Star Wars: The Bad Batch Episode 3
In Star Wars, as in most other media, the main character may not be the most creative figure but does need to be the one who grows and changes. Luke Skywalker went from farm boy to full-fledged Jedi Knight between A New Hope and Return of the Jedi; Anakin Skywalker became literally unrecognizable over the course of two trilogies. For now, the characters of The Bad Batch remind me of Luke at the end of A New Hope: their triumphs and foes are compelling, but they haven’t really gestured toward a path to dramatic change yet. A grim episode that introduces a handful of new characters, “Replacements” follows beats right on the line between classic and tired. The creature and new villains are fun, but I’m still not sure the Batch themselves are the right hook for this story. “Replacements” finds the crew crash landing on a desolate moon. They install the new part they need to fly out, but a four-legged, frilled monster called an Ordo Moon Dragon steals it. Meanwhile, Tarkin slots easily into his Imperial role as he names Crosshair the leader of a new batch of human elite recruits. They’re sent to Onderon, the planet where the Bad Batch rebelled instead of executing human insurgents. This time, the Empire finishes the job. Stream your Star Wars favorites right here! Another thing I very much enjoyed about this episode was the classic Star Wars creature encounter. The Ordo Moon Dragon is the perfect mix of graceful, cute, and just a bit too ugly to not be scary. I love a good Prequel creature, and more so when the encounter with it reveals more about how it lives instead of just being cannon fodder. Along with some other genuinely frightening moments I’ll talk about later, the claustrophobic tunnels and the threat of Hunter almost suffocating are both effective. It’s also clever that they don’t come from the creature; instead, the world itself is the threat, and the dragon is just a natural part of it. The animation continues to shine, although sometimes the backgrounds and textures look jarringly more realistic than the stylized faces. It’s odd how similar “Replacements” is to a season two episode of The Mandalorian. In “The Passenger,” Din, Grogu, and their passenger Frog Lady crash on a planet punctuated with tunnels just like the desolate moon. They try to repair the ship and get attacked by a creature. Sure, it isn’t good criticism to say “these two things are similar” and end there; the two episodes have plenty of differences, too. But it’s so early in the season, and too soon after Mando season 2, for such a similar plotline. The similarity also galls because such an adventure-heavy plot doesn’t allow much time for the character development of even Hunter, the Batch’s leader. He’s still mostly just the guy with near-supernatural tracking powers, although he does get a nice moment where he tells Omega that she reminds him of himself. It’s cute, but not deep. Perhaps, right now, there are simply too many members in this Batch. Echo is the newest member outside of Omega, but you wouldn’t know it by how little he gets to do and how seamlessly he fits into the group. By the end of the episode, Omega has a new room, but that isn’t character development, either. Instead, the major changes come from the new human troopers. Their green-eyed armor kits are reminiscent of the death troopers that will come later, so we can surmise this project somehow ends with finding a balance between regular humans and clones: surgically enhanced humans. Their willingness to kill civilians is scary, but even more so is Crosshair’s. Some surprisingly brutal moments reminded me of The Clone Wars at its darkest — which I generally consider a good thing, although I’m not sure how some of the point-blank murders in this episode will play with kids who are already well-versed in Star Wars‘ bloodless violence.
