For your reading pleasure, please enjoy our interview with head writer/EP Jennifer Corbett and writer/story editor Matt Michnovetz about season 2 of Star Wars: The Bad Batch from Backstory Magazine’s issue 48 – now available to read! If you enjoy what you’ve read, we hope you’ll join us to read the rest of the issue by subscribing to Backstory Magazine!
Jennifer Corbett and Matt Michnovetz on writing the animated series’ dark and brilliant second season
By Danny Munso
The Bad Batch’s phenomenal second season just hit its midpoint with an explosive two-part political thriller that has major implications both for the series’ title characters and the Star Wars galaxy at large. After a first season that saw Clone Force 99—Hunter, Wrecker, Tech, Echo (all voiced by Dee Bradley Baker) and Omega (Michelle Ang)—on the run in the aftermath of Order 66 and the creation of the Empire, season two expands the show’s scope and culminates in a group of episodes detailing the fallout of the Empire’s reign and how that eventually sends several of our main characters down divergent paths. Simply put, The Bad Batch has become essential Star Wars. “Season one was about them finding their footing after this massive shift happens in the galaxy,” executive producer and head writer Jennifer Corbett says. “Now they’re guardians for this kid and just trying to survive and get by day by day. They’re not prepared for that whatsoever. But for season two, we wanted to explore more politically and socially what’s happening out there and have not just the Batch be exposed to it but other characters as they watch how things are shifting and changing.”
One of the early-episode subplots of season two, which premiered in January, is the revelation that Clone Troopers all over the galaxy have been questioning their orders and loyalty to the Empire, with more and more deserting to live an independent life. That comes to a head in midseason episodes “The Clone Conspiracy” and “Truth and Consequences,” which finally details a little explored element in the Star Wars timeline: the Empire’s transition away from Clone Troopers and toward Stormtroopers. The episodes take us back to Coruscant and the Imperial Senate, crucial settings from George Lucas’ prequel trilogy, and culminate with the Senate passing the Defense Recruitment Bill that decommissions the Clones from Imperial service and makes plans for the recruitment of civilians willing to enlist to become Stormtroopers. Discussions about this key transition and how it could take place date back to the writing of season one. “We would often talk about what happens to the Clones and how and when the Empire decides to decommission them,” Corbett says. “Eventually we knew they would age out and the Empire would introduce these Stormtroopers. We didn’t want to do it too quickly, because the Empire is smart and they know how to use their resources. They’re not going to just be done with them, because they’re highly capable soldiers. They’re greedy. We knew they would use them as much as they can until they outlive their usefulness.”
Though the Empire is operating mostly as a dictatorship, the Senate isn’t officially dissolved until the events of Lucas’ first foray into the galaxy—1977’s Star Wars: A New Hope, but that is still a ways off in the timeline. That allowed the Bad Batch team to lean into the political side of things—where Star Wars has always done some of its best work. As viewers know, “Truth & Consequences” ends with a major political move by Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) who successfully maneuvers the Senate into getting exactly what he wants. As always, he is seeing the chess board of the galaxy in a way no one else is. “In season two, we wanted to get more into the political arena,” Corbett notes. “Even though the Empire is the controlling force, they still have to put on a show for the Senate, and they still have to get approved for things. So we just really wanted to dig into politically how the galaxy reacts to the decommissioning of the Clones and see different sides.” The treatment of the Clones postwar has allowed the series to use the troopers as a thinly veiled metaphor for the way countries treat their own soldiers once their work abroad is finished. The writing of this theme is incredibly powerful, and it’s certainly not a coincidence that Corbett herself is a military veteran, having served in the U.S. Navy before becoming a screenwriter. “The Clones are combat veterans,” she says. “The more time that was passing [on the show], we got to show more disenfranchisement of the Clones and how they’re reacting to the bill that’s being proposed and to realizing they’re on borrowed time and their sacrifice and their service isn’t being respected. It was us trying to ask, What does happen to them? Who is fighting for them? Unfortunately for them, the Empire and Palpatine are always a few steps ahead.”
The writing of season two was, like most things, impacted by the COVID pandemic. Writing retreats and meetings to break down episodes that would normally be held in person all shifted to Zoom. Still, the creative team tried to keep the process relatively similar, albeit in a virtual setting. That starts with the show’s core creative team—Corbett, story editor and writer Matt Michnovetz and executive producer Brad Rau—meeting to discuss kernels of ideas for both the next group of episodes to be written and overall plot points for the season, before they then meet with series creator and Lucasfilm’s executive creative director Dave Filoni, who can’t be part of the day-to-day operation due to his commitments on his live-action series The Mandalorian and the upcoming Ahsoka. “We tried to stick to the same format where it’s our core team and some freelancers breaking each of those episodes together in a group, and then we would pitch them to Dave at the end of the session to get more feedback,” Corbett says. “Then we’d go off and start writing that group of episodes.” Like a lot of TV writers’ rooms, The Bad Batch staff had to adapt on the fly to being virtual.
“In the room when you’re in person, you get bored and you can do drawings, and when you’re working with Filoni or Brad, they would start making drawings,” Michnovetz says. “They’d still both do that, but they would have to hold them up to their cameras so we could all use those as references. It’s fun, but it’s not like when you’re in the room.” Pre-pandemic, Corbett and Michnovetz would get together at least twice a week to check in on one each other’s script and the overall story arc of the season. To help re-create those sessions during lockdown, the duo instituted a weekly blue-sky meeting that included themselves, Rau and writer and script supervisor Amanda Rose Muñoz. “We ended up making them regularly weekly meetings, where after hours we’d just sit and jam. Anything goes, basically just to keep the creative juices moving.” So every week at around 6 p.m., that quartet met to discuss both big-picture ideas and story specifics. “It would be a check-in,” Corbett says. “Where are your scripts, and let’s talk about where we want to see them go. We tried to keep it consistent: Where are you now? What things have popped up in your head as you’re writing your episode? It also ended up being a sanity check because COVID was hard and it’s hard to be separated from people you enjoy working with.”
One of the earliest conversations the creative team had for season two dealt with the arc of Echo, which comes to a head in the midseason episodes as Echo makes the shocking decision to temporarily leave the Batch to join up with Captain Rex on an endeavor to help deserted Clones throughout the galaxy escape the clutches of the Empire. The difference in philosophy between Echo and the rest of the group—particularly Hunter, the Batch’s de facto leader—goes back to season 1 but becomes a major focus of the first half of the season as Echo grows weary of their seemingly purposeless missions. “Echo has always been the outlier of their group,” Corbett says. “We tried to layer things with him in season 1 where you can tell he’s not fully on-board with what they’re doing. He’s the one who can’t really let go of being a solider the most because it’s his identity. In season 2, he’s the voice of reason that there are bigger things going on that we can help be a part of and make change. That was the point of his journey—and to have him stand up for what he believes in and make a hard decision.” It also highlights the show’s strong writing, which allows for healthy tension between characters who love one another that never devolves into false drama. The scribes allow Echo to get his point across while also serving Hunter’s view, which is to keep Omega safe at all costs, and that usually means staying as far off the Empire’s radar as possible. “They understand his choice, and there is no right answer at this point in the Star Warstimeline because you’re going against the Empire. They’re both being strategic, just in different ways. It’s these different points of view and different ways of really fighting a war.”
Season two is much darker thematically than the series’ inaugural season, but the writers are careful to not overdo that. The season’s third episode, “The Solitary Clone,” written by Muñoz, and sixth—“Tribe,” penned by Michnovetz, explore heavier subject matter but also bookend two episodes that are sheer fun. “Star Wars for us, especially in animation, is all about that balance,” Corbett says. “When we meet early on, we talk about those major tentpole episodes and then place where they’ll go. So before we hit that midseason political thriller, we wanted more of these fun episodes. It is the dark times, so we want to have fun where we can because it does go down a path where those chances are few and far between.” In penning the season’s fourth episode, “Faster,” which has already won raves from fans, Michnovetz showcases Tech, Wrecker and Omega on a side mission that results in Tech having to participate in a race with a lot on the line. “We love taking them out of their comfort zone and throwing them in these wacky situations,” Michnovetz laughs. “So that in and of itself lends toward fun. Showing that the galaxy is this big, wonderful place where they get themselves in crazy instances that lend themselves to real conflict. It allows us to put some comedy in there.”
Corbett points out that “Faster” and episode five—“Entombed,” written by Christopher Yost, as an homage to the Indiana Jones films and The Goonies—allow the writers to put stories onscreen that are not easily realized in their live-action counterparts. “Whenever we get to do crazy action set pieces, we want to try and take advantage of that because I know there are more limitations of that with live-action,” she says. “The animation team is just phenomenal, and they take everything we give them and just push it further. Those episodes are incredible and felt like classic Star Wars.” While these types of episodes can sometimes dismissively be referred to as “stand-alones,” that moniker is a false one, as they contain kernels that will see fruition later on in the season. And on a show like The Bad Batch, which only works because of viewers’ love for the core characters, they give new insight into our heroes. “Those episodes are all character driven, and that’s equally important to the plot,” Michnovetz says. “They’re all equally important. Plot isn’t anything without character.”
That brings us to Crosshair. The Batch’s former member was a key figure in season one as he linked up with the Empire in the series’ premiere and was the season’s main antagonist, helping to hunt down his former friends. And yet through the first half of season two, he only appears in one episode. That is very much by design. “We wanted to be selective about his story so it wasn’t just about him going after the Batch again and losing them or capturing them,” Michnovetz says. “We wanted to be very careful and watch his story with bated breath with what direction he’s going to take and what choices he’s going to make.” In that episode, “The Solitary Clone,” Crosshair joins former Clone Commander Cody on a mission to rescue an Imperial governor being held hostage. After Cody negotiates a peaceful resolution, Crosshair guns down the captor in cold blood on the governor’s orders. Cody later wonders to Crosshair if the Empire is doing any real good in the galaxy, and he finds out in the episode’s conclusion that Cody has become one of the latest Clones to desert. Though it’s odd to see such a central character sidelined for much of the season, there is a method to the creative team’s madness. Indeed, Crosshair comes face-to-face with his former squad once again. “We do pick up with him later on in the season, and he’s around more,” Corbett says of the writers’ intention. “But [‘The Solitary Clone’] is such a powerful episode, and we really wanted that to sit with him and with the audience. We want the audience to wonder where he is. We have been sitting with and processing what happened in that episode—and so has he.”
If you’d like to subscribe – feel free to use coupon code: SAVE5 to take $5 off your subscription and get instant access!
All you need to do is click here to subscribe!
There’s plenty more to explore in Backstory Magazine issue 48 you can see our table of contents right here.
Thanks as always for spreading the word and your support!