Why Bad Batch Looks Like Clone Wars Instead Of Star Wars Rebels

There’s a reason why Star Wars: The Bad Batch looks very similar to The Clone Wars as opposed to Rebels, and executive producer Brad Rau explains why. The creation of Disney+ has led to a greater expansion of the Star Wars universe, with numerous television shows now on the way. While Lucasfilm plots ambitious live-action shows such as The Mandalorian, it is also developing new animated programs for the streaming service. Technically, this began with the final season of The Clone Wars, which premiered last year. However, the first wholly new animated Star Wars show to debut on Disney+ is The Bad Batch.

Arriving today on Disney+, The Bad Batch follows a group of clones operating in the aftermath of the Clone Wars. Known as Clone Order 99, or the Bad Batch, these mercenaries each possess genetic mutations that give each one special skills. They were seen in a handful of Clone Wars episodes, particularly fan favorite character Echo. This new series will explore their newest adventures and will feature appearances from established Star Wars characters like Grand Moff Tarkin and The Mandalorian breakout Fennec Shand.

During a recent press conference for The Bad Batch, supervising director and executive producer Brad Rau explained the reasoning behind the show’s animated style. As some might have noted, The Bad Batch looks like The Clone Wars, but not Rebels. There’s a reason for this, and it’s largely because of The Bad Batch‘s connection to the former. Rau said:

BRAD: That’s very intentional… The Bad Batch is a spiritual successor to Clone Wars. So we wanted to honor the style and the legacy of that. That being said, the whole team at Lucasfilm and our partners at CGCG, we’ve just tightened everything up. So the fidelity is tighter. The style is tighter. The rigs are tighter. The way that it’s designed is still the legacy of The Clone Wars, but a little more detail. Little bit more focus. And the work we’re doing, for me, having worked on a lot of these shows, with a lot of the same people internally, it’s just the best team and I think we’re doing our best work ever right now. It’s really fun.

Though fans can watch The Bad Batch without watching all of The Clone Wars, it’s clear the ties between the two go a bit deeper than just their characters. For those who have seen every episode of The Clone Wars and were sad to see it end, The Bad Batch can help ease the loss by using a familiar style. At the same time, The Bad Batch will hold its own animation quirks that can help it stand on its own. That is just as important as calling back to the series it was born from

The first episode of The Bad Batch is available now in honor of May the 4th, aka Star Wars day. Subsequent episodes will roll out on Disney+ on Fridays; there are 16 in total for the first season. Whether The Bad Batch will return for more remains to be seen, but if audiences flock to it like they did The Clone Wars, there just might be more life within this band of clones. The Clone Wars got 7 seasons; only time will tell how many its spin-off gets.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch continues Friday with episode 2 on Disney+.

Source: Bad Batch press conference

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Rachel Labonte
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Rachel LaBonte is a news, feature, and movie review writer for Screen Rant with a deep passion for film and television. A graduate of Emerson College, she majored in Media Arts Production while specializing in screenwriting. She’s been a writer ever since high school when she realized she was rather good at it and joined as many entertainment news clubs as she could while in school. Most notably, she wrote for Emerson’s website Emertainment Monthly, and one of her film reviews won an Evvy (Emerson’s student awards) for Best Review. Her deep love of movies led to her working at a movie theater for five years, which she loved despite the angry customers. An avid reader who constantly buys books before reading the ones she already owns, Rachel is a huge fan of superheroes (especially of the Marvel variety) and wizards and will likely never be able to catch up on all the movies/TV shows she longs to watch.

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