Hey everyone! How are all of you doing today? I'm doing pretty well. I hope you all enjoyed my look at the pre-Walt Disney Classics VHS releases. Today I'm switching gears and am going to be talking about "Aftermath", the first episode of the brand new Disney+ animated series, Star Wars: The Bad Batch. I watched it virtually with my buddy Jonathan and he really enjoyed it and is excited for the next fifteen episodes. While I liked this episode, I'm not really sure about the series going forward. But I'll talk about that in this review. So let's get into it.
I've gone on record in previous blog posts saying that this series didn't interest me and that I wasn't planning on watching it. And I probably wouldn't've if Jonathan hadn't agreed to watch it with me over Skype. Part of it is because it's a spin-off of the 2008 series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars and the majority of the main characters of this show appeared in an episode of that show long after I'd stopped watching the series, when it was on TV. For reference I actually stopped watching it in late 2009 or early 2010 during the second season. So it's been close to twelve years since I stopped watching The Clone Wars. The other reason I had no interest in this series is because it deals with the Clone Troopers and I'm not a fan of that kind of story. Yes, it's called Star Wars, but I don't necessarily watch it for the military aspect of it. I watch it for the hero, the rogue, the princess, and the gambler more than I do the soldiers.
After we finished watching it, Jonathan and I talked about it a bit and I didn't actually say whether I enjoyed it or not. I wanted to sleep on it and think about it before I said anything. My initial reaction was somewhat positive, but I needed time to really process what I was watching. It was a good episode. It was well written, well produced, and well animated. But despite their "genetic defects" I found these Clone Troopers to be just as bland as any other one that I've seen in the prequel trilogy and the first season and a half of The Clone Wars. Not that that's a bad thing when they're supporting characters, but when they're the main characters that you're following for a full season (or more), it's not a good idea to have bland characters. It's almost like if Star Trek suddenly announced they were making a series where Borg drones are the main characters. It doesn't work. Also, Star Wars has actually done a similar premise to this back in 2007.
It's not my favourite Timothy Zahn written Star Wars novel ever (that honour goes to the 2013 novel, Scoundrels), but he wrote a book called Allegiance. In it, a group of Stormtroopers desert the Empire after the events of A New Hope, and go rogue, basically becoming a vigilante group who are being hunted by Mara Jade. Which is essentially what this show is, except there's no Mara Jade, they're Clone Troopers instead of Stormtroopers, and it takes place after the events of Revenge of the Sith instead of A New Hope. The thing is, both are well written, it's just neither are really for me.
I think what I liked most about this episode is that we got to see Kamino in the immediate aftermath of Revenge of the Sith, which we didn't get to see in the movies, and that Lama Su is still the Prime Minister of the planet at this point. I'm sure I'm missing some important details from The Clone Wars where the Kaminoans appear, but I don't care, it was still cool to see.
I also liked that Tarkin was the one to test the Bad Batch's loyalty to the brand new Galactic Empire. Though his character model is a bit wonky. What I mean by that is it looks like they reused the character model used in Rebels rather than the one used in The Clone Wars, so he looks as old as he did in Rebels, Rogue One, and A New Hope rather than he should at this point. That's a minor issue though. Just the way he was utilized here was pretty cool.
Overall, it was a good episode, but I'm not sure if I'm going to continue watching the series going forward. I'm not really connecting to any of the characters, the way I did with The Mandalorian and the way I hope to with Obi-Wan Kenobi when that comes out. And I think that's because they didn't struggle with their decisions, it came to them quickly, and that makes them seem too perfect and nobody in fiction should be perfect, because nobody in real life is perfect. I'm planning on giving it one more episode to win me over, but so far The Bad Batch is turning out to be not for me. Which is fine, as there are other Star Wars shows and movies coming out in the near future that I'm really excited for. So if the second episode doesn't win me over, I'll leave the series for the people who are into it, and those who just love Dave Filoni's animated Star Wars shows in general be it The Clone Wars, Rebels or this.
I think that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow though for my review of volume 1 of Codename: Sailor V as I have one chapter left before I finish the book. So until then have a great rest of your day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.
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