Star Wars: The Bad Batch: Replacements
May 14, 2021 6:25 AM - Season 1, Episode 3 - Subscribe
Clone Force 99 deal with mechanical issues while Crosshair trains some non-clone Imperial recruits.
With the caveat that I haven't watched Clone Wars: isn't this really dark for an (ostensible) kid's show? Needs the subtitle "Baby's First War Crime." Yikes!
posted by orrnyereg at 8:59 AM on May 14, 2021
posted by orrnyereg at 8:59 AM on May 14, 2021
The Clone Wars definitely gets more mature as it goes, and ends with Ahsoka having to fight and kill clonetroopers she's spent years befriending, but I don't recall anything this explicitly war-crimey.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 10:05 AM on May 14, 2021
posted by EndsOfInvention at 10:05 AM on May 14, 2021
Seriously, that was really dark, not just by the standards of the Clone Wars cartoon but by the standards of Star Wars, period.
Made even more jarring, I think, by the fact that it's sandwiched in an otherwise very by-the-numbers, kid-friendly Clone Wars or early-seasons Rebels episode plot. Didn't really advance the Batch's storyline at all (except I guess Omega has a room now) but was a basically fine, functional filler episode. That just happened to have one of the most explicit war crimes ever depicted on screen in Star Wars in it.
posted by mstokes650 at 7:25 PM on May 14, 2021 [2 favorites]
Made even more jarring, I think, by the fact that it's sandwiched in an otherwise very by-the-numbers, kid-friendly Clone Wars or early-seasons Rebels episode plot. Didn't really advance the Batch's storyline at all (except I guess Omega has a room now) but was a basically fine, functional filler episode. That just happened to have one of the most explicit war crimes ever depicted on screen in Star Wars in it.
posted by mstokes650 at 7:25 PM on May 14, 2021 [2 favorites]
Huh. The only thing that surprised me about the moon dragon was that it did not have a nest of adorable, friendly offspring. (I appreciated that.)
On the other: killing both the civilians and the objector. I am coming to this from the movies, but my guess was that this series will eventually explain why fascists two generations later doubled down on recruits and still object to clone armies? That was an interesting place to start.
posted by mersen at 8:18 PM on May 14, 2021
On the other: killing both the civilians and the objector. I am coming to this from the movies, but my guess was that this series will eventually explain why fascists two generations later doubled down on recruits and still object to clone armies? That was an interesting place to start.
posted by mersen at 8:18 PM on May 14, 2021
I'm unclear on which direction they are going on Crosshair.
I read an interview in which they said the whole "implant" thing was a bit of a shorthand for making a wrong choice about who deserved his loyalty and who he should be fighting for, as if the main point was communicating to the audience which side he was on. A bit lazy and unnecessary but I could go with that.
But they sure seem to be leaning into the "it's not his fault" interpretation of the implant, as if he'll be moral and upstanding if they remove it. Which I could go with too--if they weren't piling up war crimes.
That just happened to have one of the most explicit war crimes ever depicted on screen in Star Wars in it.
There was the killing the Jedi children and the whole Alderaan thing.
posted by mark k at 8:19 PM on May 14, 2021 [2 favorites]
I read an interview in which they said the whole "implant" thing was a bit of a shorthand for making a wrong choice about who deserved his loyalty and who he should be fighting for, as if the main point was communicating to the audience which side he was on. A bit lazy and unnecessary but I could go with that.
But they sure seem to be leaning into the "it's not his fault" interpretation of the implant, as if he'll be moral and upstanding if they remove it. Which I could go with too--if they weren't piling up war crimes.
That just happened to have one of the most explicit war crimes ever depicted on screen in Star Wars in it.
There was the killing the Jedi children and the whole Alderaan thing.
posted by mark k at 8:19 PM on May 14, 2021 [2 favorites]
They really went there with the Stormtroopers executing unarmed civilians, huh?
I really appreciated the depth in that scene showing how war crimes happen.
Because yeah, maybe somebody does step up and say no. And he probably gets shot. And everyone else shuts up and buckles to the pressure and does what they're told, despite the fact that they know it's wrong (and, like, have weapons and could do something about it, ffs).
And no, the crime itself doesn't serve any serious purpose.
A whole lot of people out there need to see this.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 8:20 PM on May 14, 2021 [3 favorites]
I really appreciated the depth in that scene showing how war crimes happen.
Because yeah, maybe somebody does step up and say no. And he probably gets shot. And everyone else shuts up and buckles to the pressure and does what they're told, despite the fact that they know it's wrong (and, like, have weapons and could do something about it, ffs).
And no, the crime itself doesn't serve any serious purpose.
A whole lot of people out there need to see this.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 8:20 PM on May 14, 2021 [3 favorites]
I saw the first Star Wars movie when I was five and in addition to the aforementioned genocide at Alderaan there were several instances of stormtroopers killing unarmed civilians (most memorably for me in the form of the charred corpses of Owen and Beru Lars). Kids’ entertainment has been tackling the idea that bad guys commit war crimes my entire life.
I do find it hilarious, given the stormtroopers’ future well-earned reputation for not being able to hit the broad side of a bantha, that their earliest iteration was trained and commanded by such a formidable sniper.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 11:09 PM on May 14, 2021 [4 favorites]
I do find it hilarious, given the stormtroopers’ future well-earned reputation for not being able to hit the broad side of a bantha, that their earliest iteration was trained and commanded by such a formidable sniper.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 11:09 PM on May 14, 2021 [4 favorites]
Yeah, this was, ah, tonally uneven. Ha. I turned to my husband when it ended and was like "WHAT, exactly, were they trying to accomplish narratively by putting these plots together??" I mean, yikes! In one corner we have a literal child trading a beast her flashlight for a capacitor and being rewarded with some fairy lights and a stuffy when she gets home; in the other we have a brainwashed slave offing a military recruit for refusing to murder civilians. In the same thirty minutes, folks! I feel like so often when I'm watching/reading Star Wars I'm like "do they actually know how entirely fucked up the thing they just wrote was??? How is this for Children" and definitely this was one such episode. Whew. Like, at least in the new Thrawn novels the little-girl soldiers get some time to play with Space Legos when they're not doing the most high pressure job in the Chiss navy lolol
posted by potrzebie at 12:44 AM on May 15, 2021
posted by potrzebie at 12:44 AM on May 15, 2021
All these Aussie accents have me excited for Dave Filoni’s next project, “A Place to Call Home One”
posted by sixswitch at 3:15 PM on May 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by sixswitch at 3:15 PM on May 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
I haven't watched past the first episode so far, but it occurred to me today that an unremarked minor landmark passed a few days ago: as of last week, the release of The Phantom Menace is closer to the original 1977 debut of Star Wars than it is to the present day. For Gen-X types, we who passed our late teens and entire twenties in an age where Star Wars was three movies, full stop, this is a little disorienting.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:36 PM on May 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:36 PM on May 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
All these Aussie accents have me excited for Dave Filoni’s next project, “A Place to Call Home One”
**cough** they're ectually Kiwi eccents, yew ken till by the vowel shufting?
posted by coriolisdave at 9:47 PM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
**cough** they're ectually Kiwi eccents, yew ken till by the vowel shufting?
posted by coriolisdave at 9:47 PM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
I'm unclear on which direction they are going on Crosshair.
A redemption arc seems a lot less likely at this point, huh?
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:45 PM on May 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
A redemption arc seems a lot less likely at this point, huh?
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:45 PM on May 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
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posted by EndsOfInvention at 6:26 AM on May 14, 2021 [2 favorites]