Part of this year’s Star Wars Day tomorrow (May the 4th Be With You) will be marked with the debut of Disney+‘s latest contribution to the Star Wars saga, Star Wars:  The Bad Batch.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch follows the further adventures of Clone Force 99, first introduced in The Clone Wars.  An experimental squad produced by a variety of genetic mutations, the group differs from the rank-and-file clones both physically and psychologically, with each specializing in a particular skill that makes them together an unstoppable team.  Taking place directly after the events of The Clone Wars, the Bad Batch must navigate a rapidly changing galaxy in which their loyalties will be tested and their eccentricities no longer tolerated.

A press conference was held via Zoom recently, in which Dee Bradley Baker (voice of The Bad Batch,) Jennifer Corbett (Head Writer and Executive Producer,) and Brad Rau (Supervising Director and Executive Producer) spoke briefly about the characters of Bad Batch, and their changing position in a post-Clone Wars galaxy.

Press Conference highlights:

Baker on the characters:  “All right, well, of the team, you’ve got Hunter, who’s kind of the leader of the pack…he’s got tracking skills and…kind of this heightened sense that helps him gauge the terrain.  And then you’ve got Tech, who is very technically oriented–always has like, a handheld device that he’s working on and is super cool, super calm, and competent with all things technical.  Then you got Wrecker who, to no surprise, is the muscles of the group, who’s got incredible strength.  Who else do we have?  Crosshair.  Crosshair is the sharpshooter of the group who’s kind of a contrary character and quite interesting in the dynamic.  And then you’ve also got Echo, who is a modified clone–an android clone from The Clone Wars episodes, who was brought on board with the Batch. 

“And that’s the gang, I think.  And together they are a force to be reckoned with. ”

Baker on voicing all the clones:  “Clone Force 99 is kind of another step beyond what I’ve been asked to do in the Clone Wars series.  The Clones are…the tricky part for them, is that the differentiation is much tighter between characters.  Although it has to be decisive.  It has to be clear. 

“The Bad Batch are actually much further apart from each other, which oddly makes it a little bit easier to jump from character to character to character.  I mean, for me it feels like I’m jumping from rock to rock on a stream.  I can see the rock.  The writing is clear.  And that’s what I  jump to, is that character…it actually helps that they’re further differentiated vocally, and also in terms of their personality and their mood, shall we say?  So it comes off looking more as a magic trick than it does maybe with the Clones, but it’s still a really fascinating process as a voice actor to have these scenes where I’m just talking to myself, just switching from character to character to character as we go through the script.  Which is typically how we do it–we just go straight through it.  It’s fantastic fun.  It’s really an interesting project.”

Corbett on the state of the galaxy:  “…You know, we’ve seen the Clone Wars where it’s the height of the Clone Troopers doing what they’re meant to do, and what they were created for, and the question became, What happens after the war is over?  What happens to clones who all they know is being soldiers?  Especially for the Bad Batch who do things differently as it is with the Republic and how they fit in once it becomes the Empire…It was interesting to just sort of talk about the transition from the Republic to the Empire and what that looks like, because it’s not what we saw in the original trilogy, where it’s the dominance of the Empire.  It’s kind of like the early stages, and I found it kind of interesting to show planets and places that were happy that the war is over, and they don’t really understand the implications of what an Empire actually means.  And it’s kind of just laying the groundwork for what everyone knows the Empire to be later on. ”

In case you missed it, here’s the new trailer for Star Wars:  The Bad Batch: 

Star Wars: The Bad Batch makes its Disney+ debut on Tuesday, May 4, with a special 70-minute premiere, followed by new episodes every Friday starting on May 7.

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