Lucasfilm has released a new trailer for Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 2, featuring Emperor Palpatine, Commander Cody, and Gungi
Lucasfilm is seriously beefing up its Star Wars animated offerings this year. The studio announced two new animated series — Young Jedi Adventures and Tales of the Jedi — but also confirmed that The Bad Batch is returning for a second season later this year.
At Star Wars Celebration we even got our first look at the epic adventures that Clone Force 99 in Season 2. Watch the trailer below:
While the short trailer doesn't give us much away — Omega has a helmet now, Hunter is wearing a really cool scarf! — we did notice a few things that have us really excited about the return of this Clone Wars. Here are the main things to look out for in this trailer:
Emperor Palpatine
The Emperor's shadow loomed large during the show's first season, as the Bad Batch contemplated the aftermath of Order 66, which saw most of the clone army betray their Jedi generals. Rather than compromise with their mind-controlled comrades (the secret bio-chips inside the clones' heads are how Palpatine so easily swayed the Grand Army of the Republic to turn against the Jedi), Clone Force 99 decided to escape their home on Kamino and abandon the Empire.
But Order 66 was only the beginning of dark times for this batch of "enhanced" clones. Forced to live as fugitives and taking on mercenary work to make ends meet, the Bad Batch watched as the Emperor carried out the next phase of his plan: replacing the aging clone troopers with a more docile and reliable volunteer army of Imperial stormtroopers. By the end of the season, the Empire had nearly destroyed the cloning facility on Kamino, marking the beginning of the end of the clone era.
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"It's time for a new era," Emperor Palpatine says in the new trailer. Omega watches from the safety of the ground as the Emperor rises into a repulsorpod. Are we back in the Senate chamber on Coruscant? And if so, what is Omega doing there? Behind the Emperor there appears to be a screen showing the final destruction of the city of Tipoca, the capital of Kamino, which sank to the depths of the planet's raging ocean after an Imperial bombardment.
It remains to be seen how much of a presence the Emperor will have in the second season of Star Wars: The Bad Batch, or if the appearance is simply similar to the one in the first episode of the series.
Clone Commandos
The first season marked the return of the Clone Commandos, an elite unit of soldiers best known from the video game Star Wars: Republic Commando. Renowned as the deadliest clone troopers, rivaled only by the Clone Force 99, the Clone Commandos now serve the Empire. We see them again in the Season 2 trailer, as they've been deployed for an undoubtedly nefarious purpose. Is this actually related to Mount Tantiss, the secret Imperial cloning facility that was reintroduced into canon at the end of Season 1? That's where we last saw the Clone Commandos (as well as head cloning scientist Nala Se).
Captain Rex
Captain Rex played a central role in the first season of The Bad Batch. He's the former Republic officer who revealed the truth about the bio-chip inside the brain of every clone trooper in Clone Force 99 and showed them a way to remove it. But his mission to destroy the Empire isn't over. "Let's get to work," Captain Rex says in the season 2 trailer.
Crosshair
Because the members of Clone Force 99 were mutants of the standard clone trooper that made up the Republic army, most of them did not fall under the sway of Order 66. Except for elite sniper Crosshair, who turned against his former teammates to become another tool of war for the Empire. He was the main antagonist of the series in season 1, hunting his former brothers across the galaxy.
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Crosshair in to the Empire during the destruction of Kamino. They declined, but he still helped them escape a liquid grave. Clearly, he still cares about his brothers, even if they're now on opposite sides of a very different war. Needless to say, it'll be interesting to see this story continue to develop in season 2. In the trailer, we see him back in action, targeting someone who's probably going to die soon.
Commander Cody
You may remember Commander Cody best as the officer who fought alongside Obi-Wan Kenobi on Utapau in Revenge of the Sith and later betrayed him during Order 66, but he played an even bigger role as a recurring character in The Clone Wars. While we don't know what happened to Cody after the Prequel Trilogy, we do know that he fell under the control of the bio-chip like the rest of the clone army. So if the Bad Batch encounter him in Season 2, it's very possible that they'll be enemies on the battlefield. That said, it could also pave the way for Clone Force 99 to remove Cody's chip and convince him to defect from the Empire. Well, the trailer seems to hint at so many ideas: "We're going to get every ally we can," Hunter says, as soon as Cody appears on screen...
Gungi
Last but certainly not least is the return of Gungi, a Jedi apprentice first introduced in The Clone Wars. It seems the Wookiee survived Order 66, but how does he fit into the adventures of Batch himself? We'll just have to wait and see.
Season 2 of Star Wars: The Bad Batch will be released on Disney+ this fall.
Source: denofgeek.com
