STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS Actor Sam Witwer Shares Some Details on THE BAD BATCH Spinoff Series
Lucasfilm and Disney+ recently confirmed that there’s a Star Wars: The Clone Wars spinoff series in development titled Star Wars: The Bad Batch.
The series follows the “elite and experimental clones of the Bad Batch (first introduced in The Clone Wars) as they find their way in a rapidly changing galaxy in the immediate aftermath of the Clone War. Members of Bad Batch – a unique squad of clones who vary genetically from their brothers in the Clone Army -- each possess a singular exceptional skill which makes them extraordinarily effective soldiers and a formidable crew. In the post-Clone War era, they will take on daring mercenary missions as they struggle to stay afloat and find new purpose.”
It turns out that The Clone Wars actor Sam Witwer, who voices Maul in the series, has seen some stuff from the upcoming Disney+ show and he seems pretty pumped up about what he’s seen from it! During a recent Twitch stream, he said:
"I will tell you it looks really really good. It looks absolutely beautiful. The story...at least I know where the story begins for the first several episodes and I was very pleased because it's a little area of Star Wars that has not often been visited."
He went on to compare the animation quality to the final season of The Clone Wars, and added:
"It meant getting a lot of people back in there that was previously been at Lucasfilm and moved on when Clone Wars was cancelled. In order to do Clone Wars, you needed a lot of those folks back. What I liked is that they didn't just put all back that together only to let them go again.
"So what I saw was brilliant, extraordinary beautiful, beautiful, beautiful animation. I won't say what it looks like but I will say this, of the quality of Clone Wars where that bar is set, yes absolutely, totally [it meets it]."
There’s no word on if Witwer is going to have a role in the series, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he does. After all, he seems to be somewhat close to the production to have seen all of the work that’s been done for it.
The characters that make up The Bad Batch include Hunter, Crosshair, Tech, Wrecker, and Echo, and here’s some additional information on them:
The squad consisted of four clone troopers designed with genetic mutations. "Crosshair," a clone with brilliant eyesight abilities, "Wrecker," a reckless clone with enhanced muscular form, and "Tech," a clone with enhanced mental capacity and intelligence. They were led by Clone Sergeant "Hunter," a clone with enhanced sensory abilities. Each member of the squad had a skull icon on their clone trooper armor, which could be seen as their unofficial logo and helped set the four apart from other clone units. They called normal troopers by the nickname "regs." Following the Battle of Anaxes, Clone Corporal "Echo" joined the squad.
Clone Force 99 was named in remembrance of 99, a malformed maintenance clone who died while aiding the defense of Kamino from the Separatist invasion. The unit originated as a batch of clones who were born with "desirable" genetic mutations that made them superior soldiers. These mutations also had the unique effect of altering their appearance and voice greatly from regular clones. Each one of the members acquired certain abilities unique to the team. The team nicknamed themselves "The Bad Batch". While part of the army, they earned quite the reputation. They were known to have a 100% success rate. The squad worked together with Marshal Commander CC-2224 on certain occasions, but did not report to anyone in particular.
Dave Filoni is executive producing the series along with Athena Portillo (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels), Brad Rau (Star Wars Rebels, Star Wars Resistance), and Jennifer Corbett (Star Wars Resistance, NCIS) with Carrie Beck (The Mandalorian, Star Wars Rebels) as co-executive producer and Josh Rimes as producer (Star Wars Resistance). Rau is also serving as supervising director with Corbett as head writer.