First Look At Star Wars: The Bad Batch
Lucasfilm and Disney have released the first footage of their latest Star Wars animated series, Star Wars: The Bad Batch.
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At Disney’s Investor Day 2020, Lucasfilm and The Walt Disney Company made a remarkable amount of announcements and reveals for Star Wars going forward, including new films and upcoming Disney+ series. Amongst all the Star Wars news, Lucasfilm released the first footage of their latest Star Wars animated series, Star Wars: The Bad Batch.
While this first teaser for Star Wars: The Bad Batch is packed with quick cuts and snippets of information rather than a full-blown trailer, there are some interesting elements shown beyond droids and stormtroopers getting blown away. At one point, the trailer shows Emperor Palpatine making the announcement that The Republic will be reorganized into the First Galactic Empire. There’s also a quick glimpse of an animated Admiral Tarkin.
Previously, we’ve learned that Star Wars: The Bad Batch takes place after season seven of The Clone Wars and focuses on members of Clone Force 99, also known as the Bad Batch. As the teaser implies, this new series takes place soon after the rise of the Galactic Empire, as the Bad Batch undertake mercenary missions. The show has been created by Jennifer Corbett, who has previously written for Golden Boy, NCIS, and Star Wars Resistance. While it was previously assumed that The Bad Batch would debut in 2021, the new teaser simply says “coming soon.”
With The Mandalorian introducing characters like Bo-Katan Kryze and Ahsoka Tano, Disney and Lucasfilm clearly have an interest in melding together the worlds of animation and live-action. Disney did mention at Investor Day that several new live-action series would culminate in a united event in the future, but it’s unclear whether or not we will possibly see more crossover between The Bad Batch and The Mandalorian.
While The Bad Batch was certainly the major animated series Lucasfilm focused on during their part of the presentation, Disney+ has plenty more animated shows on the way. Disney also announced an anime anthology called Visions, which will be a collection of short Star Wars films from popular Japanese animators. Disney+ will also be getting A Droid Story, which will follow a new droid going on an adventure with R2-D2 and C-3PO.
Beyond The Bad Batch and Disney’s other animated programs, Disney’s Investor Day made quite a few major announcements for the network’s Disney+ programming. Disney showed their first footage from Andor, and announced Hayden Christensen would reprise the role of Anakin Skywalker in the new Obi-Wan Kenobi series. Disney also unveiled new Mandalorian spinoffs, entitled Rangers of the New Republic and Ahsoka, as well as revealed the name of Russian Doll creator Leslye Headland’s new Star Wars series, entitled The Acolyte. Finally, Disney announced that Dear White People creator Justin Simien is working on Lando, which will center around Lando Calrissian.
With Disney+’s subscriber base increasing, The Mandalorian gaining in popularity and Disney choosing to focus on their direct-to-consumer opportunities, The Bad Batch and the many new Star Wars series announced seem ready to expand the Star Wars universe into territories that we’ve never seen before.
