Our great holiday May the 4th draws ever nearer, and with it comes the debut of Star Wars: The Bad Batch. The next project from Lucasfilm Animation is set to premiere on Star Wars Day with a 70-minute special , followed by weekly releases every Friday thereafter.
Fans were formally introduced to the Bad Batch squad in The Clone Wars Season 7's arc of the same name, which found the experimental clone unit teaming up with Captain Rex and Anakin Skywalker to rescue the lost trooper Echo - now a full-time member of the team.
The Bad Batch is said to begin immediately following the events of Season 7 and Revenge of the Sith , with the premiere potentially giving one final look at the Clone Wars era before the dark times... before the Empire. Up until now, the duration of The Bad Batch's first season has remained undisclosed, but a recent interview with the series' composer can leave fans assured that, at the very least, there will be more episodes than that of The Clone Wars' final run...
THE BAD BATCH WILL HAVE AT LEAST 14 EPISODES
During an interview with Full Of Sith , composer Kevin Kiner revealed that he's currently hard at work on some music for The Bad Batch's 14th episode:
"I'm working on episode 14 now... I hope I can say that, I think I can. I just did a big action cue... it's in a jungle scene... I'm having a great time with it."
HOW MANY EPISODES WILL THE FIRST SEASON BE?
With 14 episodes being the minimum, The Bad Batch's episode count has already exceeded that of The Clone Wars' final season. Because Season 7 of Clone Wars was more of a special event to tie things up for the series, it's likely that Bad Batch will be returning to the regular season form in the 20-22 episode range, or anything in that ballpark.
If this is the case, Star Wars fans are in for an entire summer of animated action, bringing everyone back to the old days when The Clone Wars and Rebels were making their runs on network TV.
After doing a bit of simple math, this would plant Bad Batch's season finale somewhere in September, which could then pass the baton off to Star Wars: Visions for the 10 anime short films and The Book of Boba Fett in December capping off 2021. Should this be the case, there will be an episode of new Star Wars content on Disney+ every week for the rest of the year.
How long each episode will be remains to be seen, but Lucasfilm Animation is no longer held back by the constraints of network television's time slots. With a 70-minute premiere already announced, future episodes could conceivably exceed the standard 25-minute total.
The fact that Kiner is still hard at work on series' inaugural run is telling for how far this season could go. His wording made it sound as if episode 14 was by no means the end of his task, so there could very well be a ways to go until the work is wrapped on Season 1.
Kiner has done incredible work in his previous two animated Star Wars efforts, and the composer will undoubtedly turn in more exceptional music to add to the ever-expanding glossary of themes when The Bad Batch launches in just a few short weeks.
STAR WARS Writer
