Spoilers Bad Batch Season 2 - This Fall

Discussion in 'Star Wars' started by Tuskin38, May 29, 2022.

  1. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 23, 2001
    Location:
    The Wormhole
    Enjoyable episode, if a bit on the simplistic side. Probably a necessary evil given the short length of the episode and ultimately, this show is targeted at children. Still, interesting and entertaining all the same.
     
  2. Finn

    Finn Bad Batch of TrekBBS Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 30, 2006
    Wondering if they missed some kind of code, something from the legend passed down through the ages, perhaps lost long before Phee learned of it (or she didn't really do her homework that well). It's possible they were supposed to do something when removing that thing.

    And surely they could find something to salvage now that it fell apart, etc. That power is powered by something...a Kyber Crystal? It reminded me of Death Star, though it's already designed and under construction.
     
  3. cooleddie74

    cooleddie74 Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2001
    Location:
    The Warped Sector of the Demented Quadrant
    The machine reminded me of the Walkers from War of the Worlds.
     
    Turtletrekker likes this.
  4. Saul

    Saul Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 27, 2002
    Location:
    東京
    Not a bad episode but very filler. I had similar issues with last week's episode and often with Clone War episodes with self contained stories that didn't really go anywhere or add to the larger picture. I'm thinking of Star Trek Prodigy. Prodigy is a group of young adults guided by an adult while the Bad Batch is a group of adults often pushed into adventures by a young adult. While Prodigy does have episodes that seem to be stand alone they usually progress the overall story forward. This weeks episode of Bad Batch and last weeks episode add nothing to the overall story nor does it add anything to develop the characters. There's no growth here.
     
  5. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    Rather pointless filler episode, exacerbated by the bizarre choice of whoever thought Wanda Sykes, one of the ugliest-voiced human beings I've ever heard in my life, should be cast in a voice acting role. Her voice here isn't quite as nails-on-a-blackboard for me as it was in her standup comedy prime, but it was definitely grating on me toward the end.

    The script also had a bizarre thing where characters kept repeating something that somebody just said. "Coordinate markings?" "Whoa, it is a secret entrance!" And so on, at least four times throughout the episode. Purposeless and annoying.


    More like a robotic brontosaurus with the Yamato's wave motion gun in its head. For a moment when the "temple" started to activate, I was thinking maybe the story would have a point after all, that this would be some dangerous super-ship from an ancient culture and would set up an ongoing plot arc about it. But no such luck. All it did was raise questions about the distant past of the Star Wars galaxy and how any of this fits in with the history of the Old Republic or whatever.
     
    Phoenix219 likes this.
  6. YellowSubmarine

    YellowSubmarine Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 17, 2010
    This was best episode of the season so far.
     
    The Nth Doctor likes this.
  7. Reverend

    Reverend Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 31, 2002
    Location:
    UK
    Fun little romp, though unlike last week's episode I'm struggling to see how this added anything to any of the characters. Maybe a sign that Omega is already growing up and away a little from her hero worship of Hunter. Last season she was constantly emulating and outright mimicking him, now she's doing the same thing with Phee.

    Plotting felt a little contrived given that they could have straight up skipped all the traps and barriers if they just followed the burrowed tunnels. Indeed half the team did just that, making have them spit up seem rather pointless.

    I did like however that between how old it is, and how much of an unreliable narrator Phee Genoa is; the myths and legends about this thing could be just 100% BS. Like Phee could have just straight up been making it all up just so she sounded like she knew what she was doing, when in reality she's just an opportunist who knows really old compasses lead to really old things that sell for a lot on the collector's market, and spun a story to get everyone to come along. I may be reading too much into it though, given how little substance this one seemed to have otherwise. Plus it would be extremely contrived if Omega just randomly stumbled onto the key to some legendary treasure, and not just a random fragment of ancient technology.
     
  8. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    Incidentally, it's bizarre that Disney+ doesn't give you the option to skip that 15-second Star Wars title sequence with the helmets, but does give you a "Skip Intro" button for the 5-second opening sequence of The Bad Batch. That seems rather backward.

    I don't get why both Star Wars and Star Trek streaming shows now have those opening animations declaring that they're Star Wars and Star Trek. We already know what we're watching! It's not like the old days when you could flip through the dial and come across a show by chance. The only reason we hit play in the first place is that we already know we want to watch an episode of Star Wars/Trek. So what the hell is the point of advertising it to us when we've already bought in?
     
  9. Tuskin38

    Tuskin38 Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2011
    That is rather rude.

    I thought she sounded fine.
     
  10. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 11, 2014
    Location:
    Journeying onwards
    Uniformity.

    As for the Skip Intro button, I have it for both. And I use it... a lot.
     
  11. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    If it were said to her directly, perhaps. But I doubt she reads this forum.

    I'll admit I did overstate the point, in that I can see the appeal of hiring actors with distinctively grating voices to do voice roles -- I happen to love Wallace Shawn's so-ugly-it's-beautiful voice, for instance. Gilbert Gottfried certainly got a lot of mileage out of the gravelly shout he affected. But I personally just can't stand Sykes's voice.
     
  12. Reverend

    Reverend Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 31, 2002
    Location:
    UK
    Yeah that escalated quickly. Of all the things to pedantically focus in on, I didn't see Wanda Sykes' vocal performance being one of them.
     
  13. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 22, 2004
    Location:
    Arizona, USA
    As a big fan of Wanda Sykes, I did like getting to spend so much time with Phee. I think that might have been what this episode contributed to the big picture, letting get to know Phee a little better. From what I've read, it sounds like she's a pretty big part of the season.
    The stuff with the machine was pretty fun. When it activated and came out of the ground my first thought was of the Tallnecks from the Horizon games.
    Oops, I always get them confused.
    Yeah, that seems odd to me too. I accidently it when the title came up a couple weeks ago, and I swear it took long to load after it skipped than it would have to just let the title go.
    I like those opening animations, it's a nice way to give us something to connect them all together.
     
  14. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    I just find it an annoying delay when I want to watch the actual show. Like elaborate DVD menu animations -- I never liked those either.
     
  15. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 23, 2001
    Location:
    The Wormhole
    A thought I had, could this be the Star Wars version of The Expanse? As in, whoever built that techno-giraffe-walker-thing is like the aliens behind the protomolecule. Obviously not a 1:1 comparison, but some similarities all the same.
    The animated Marvel logo at the start of MCU movies and shows is so popular these days that other franchises want to do their own similarly animated logos. Just the latest trend in branding.
     
    nightwind1 likes this.
  16. valkyrie013

    valkyrie013 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Jun 15, 2009
    Wish they flat out said Rakata.. Owell. .maybe leading to some ancient weapon. Force powered artifact. Etc. Hope that is where Dave is leading us..
     
    Set Harth and Captain Fine like this.
  17. CorporalCaptain

    CorporalCaptain Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 12, 2011
    Location:
    astral plane
    As homages to Raiders of the Lost Ark go, I found this episode pretty interesting. I like the twist that the treasure was essentially guarded by an overwhelmingly powerful automaton. Omega doing the anticipation gestures modeled after what Satipo did at the start of Raiders when Indy was measuring the sand was a highlight.

    Wanda Sykes was entertaining, as usual.
     
    nightwind1 likes this.
  18. Tuskin38

    Tuskin38 Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2011
    I was thinking it was Zeffo personally.
     
  19. Reverend

    Reverend Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 31, 2002
    Location:
    UK
    For what it's worth I felt like the main inspiration for whatever that thing was was very much more Miyazaki than anything else. The long dormant and ancient wardroid on a dead world with the promise of treasure has shades of both Nausicaä and Laputa in equal measure, while the scale and shape of the thing felt rather like the giant forest spirit on Mononoke. Though the "heart of the mountain" is straight up just a fancier version of the elemental stones from 'The Fifth Element'.

    Personally I like that they didn't define it. It leaves open the possibility that Phee just invented that whole story. It's a big, ancient galaxy and there's plenty of room all kinds of extinct civilizations, crumbling ruins and advanced technology. Not everything need be a reference. Indeed I assumed that every treasure story Phee was coming out with was a reference to some obscure bit of lore or another; maybe from the old 80's Lando & Han book trilogies, maybe from the WEG sourcebooks, which is usually where they (and by "they" I mean "mostly Pablo") pull the deep cuts from, but no. I checked and it all seems to be brand new lore (or brand new BS, depending on how reliable Phee's info is . . . or indeed, Phee in general.)
    It does actually look more their style, though the proof would be in a closer look at those etchings and see if they match the glyphs used in Fallen Order, or are just the usual McQuarrie Script.
    Also for what it's worth the art design also had some aesthetic similarities to the inside of the ancient Jedi temple on Lothal (and also the logo for the Ahsoka show) so there may be some connection there too.
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2023
  20. Set Harth

    Set Harth Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 10, 2010
    Location:
    Annwn
    I actually thought Wanda Sykes Jedi mind tricked Omega at one point.
    At least Andor said it.
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2023