Another chapter of Star Wars history is about to come to an end. Star Wars: The Bad Batch’s third and final season is about to premiere, with this show having spun out from Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 7, which introduced Clone Force 99 to the world. There’s a lot for Disney+ subscribers to look forward to from this final outing, including the return of Asajj Ventress, but while interviewing two of the show’s key producers on behalf of CinemaBlend, I wanted to know what they were most proud of contributing to the Star Wars franchise through The Bad Batch. Their answers will delight fans of Revenge of the Sith and the Expanded Universe continuity.
Just like in conjunction with Seasons 1 and 2, I recently had the pleasure of speaking with head writer/executive producer Jennifer Corbett and supervising director/executive producer Brad Rau about Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3. Because the show is months away from concluding, I thought it was worth taking a stroll down memory lane with these two, and starting off, here’s what Jennifer Corbett said about what she’s most proud of accomplishing with The Bad Batch:
Well I’ll say, as a fan, I was very honored we were able to bring back Commander Cody and tell a little bit more of his story post-Revenge of the Sith and see a little bit more about what he’s going through and the fact that he can also affect Crosshair’s journey as well.
Introduced in Revenge of the Sith as the clone commander who accompanied Obi-Wan Kenobi to Utapau, Cody was the one who instructed his troops to gun down the Jedi Master after Emperor Palpatine ordered that Order 66 be executed. Star Wars: The Clone Wars explored Cody and Obi-Wan’s prior missions together, but The Bad Batch marked the first time that fans touched base with the character onscreen post-Episode III. Although he was still serving the Empire in Season 2’s “The Solitary Clone,” his experience with Crosshair led to him deserting. While it remains to be seen if Cody will resurface in Season 3, Corbett was glad to bring the character back and have him play a role in Crosshair’s arc, ultimately helping push the former Clone Force 99 sharpshooter to turn his back on the Empire too.
Meanwhile, Brad Rau went with Star Wars: The Bad Batch being able to incorporate a key location from Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising and The Last Command, which comprised the original Thrawn trilogy of novels penned by Timothy Zahn from the Expanded Universe continuity:
Mount Tantiss is such a big location and has a lot to do with the story of these characters as they’ve gone forward. As Season 3 continues, we dig into it more, and as a massive fan of the Zahn’s original novels, it was so cool to bring that location into the storyline and then to continue to explore what’s going on there is pretty spectacular.
Although all the EU stories were were put under the Legends publication banner following Disney acquiring Star Wars, and thus deemed non-canon, the franchise has slowly been able to reincorporate aspects of the EU within the official canon. This includes Mount Tantiss, which in the EU was one of Palatine’s secret storehouses that Thrawn used to set up his cloning program on the planet Weyland in the immediate years after Return of the Jedi. While Thrawn was brought into the official canon in Star Wars Rebels and has since been brought to life in live-action on Ahsoka, he doesn’t have anything to do with Mount Tantiss on The Bad Batch. Instead, as of Season 2, its cloning program being overseen by Dr. Royce Hemlock in the early years of the Empire’s reign.
While Star Wars: The Bad Batch didn’t run nearly as long as The Clone Wars, it did add many major elements to Star Wars lore, including what Jennifer Corbett and Brad Rau mentioned. Now there are just 15 episodes left for the show to shine on Disney+, with the first three Season 3 episodes premiering February 21, and the season wrapping up on May 1. CinemaBlend will continue sharing news about this series and other upcoming Star Wars movies and TV shows.
