Bad Batch 1x05 "Rampage" - Reaction & Review
Added 2023-02-13 12:33:14 +0000 UTCHey everyone! Here it is - my reaction to season 1 episode 5 of The Bad Batch!!! Well it seems like our crew is starting to get the hang of this whole being on the run thing - taking shady jobs, etc.! Cid seems like quite a character and I KNEW there had to be more to this than a simple "rescue the hostage" situation. I really, really like Muchi the Rancor!!!! Kudos to Omega for accidentally doing their whole mission by letting her out too lol. Wrecker having to show that he was the alpha rancor was everything LOL. So are we to assume that's THE rancor that we see in ROTJ?? Or no?! Really fun ep! Enjoy! ~ MH
Comments
OHHHH I have heard of that, I saw the movie it was based on I believe, which was amazing! I'll have to check it out, thanks!
Melissa Moore
2023-02-20 15:11:49 +0000 UTCYeah it's about vampires having to adapt to modern life. There was a film made to start it all off written and starring Taika Watiti who has been involved in Star Wars, notably Mando and is supposed to be directing an upcoming Star Wars film. Anyway have a look if you have time, it is a hoot.
Saltire
2023-02-19 17:21:47 +0000 UTCNice!!! Sounds like it's time for a rewatch! I actually haven't seen that, thanks for the heads up! I'm always looking for fun comedies too!
Melissa Moore
2023-02-18 14:23:37 +0000 UTCYeah I used to watch Seinfeld once every couple of years (like the Lord Of The Rings trilogy!), but haven't seen it in ages now! Really must get back on that, especially as there isn't a lot of comedy out there for me just now (though What We Do In The Shadows is great fun if you have seen that).
Saltire
2023-02-17 22:29:48 +0000 UTCLOL she is!!!! I loved Cheers and Fraser and omg, Seinfeld!!! What a golden age of Sitcoms haha. There are still real-life situations that I bust out laughing over because of Seinfeld!!!!! XD
Melissa Moore
2023-02-17 13:39:11 +0000 UTCThat's a good point, it's kind of anyone's guess at this point! Also LOL I am not the one to ask to hold you back, considering how I get going on the subject!!! ^_^
Melissa Moore
2023-02-17 13:30:17 +0000 UTCYou won’t find me reining you in, Saltire 😁
Nick
2023-02-15 18:58:39 +0000 UTCWell Tech mentions enhanced clones have a heightened awareness. Perhaps the rest of the squad got distracted talking to one another and Omega who was on her own, just figured it out. Your guesses are as good as mine there however. Yes I must rein myself in not to start up talking once more about Rebels, hold me back everyone!!! :P
Saltire
2023-02-15 17:36:14 +0000 UTCYeah Cid is from the New York side of Trandosha! Used to watch a lot of Cheers back in the day before moving onto Frasier. Good times, though my fave US sitcom will always be Seinfeld. :)
Saltire
2023-02-15 17:32:07 +0000 UTCOh yeah, that sounds about right! Omega is really sharp! And OMG I found out it was Carla after, can't believe I couldn't place the voice, I love her!! Yeah there's no such thing as "too easy" in Star Wars lol. I'm not sure about the intentional good environment for slavery....could have just been a side effect, but then again maybe it's all part of Palpatine's plan or furthers it somehow. Good point though that lots of unintended consequences occurred from the Empire's rule. Aww that makes sense about Muchi...I really hope not though! Apparently there's some debate since the Rancor in Jedi was said to be a male. But yeah, I know how Dave Filoni likes to capitalize on every detail, so who knows!
Melissa Moore
2023-02-14 14:38:12 +0000 UTCI was wondering about that too, was it just deduction or something else? I'm not sure about Cid, I have a feeling our interests align for now and that's probably the extent of it. Yeah the Zygerians will sadly thrive in an era like this, most likely. Yeah I get it that Rancors aren't for everyone! The fight with Wrecker was pretty spot on though lol. His head!!! The music is amazing! Saltire - couldn't agree more about the music! And Nick and Saltire - that's such an excellent point about the ability to really flex those creative storytelling muscles with shows like this and Andor! LOL we have all sung the praises of Rebels until we were hoarse, and it was so well worth it!!! XD
Melissa Moore
2023-02-14 14:35:43 +0000 UTCOMG!!!! I found out after it was Carla from Cheers and just about died!!!! I knew her voice sounded familiar! And now she's got her own bar hahaha!! Thanks for clearing it up that she's a new character. Oh no, I didn't notice the Wookie pelt, or put it together about hunting Wookies!!! :( OHHHH I thought they might have been the slavers from that arc! I know, it's really messed up that Anakin was so adamant having been a slave himself, yet now he oversees the slavery of so many others. It's total irony/hypocrisy for sure, but I suppose it wouldn't be the first time someone has inflicted hurt on others because they were so hurt in the past. :( I really hope Muchi isn't the one who was killed! Rancors are so smart from what we've seen! LOL Wrecker fighting a Rancor, that fits somehow! Omega's bow is pretty sweet!!
Melissa Moore
2023-02-14 14:27:55 +0000 UTCYes!! Oh wow, I'd never even thought of that with the Zygerians! No kidding about this planet being the one Han mentioned!! And it being in Son of Dathomir! And it being from the games, cool fact Saltire! Definitely feels like we could have a home base here if we needed to. Oh yeah I found out after it's Carla from Cheers, can't believe I didn't recognize her!!! Oh wow, who knows what the canon is! I guess we can add Muchi to the list of mysteries along with Shaak-Ti for sure! I kinda hope it isn't Muchi though!!
Melissa Moore
2023-02-14 14:24:29 +0000 UTCOh cool I love her
Manny
2023-02-14 09:51:31 +0000 UTCSo you just KNOW after they spend all that time “training” Omega with the comm the show is going to put everyone in a situation where their planning and preparation with its all rendered useless. Omega herself is pretty sharp, she seems to be very good at reading people. She predicted what Crosshair would do before he did it, and she picked up on Cid. (In case you’re wondering, her VA is Rhea Perlman, who played Carla on Cheers.) You kinda did see the whole thing coming with the “this sounds too easy” job. Because it’s Star Wars, nothing ever comes easy for any protagonist. It seems the rise of the Empire is good for the slave market. What I’m curious about is if that was an intentional thing or just a side effect of what was going on in the galaxy at this time. The Empire had a lot of consequences that weren’t intentional as well as their ulterior motives. As for Muchi, I’m pretty sure she’s the same Rancor Luke ends up killing. Here’s why: she’s an adolescent now, and Return of the Jedi is about 20 years away - so that’s plenty of time for her to become full size and she’s already in Jaba’s ownership. Also, there’s too much of a thru line Dave Filoni likes to thread when he adds layers to the universe, so I don’t believe he’d make this story a coincidence. That’s just not how he likes to operate.
Tyler Stobbe
2023-02-14 03:57:08 +0000 UTCAll the outro music in the animations from Kevin Kiner has been superb. Clone Wars and Rebels had their regular outro's, but sometimes changed it up; here its mainly the Bad Batch theme, but its a belter alright. The one the other night in season 2 episode 7 was really different though, and the same with episode 15 here in the first season, though it was a necessary choice with how that episode ends as blasting out the Bad Batch theme would take you out of the moment. So I do appreciate all the musical choices pretty much in all Star Wars; they rarely miss a beat and in the live stuff too it has also been brilliant; Andor's music especially, recently; though Obi-Wan had some tinges of John Williams that brought all sorts of wonderful nostalgia with it. Agree completely with your final paragraph Nick. This show (and Andor too showing the more dodgier stuff of the early rebellion) is able to tell the story of the events of the nascent Imperial regime, whilst showing how our crew will have to adapt or fall. Rebels did this so well too, but we've all spoke loads about that mighty show; but this here is a similar formula and it works.
Saltire
2023-02-14 01:08:58 +0000 UTCYeah Nick, I know he has essentially become schizophrenic and now acts as Vader, who is a very different beast to Anakin; and I am being harsh on him I suppose, as I don't like Anakin that much; but its just an irony of what he chose to become that all his ideals then got abandoned. He wanted to protect his inner circle to the maximum as Anakin, and now as Vader he wants all of them dead.
Saltire
2023-02-14 00:54:45 +0000 UTCHow did Omega know that Cid was Cid? Was that meant to be a sneaky hint from the show producers to the audience about her enhancement? I am already inclined to think her enhancement is a mental rather than physical one. How trustworthy is Cid? With the rise of the Sith, and the demise of the Jedi, slavery is definitely back on the scene in the galaxy. And both the empire and the Zygerrians will no doubt find this a mutually beneficial arrangement. Wrecker was definitely in his element fighting the rancour, although his head took a bit of a bashing. Although, on a personal level, I have to say that things like rancours don’t really appeal to me in plots, but each to their own, and of course plenty of others do like these kinds of elements added to storylines. I’ve not mentioned this so far, but I love the end music every episode- it’s really catchy and memorable, and love the animation quality. Perhaps one of the best bits of Bad Batch is that there is loads of room for creativeness in storytelling and constructing the post Republic galaxy: there are few constraints on storytelling at this stage as A New Hope is 19-ish years away, and this historical stage in the Star Wars universe hasn’t really been explored much in canon. Without giving details away, this is currently being really, really nicely explored in season 2.
Nick
2023-02-13 22:41:01 +0000 UTCHi Saltire - I agree with you about Anakin’s/ Vader’s blatant hypocrisy in this area.
Nick
2023-02-13 22:39:02 +0000 UTCYeah I think Ord Mantel was also a planet from one of the Kyle Katarn Jedi Outcast/Dark Forces games as well if I can remember that far back. Interesting now we have Muchi we don't know if it was her or not, as I'd always assumed to the rancor was male in the film. Its one of those mysteries like how Shaak-Ti was killed we may never find out about!
Saltire
2023-02-13 18:57:54 +0000 UTCCid is a new character (I think she's great, the surly old bag!) for the show. This is a link you may know about, or not. She's played by Rhea Perlman, who was Danny Devito's wife for years, and is most famous for being the sarcastic waitress in Cheers. Hence you could say this is a continuation of that story as she now has her own bar! :D One rather horrible thing though is she is a Trandoshan, who as we've seen, have a thing for hunting Wookies. And you may note she has a wookie pelt on the back of her office chair!! It is rather horrible seeing Omega find out about slavery, as she is such a pure spirit and is like when children begin to see that the world isn't as wondrous as they thought when they were young. Its like a little loss of innocence in a way, and you just want to protect them as long as you can. They have to grow up sometime though... You may remember the Zygerrians from the slave arc in Clone Wars. I detest them, but thats what the creators wanted from them, they are evil and ruthless in their bid to rebuild their slave Empire which the Jedi dismantled. Here now though, the Empire is more than happy for them to 'ply their trade'. One of the hypocrisies of Anakin; he was so willing to take them out there and abolish slavery across the galaxy, but now he is a Sith, he is fine with having millions enslaved. We see that in Andor too with the prison arc, where the prisoners are effectively slave labour for the Empire in helping build the Death Star. You mention that Muchi is pretty smart. In lore Rancors are supposed to be intelligent and sensitive animals, but too often are thrown into gladiatorial pits to battle for the entertainment of others. The rancor in Return Of The Jedi had another name (off the top of my head I can't remember it) and I think was a male, so perhaps Moochi wasn't the one killed by Luke; but maybe Moochi bred with the male instead and is fine. I don't think its the rancor either in Book Of Boba Fett, though it could be. Omega's bow is rather fantastic! Only Wrecker could have fun fighting a rancor!
Saltire
2023-02-13 18:57:39 +0000 UTCAnother fun episode! It was cool to see what the Zygerians were up to after the Zygerian Arc in Clone Wars. Looks like they intend to work with the Empire and one day return to Kadavo. And considering by A New Hope several Wookies were sold into slavery, and a large amount of them worked on construction on the Death Star, I wonder if the Zygerians are at least partially responsible for that. The Planet where we meet Cid, Ord Mantel, was first mentioned in Empire Strikes Back when Han mentioned that he had a close encounter with a Bounty Hunter there and wanted to leave the Rebellion to pay his debt to Jabba ASAP, was first shown, albeit in Comic form, in the Son Of Dathomir Arc, and makes it's animation debut here in this episode. And it's kinda cool. I can see this planet being a cool Hub World if the Batch wanted to continue to work for Cid. And don't worry Cid is a brand new character lol. I looked up her voice actor and it looks like she's been in a few movies here and there. The canon of who this Rancor is is kinda confusing. In the Canon books the Rancor that Luke killed in Return of The Jedi was a Male Rancor named Pateesa. Although in the data entry for Lego Star Wars The Skywalker Saga it says that Muchi was the Rancor who died. So I guess it's up in the air right now lol
Brandon Dodge
2023-02-13 13:58:07 +0000 UTC
