The second season of Star Wars: The Bad Batch is just hours away and the show’s producers, Jennifer Corbett and Brad Rau, have shared how they coordinate with the other stories set in the Star Wars galaxy, including the most recent Disney+ shows.
“Where we are in the bad batch, it’s a bit early into the era of the Empire that we’re far enough away from Obi-Wan and Andor,” Corbett says. “But that’s not to say that some of the storylines that we have don’t affect those shows. We really rely on, you know, the Lucasfilm Story Group, who is with us whenever we have story conferences, and they comment on storylines if some are veering into territory that could affect other things that are either in development or are currently being made, we’re made aware of that. But so far, we haven’t been told, ‘No, you can’t do that because of this.’ It’s really more of a collaboration and just making sure that we’re telling the best stories without affecting other things coming up.”
As Corbett says, The Bad Batch takes place earlier in the era than the other Star Wars shows, beginning with Order 66, the fall of the Jedi, and the rise of the Empire. That allows the show to depict the transition from the Republic era to the Imperial era like never before. In its first season, the series built tension around the Empire’s plans to replace the clone troopers with stormtroopers and offered a definitive statement on the moment the prequel era ends. The new season depicts how the Imperial Senate functions, an institution mentioned in the first Star Wars movie after the Emperor dissolved the body but not seen until Andor in 2022.
“The Senate, it’s awesome as fans to see what’s going on in there,” Rau says. “And speaking of the story group, we talked with them, also, all the way through. In the Senate, we were discussing how we see the Senate pods in Andor, and that had an effect — although it’s not a one-for-one, it’s different — but it did have an effect on how we redesigned those pods slightly. We just try to be consistent and true through all of it. But in the trailer, when you see Palpatine in the Senate, it’s like, give me a break.
Corbett adds, “I think we were excited to just do something that was very political, sort of a noir type vibe because it felt it felt very much like Clone Wars, and even prequel era. We had a lot of fun doing those.”
Read more here, and tune-in to Disney+ for the first two episodes of the second season of Star Wars: The Bad Batch streaming tomorrow.
