from Lucasfilm up to date for a weekly show.
Makes it hard to return to S1 of Clone Wars visually

 

That is actually what I am hoping for and interested for. The plight of the squad as you said and Omega's part ot story in all of it. I am sure that the cloning and Palpatine stuff leads to the sequel plot of him somehow getting back, which is actually nice to see at least in show than reading about it in more obscure books.
What my real hope is, that this is not just a overarching sequel trilogy plot, that we see resolved in Ep. 9, but that it will also have some bigger implications in the show itself and if the 99 with Rex and Omega go to launch the rescue operation on Tantis (and I am looking forward to that), they will at least be able to cripple the Necromancer in some way or have some "epic" ending and payoff that will make the sense for the show.

 

Could be. The word itself could certainly have multiple meanings.

For the character though, it does make perfect sense for it to be his obsession to conquer death for himself. “All who gain power are afraid to lose it.” He worked for an untold amount of time to grasp his “unlimited power”. He wouldn’t want something as trivial as mortality to get in his way now.

I liked the wrinkle that TROS threw in - that seeking an apprentice was really only ever about perpetuating himself and not any actual inheritance. Going it one further and having his desire to not even endure that level of sacrifice, is wonderfully consistent with greedy Sith philosophy.

Personally, I hope it isn’t another ‘super soldier’ plot like Mando S3. I’d rather the ‘unnatural’ incitement be totally self-interested and that’s why these clones are being made to suffer. That was my biggest gripe with TROS’s Palpi-clone reveal. It’s just a ‘dark science’ thing he can do. Cool. But what was the cost? Who are the victims? Someone always has to be hurt to make these deplorable schemes possible. There wasn’t a human toll. Now there is (or might be).

Bad Batch has really done an excellent job at truly articulating the tragedy of the clones. Human beings, manufactured without genuine agency, to fight in a war they thought was just, only to discover it was all a giant sham. They’re relegated to the state of obsolete tools and decommissioned as antique assets. For the ones capable of displaying a degree of independent thought, they’re made into test subjects for an amoral madman’s inhumane machinations. So sad and so central to this story. But, at its core, it's still about hope.

 

I expect Hemlock has numerous nefarious projects going on at Tantis involving cloning. But I don’t feel like Palps would make a site visit for anything other than what’s concerning himself. I just don’t think the guy wants to share the prospect of reproducing Force ability in a lab with anyone. He’s selfish and fearful of challenge. He’d want fewer Force users out there, not more. He wants all the power all for himself. Y’know?

The Gideon character is an interesting commentary on cultural appropriation. His whole deal was about stealing the strengths of conquered people and making them his own, without any real respect for them. For him, the Force was just an asset he could commodify. One more weapon in his arsenal. Turning this deeply spiritual attribute into a topping on his evil pizza makes total sense to me for his ideology.

That tracks with what we saw in the Kenobi series.

I assumed the Inquisitors were more about hunting down Jedi survivors specifically rather than Force users in general. But I imagine they would do both.

 

Spoiler

Cad Bane, damn baby-stealing poodoo face. I knew it was him when I heard the spurs. Anyone know what species the baby & mom are?

The rations were their downfall.

I am not a fan of Clone X. Too efficient against the good guys.

 

Oh, Omega got captured again. Must be a Tuesday.

 

Did not enjoy this episode. Just blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh imo.

 

Well, ultimately a very good season. Stunning visuals, great attention to detail, very focused narrative with little filler. And it helped to improve the Sequel trilogy a bit too.
Also, Tech didn't get resurrected and Rampart didn't have a redemption arc. Subverting expectations, I guess.
Still, there clearly are a lot more stories to tell in this timeframe and beyond. So, I hope it is all not over yet.

 

I'm almost caught up now, having held off on watching TBB S3 due to some rather hectic RL and work stuff this spring, and I must say I'm glad I waited. I love TBB much more than I thought I would, and Omega is one of my all time favorite SW characters so far, but as with most SW series, TBB is best when binged; many episodes are too small or too narrowly focused to stand on their own, IMHO, but they work much better when viewed as part of the greater whole. This was also an issue with TCW, less so for Rebels and Resistance, and I think we've seen it in liva-action, too: Andor's 2nd arch mid-episode of each 3-episodes block didn't work so well on their own, and both Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ashoka suffered from it, too. With The Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett, most episodes worked on their own, and it'll be interesting to see how The Acolyte fares.

All in all, (even though I'm still 3 episodes shy of completing TBB), I can confidently say that this is a great show for me, although as with most things SW, it deserves to be binged as s whole

 

I feel like the best way to consume these shows is relative to how they were developed. This last season of the series was way more contiguous than the first two. Those two followed far more of a conventional teleplay structure where each episode, while part of a greater whole, was a fully formed thought to itself. Where, what’s established at the top of the episode, operates as a thesis statement that’s reinforced through the body and resolved by the conclusion. You’re meant to have it sit with you for days after the fact and not just roll right into the next one.

The third season had more of a general screenplay layout with a recognizable three act structure spread out over the stretch. Each episode is an incomplete thought - a piece of a bigger idea. Which is what a lot of these modern ‘streamers’ are these days (Star Wars included). They aren’t so much seasons of a TV show, but long movies that have been broken up into logical chunks. Bingeing is more satisfying in those cases because watching a movie in multiple weekly shifts is kind of an awkward experience. You lose the cinematic flow and pace.

I mean, the conventional consensus is that ESB is the best of the bunch. But would it still be so beloved if everyone’s first introduction to it was as ten 12-minute weekly episodes of a TV show? Maybe, but probably not. Its narrative is intentionally compartmentalized, so could actually work that way, but I doubt it would be nearly as satisfying. It’s designed to unfold altogether as a complete meal, and not as a bunch of individually wrapped fun-sized portions. Y'know?

Eh, sorry, I’m just blathering.

 

Did we ever find out why Omega is female if she’s really a clone?

I’m not sure I understand what the purpose of Project Necromancer was. Was the goal to make force-sensitive clones (and I guess they failed)? Does this have anything to do with the Contingency?

 

We only met two female clones and they were both lab assistants. So, I guess that’s what they were for.

All the little clone boys went off to play soldier and all the little clone girls stayed home to keep house. The Kaminoans were big fans of reinforcing gender stereotypes, it seems.

Sort of. Palps wanted to reproduce midi-chlorians in a lab. We *assume* so he could make himself a spiffy clone body with the Force. But it doesn’t work like that. The midis just die off. But with Omega, they didn’t. That’s why she’s special.

Sort of. In that it’s related to Palpy cloning himself and then leading the First Order through his clone puppet, Snoke. He never quite cracks that code though, so that’s why he looks like moldy bread in TROS.