Full Series The Bad Batch 2.05 - Entombed - Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

I really hate the term filler.

 

Haha people get so upset over "filler" episodes. I distinctly remember the anger and annoyance this place had with TCW was coming out for the first time. We've been spoiled with so many stories that we all demand to have it all organized and connected to everything. Real life, even in fictional real life, is not like that at all.

This wasn't my favorite episode, but they made it for a reason. Give it some time folks.

 

I think streaming has changed expectations. When I was growing up, I never expected the animated shows I watched to have a narrative throughline - and even if they did, I probably wouldn't have seen it in order due to the nature of syndication and re-runs. Most animated shows were all "filler"! But now, with everything at our fingertips, there is more of an expectation for serialized storytelling.

And, of course, there being a lot more onscreen Star Wars has an effect as well. I may have been more patient with the TCW episodes that went off in some random direction back in the day because it was the only onscreen Star Wars we had. But with so much coming out, I don't see the need to have a 16 episode season if the creators don't need 16 episodes to tell the main story.

I'll probably stop here because I don't want to come off as too negative. I am enjoying this show. I just think it could be better with a tighter narrative. Or at least a tighter feeling narrative. These episodes may well introduce things that will come into play later, but when something feels like filler even when it isn't, it's still a problem imo. If a reader doesn't feel a chapter is relevant to the rest of the book, they will put it down and might not pick it up again. It's similar with episodes of a TV show, especially in the age of streaming.

Actually, there's one more thing I want to say... I often feel tension online between those who are critical and those who think the others are being overly critical and I want to explain where I'm coming from when I am critical. I enjoy discussing stories. When I talk about problems I see in a story, I am genuinely enjoying myself. I'm not angrily typing in a huff. There are times when a story upsets me, like the ST, but for the most part, talking about and analyzing stories is all part of the fun. It's just how I'm wired. Anyway, just wanted to throw that out there.

 

At least last weeks introduced more charactors into the show.

Phee comes off as a poor man's Hondo

 

This episode was fine. I watched the last weeks racing episode twice. I probably won’t watch this again.

I am interested in the making of Willow. (I didn’t watch any of that series episodes twice)

 

I don't know what am I supposed to see here, because reading through that thread, most of the people seemed to like the episode — which is surprising. I saw only one complaint about the episode being pointless in that thread. Anyway, I am not arguing that Bombad Jedi was perfect, or anything. But it had a story and it achieved something within the time it had. Like it or hate it, whatever. But it did not feel like a complete waste of time. This episode, on the other hand, they go for treasure, they can't get treasure because getting it = something bad happens, they abandon the treasure, the team achieves nothing and returns home. Been there, done that. Tactical droid head in season 1, the spice crates in season 1, Dooku treasure, now this. There's probably more, but I am forgetting. It's well animated, looks great, the music is great. But the narrative is paper thin and feels like a videogame side quest. It'd be more fun to explore this in a videogame, IMO. Where you can actually shoot that monster, explore and solve puzzles yourself. I have nothing against anyone enjoying it, why would I? And it's not like I am just flaming the show, I believe my posts have enough arguments for why I think the way I think. I like the show, it's good, and I want it to keep being good. I just wish it'd pick up the pace and do more daring and thoughtful stories, like The Solitary Clone, or at least like the opening two episodes.

 

This just part of the normal animated dna show.

 

Or whole Droids and Ewoks series.

 

Alternate title - Indiana Clones and the Mecha of Doom.

 

Me too, its term who is use when anime add something, and honestly sometimes is better, for example I watch whole Naruto series, and some filler arc I like more that those consider as canon. Hell, I was suprise when I find out that Kaguya backstory episodes are filler, the episodes explained her whole character and some motivations, I don't even want to know how look her appearance in manga.


And about Clone Wars, it was antology so bassicaly every episode was filler, some bigger story was add later when Maul back, and it was by whole some around 19 episodes on more than 130. Rebels, Resistance and Bad Batch follow formula lixe Xena or Star treks after Next Generation, you have this whole myth arc where you follow for it sometimes, but mostly its about adventure of week, and this is nit something what its outdated, recent Disney series (every with good reviews) like Owl House, Amphibia, Big hero 6 series, Tangled series, follow this same formula, and viewers has nothing against it.

 

Predictable right down to the second. Not terrible, but predictable. And pretty bad.

Yet, kind of fun. I'd take treasuring hunting over whatever last week's episode was.

This show is a shell of its first season. There doesn't seem to be much left to explore with this group, at least IMHO.. Crosshair's storyline is what interests me.

 

This season is not mutch different from season 1.

 

If the show runners keep this up, they'll be sued by the Tolkien estate, Howard Shore, and the whole Indiana Jones team. How many times will the BB crawl through Khazad-dum? And surely they could have come up with a more original name for a great crystal than Heart of the Mountain. They might as well have just called it the Arkenstone. The giant robot made no sense. Why would it switch on after thousands of years of sitting and rusting and then go on a killing spree? Why the booby-trapped passages to get inside? None of this makes any sense.

 

My least favourite episode of the series so far, it was boring and felt pointless.

Don’t have much else to say about it really, there were references to IndianaJones and Horizon, but we didn’t need an episode just for that.

 

My review whenever a new episode of SWTV drops



I remember being a teenager watching TCW back in the day and the amount of negativity surrounding every episode was just over the top (maybe due in part to the canon steam rolling by Lucas and Filoni, but there were always complaints of filler and bad writing etc etc and people claiming to be giving up on the show every week)

I think I prefer The Bad Batch season 2’s brand of “filler” to other animated Star Wars ventures since TCW; part of the fun of TCW was seeing a new and bizarre corner of the galaxy every week and the level of world building that came with it, so I sort of prefer riot racing and breath of the wild mechas to something like fruit runs in the same street environment that was in every other episode of Rebels or whatever the hell was happening in Resistance

 

Agreed and things that are just plot convenience or downright stupid annoy me and they’re probably why I found this episode really boring.

But then I also found Avatar 2 to be a direct rip off of 1 and so hated it and given it has a super high IMDB score, clearly what do I know?

 

It's exceptionally rare, but not completely unheard of.

 

This episode really does seem like the product of a couple of the writers getting into a drunken argument over if Breath of the Wild or Horizon Zero Dawn (or maybe the sequel) is a better game. Agreeing both are great and making an episode inspired by that debate. That's not even the bad part of what frustrated me with this episode.

"Entombed" had the bones to be one of those terrible ideas that are executed well. Mention of the ancients. Another planet was potentially deleted from the archives at some stage. I never allowed myself to think based on the title this would involve entombed Jedi but thought the "heart of the mountain" might be a kyber crystal. It wouldn't really have mattered if it was a big kyber crystal or that piece of Aggro Crag that Nickelodeon used to give the winning kids of Guts as a trophy. Because The Bad Batch left empty-handed again and the Tall Neck thing was destroyed. Imagine if The Bad Batch had come back to that thing later and the Empire sends a whole bunch of proto-AT-ATs after it. I'd show up for that.

Instead, this episode just wasted all of that and the Indiana Jones BS was nicely animated but not that exciting. I am having a hard time defending this episode. This is like Poison Tea all over again. Now that episode at least has relevance later. But this feels like a dead end. The only ways to redeem the episode are a conversation later with a Force user and then maybe a return. These puzzles seem like they might have been meant for a Force user. Or, maybe this will connect to Ahsoka and Skeleton Crew in the great beyond.

Even the characters seemed bored with this episode which made both Echo and Tech stand out as comedians. Poor Hunter even looked at the camera after they got separated and through his helmet, I could feel that "Oh god dammit" expression that had to be on his face. When he started to draw his blaster I wondered if he was going to just stun both, throw them over his shoulder and run like, "Ok we're out." but nope. Hunter remains a pushover.

The only forward movement seems to be the possibility the Bad Batch will transition to treasure hunting pirates from Mercenaries and the early implications that Hunter and Phee might become a ship. They have no chemistry at all. Tough love. I can't see this getting more than maybe 4. Lowest rating since Poison Tea.

This episode makes it seem like The Bad Batch and Phee would not be the right characters to explore Force lore with non-force users because they can't recognize any of it. It also makes me wonder if the writers feel constrained by the idea the Bad Batch can't have any wins or make off with anything valuable this early. I don't think that should be the case. Please see what The Clone Wars did with the Deception Arc where Obi-wan fakes his death. It's all in the execution.

 

forbidden AT-AT

 

I thought it was cool Kevin Keller got to do lots of Indiana Jones music and the Clones booted up basically a legally different Tallneck from Horizon Forbidden West



Aloy is gonna have to use a lot of shards to repair it!

 

"The Strongest Stars Have Hearts of Kyber"

 

What was the point of that cave in that separated the batch? They were split up and wandered around for a few minutes and then they met up and regrouped. That led nowhere.

And to be really petty, it annoyed me that all 3 of the second team characters who were together had ECK names: ECHo, tECH, and wrECKer.