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Musings

C.F.D.D Pod

Gaming in the Jon Byron Times

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Bad Batch: how bad was the batch?

Rating

Production Value: B

Writing and Story: C

Acting and Casting: C

overall: C

A lot of my harsher criticism will admittedly stem from this not being for me. I can tell this is aimed at a younger audience (somewhere between 12-19) and/or people who are just super extra about Star Wars. The other part of my harsher criticism will stem from Star Wars fatigue.

This struck me as being about as "Disney Star Wars" as anything could be. The very outer veneer is selling something gritty and tough, but the actual content within is strategically sanitized and watered down with a lot of cutesy. Again, it is a cartoon for kids, so it isn't something to get irate about, that is just my observation. In truth, this is what it is supposed to be. It functions as a sort of sequel to the Clone Wars cartoon, so if you are a Clone Wars fan that wants a bit more of that, this will probably scratch that itch. It is pretty much the same art style, concerns clone business, and I am pretty sure is intended to exist in the same continuity.

We are introduced to some clone troopers who are eclectic for some reason. They are still based on Temuera Morrison, but less so than others, and they are different in a Team Fortress kind of way. There is a big dumb one, a tiny nerd one, a robot one; well like a cyborg Robocop-esque type one, an intense sniper one, and a knifey one. They are "Force 99" which, if you apply Star Wars logic, that means they are the last "force" cloned, despite that literally not adding up if you presume every "force" is also like a small platoon, and the long neck guy in the prequels said there were over a million clones being made, but you still presume them the last "batch" because Star Wars. You assume they turned out wonky because they were the use of the last leftover "genetic material" from Jango Fett, which would make the name "Bad Batch" a naughty little double entendre.

It is not stated that they are necessarily the last clones. Since it is seen that there are still youngling clones and clone trooper minting is still ongoing as the start of the series, they are not the last ones. They are not necessarily an accident either. The cloners were experimenting with the formula. Remember in the prequels that all the clone troopers were modified to be more soldier like than Jango? So, it was established that they have some control in altering clones from the original host. In fact, a LOT of control. So much so that it doesn't make sense why it was so damned important that Jango had to be the only guy they can clone since, it seems they could use about anyone and just make uniform soldier like variants of them. They could have cloned Tarkin, or just anyone who agreed to be a clone template.

The lack of clarification on why they couldn't make a different clone model aside from Jango is sort of a sticking point because, the plot of a few episodes and the origin of one of the characters centers around that. They introduce a kid clone, a precocious kid. I often wonder about these kinds of kid characters. I always think that kids don't actually want to see people their own age in things, but rather feel more sophisticated to understand adult characters (that they don't realize are written down to them) and project themselves on the same level. The token kid character has been around a long time, but it's never been anyone's favorite. I see it as, they try to make the kid as a child viewer’s self-insert character, but child audiences never process it as such. Perhaps the precocious kid character is more for parents to drive home that the show is "family friendly" or something.

The kid clone; Omega is supposed to somehow be a fallback to running out of OG Jango material, and they had been making clones off clones, but they are starting to get moldy copies or something, and ... somehow, this kid that is also a clone herself is supposed be as good as Jango for that, but she IS a clone, but her growth wasn't accelerated like other clones, so she is older than .... it doesn't matter. Point being, when Omega is off turning the Rescue Rangers into a real family, they sent a bounty hunter to find her.

I figured since she is the only female clone, the plan would be to wait several years and get her pregnant, and then they would have someone genetically similar to Jango that officially wasn't a clone at all, but maybe that would be too creepy or something, so actually they can just kill her and that somehow makes for fresh clones. It doesn't matter because, the new Galactic Empire seems to be insistant on never using clones again and using a recruited force because it then makes it match the original trilogy. Presumably, as they recruit enough non-clone storm troopers, they will secretly kill all the clones for the sake of explaining why no elderly Jango clones are ever seen in the original trilogy.

I couldn't get myself to care about the characters as they came off very stereotypical to me. There won't be a review of series 2 or 3, because, as said, this very obviously wasn't tailored to my demographic and not to my tastes, so if I kept going, all I would do is minge more, and I might have more interesting and/or positive things to say about other media.