Full Series The Bad Batch 3.09 - The Harbinger - Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

well I quite enjoyed that until the end when it seemed to re-set the story and we're no further ahead in the story.

 

Yes, that’s all incredibly boring to me. I don’t need to see how the Path was built. The Kenobi show gave me enough information on that. I don’t need more Jedi in the dark times stories. I don’t need more clone stories. I’ve had enough. It’s the most boring possible show they could come up with.

 

For a return of Ventress, wasn't that i expected, nothing to explain she is alive yet, the episode itself was fine.
8/10

 

Not to stand (well, sit) in judgement of anybody's personal tastes, but it always amuses me whenever people complain about big monsters in Star Wars. To me, they're such an essential and integral part of the series' DNA that my reaction is always, "What next? Too many lightsabers? Too much war in the stars?!"

 

I see. I didn't know it was so fully developed by TCW team after the story treatments were delivered.

Have you read the scripts? This concept art leads one to believe she is dead but...IDK. Maybe TBB writers are fudging with some ambiguity for what works for the story now. What works in a script for a 30-minute TV show doesn't always work in a novel.

I do understand the frustration. I felt the same way after TFA tossed out everything I had read in the EU for 20+ years, not just one character's death.

By kids animation I mean animated shows intended for children, like Masters of the Universe, TMNT, GI Joe, et al. The main villains like Shredder and Skeletor never died, just defeated every week and returned the next episode with a new scheme. I think GL described General Grievous as this type of character. I would include TCW in the category. Are cannon fodder characters also needed for an accurate portrayal of war? Sure.

 

There is nothing wrong with giant monsters.

That being said: this season has so far come out to 4/9 episodes being giant monster plots--actually, to be more specific, they are "giant monster forces two groups of opposed people to team up" storylines. That's the story outline, or the pitch. It's not a giant monster being used in a different way each time. You don't have one episode where they're riding giant monsters to a new destination (think Rebels or Ahsoka) and another episode where the giant monster turns out to be intelligent and has dialog (again Rebels). This is just the same story outline with the foil character being swapped each time.

 

Season 1:
S1E2: Cut & Run — Nexu at Cut Lawquane's farm
S1E3: Replacements — Ordo Dragon steals their ship's power supply or whatever
S1E5: Rampage — Baby Rancor for Bib Fortuna
S1E13: Infested — Insects inside the mining tunnels when Batch had to retrieve spice crates for Cid
Season 2:
S2E1: Spoils of War — crabs
S2E5: Entombed — Some Gargoyle creature inside the giant mech
S2E11: Metamorphosis — Zillo Beast
Season 3:
S3E2: Paths Unknown — Slither Vines
S3E5: The Return — Ice Worm
S3E8: Bad Territory — Alligators
S3E9: The Harbinger — Giant Crab/Tentacle monster/whatever

I may have forgotten some, but it's roughly 4 episodes per season with monsters of the week. Doesn't seem like a lot, but feels like it, that's for sure. Especially when it's nearly back-to-back, like in this season. Well, surely, this was the last of it. Right? R-right? Who knows...

Grievous and Dooku can't die, because they are in Revenge of the Sith, of course. But nearly all of the other original villains died.

Again, George put TCW is in the same as his movies:
Lucas: Well [The Clone Wars] is basically like Star Wars [in that it] takes place between, obviously, [the films] Episode II [Attack of the Clones] and Episode III [Revenge of the Sith], but it's the same kind of action. Unfortunately, it doesn't fall into the realm of what animation [typically] is, which is either adult, kind of off-color humor or kiddie stuff. This is, like Star Wars, sort of in between those two things. It's a lot of battle stuff, and it's obviously the Clone Wars, so it's a war picture. So it's kind of a PG-13 animated TV series, which is something that has never been done before and obviously doesn't fit in any of the conventional slots that these things fall into. In that, it's very different, and I think it's very exciting. It's got a very, very sophisticated look to it. It's very much like the features. We're still trying to figure out how to put it on the air.
It's not just cannon fodder that died in droves, but plenty of major original characters: Pre Vizsla, Satine, Savage, Fives - to name a few. So I don't understand why you question that Ventress would have died. It's by far not out of the realm of possibility for this show. Especially since we know that she would have died, since we have the concept arts, and since the scripts were written and the story reels were shot, and that is what the novel was working off of. Cad Bane also would have died, but he was also resurrected, because the episodes never aired and they changed it. Everyone who wasn't in Revenge of the Sith was on the chopping block. But that went out of the window when George left, which is why Cad Bane was brought back, the same as Ventress, and Ahsoka can't die. None of them will ever die (except Cad Bane, who was brought back only to die a worse death in the last episode of a bad show), and they will just be used for fan-service, long after their character arcs had been concluded, long past their expiration date.

 

I, like a lot of fans, was looking forward to seeing Ventress. Did the plot and story call for it? Not really sure as there could have been others that would fit just as well into the story. The episode was pretty good. I just don't get how TBB knowing her M count really changes anything? .. like when Crosshair echoes this at the beginning. It just feels like a derailment to a great start to this season. Yes it's still interesting, but to take this much time off from Tantis and secret cloning , the building of a Clone Rebellion, etc brings the excitement level down for me.
I really don't need to see another Filoni animated figure who never showed Force abilities (Ezra a little at first, but also born on Empire day like Luke/Leia and can open doors with Maul to Sabine who now is scented by witches and can leap tall buildings in a single hop to now Omega) to all of sudden become more important than the story itself. I like the fact that her blood transfers without degradation, leave it at that.
TBB need to get off Pabu for real tho.

 

https://www.starwars.com/news/bad-batch-interview-nika-futterman-asajj-ventress

When it comes to Ventress’ return, however, there’s a need to address the bantha in the room. For all intents and purposes, Ventress met her demise in Star Wars: Dark Disciple, a novel based on unused scripts of The Clone Wars. Still, series creator Dave Filoni, executive producer Brad Rau, and executive producer/head writer Jennifer Corbett had a plan.

“Ventress is one of our all-time favorite characters,” Rau says. “So, when Dave brought up the idea of bringing her into The Bad Batch, we were beyond excited.”
Yeah, of course it was Dave. As if there was ever any doubt.

“We had several discussions about the book and how her story could continue,” Corbett explains. “How she survived will be revealed in future content, but for this story, we were thrilled to include her and explore her unique connection to, and compassion for, Omega.”

Don't ask questions, just get excited for the future content. This is the Marvelization of Star Wars at its finest: the story at hand doesn't matter, it's always a setup for future content. Gotta keep those D+ subscriptions rolling.

 

Ok so Asajj is just alive. And she was sort of an ally. I hope we see more of her now. She is rather interesting character actually. One more needless monster scene in this show. And why one with tentacles again?

 

Yes, I watched TCW; I saw those characters die. I'm not in disagreement that they died, or that Ventress would have died, or that GL intended for TCW to be PG-13-ish, In some episodes it was very much so. In others, it was closer to Y-7. I would have loved to have seen the Vos and Ventress arc. It sounds awesome and closer to adult-level drama than most of the rest of the series.


Having not seen the incomplete episodes, or know much about them, or read the novel (I've only read some comments on this forum and read a quote from TBB writers saying that the show would not retcon the novel (admittedly not placing me in the best position to speak with authority about it - but this is a discussion forum) I theorized that perhaps the death of Asajj Ventress was the author's invention instead of Disney disrespecting George's story b/c it sounded like something from an adult novel (the point being that novels change a lot from early drafts to finished product: characters initially intended to die, survive and others intended to survive, die) and not something adapted from an, at times, Y-7 animated show targeted to children (in the same way George targeted TPM at children because the protagonist was 9 years old and, you know, Jar Jar, even though people died in that movie.) I can admit I was wrong about Ventress dying in the un-aired episodes based on what you've presented. My position was speculation / squaring a circle / making lemonade from lemons.

And that brings me to speculate on why/how Ventress is present in a part of the timeline after she 'died.' She could be a clone like Palpatine, or merely appeared to die in DD, like Maul in TPM, and now many others in canon, or resurrected by the Nightsisters, or some other deus ex machina event. I can't say that I agree with the overall story decision to kill her off and then bring her back - which is a good reason why writers of old school animation shows didn't kill their villains - but it's something even GL did with Maul in TCW, and probably shouldn't have.

 

The only advance in the story arc is that now TBB knows about midichlorians and the Force. That's not very exciting for the audience who figured it out years ago.

Oh look, a monster. Did Ventress have any affinity for animals before now?

 

There we got our awnsers.

 

I think that Nightsister deus-ex-machina is now quite probable retcon possibility for Asajj since her body was brought back to Dathomir in the book and they do raise people from the dead after all. I thought at first she would be a clone but seems improbable now after her appearance. She seemed to be bounty hunter still.
Regarding Maul I think error was not to bring him back sooner. GL should've used him in AOTC or ROTS or something instead. He then much later suddenly wanted him back when it was pretty much too late to do believably. Dave managed to write it off somehow but it was pretty major retcon. Now when Palpatine, Boba Fett, Maul and Ventress have all returned from their original deaths it seems bit silly to kill of anyone anymore since they seem to be coming back anyway. Soon there is Dooku and Grievous somehow returning when writers are out of ideas... And now they pretend like Tech would really be dead, who actually believes that?

 

The difference here is that the way Ventress died was so different from Maul or Palpatine.

Maul? Fell down a hole.
Ahsoka: Fell through a time hole.
Boba Fett? Fell down a burping hole.
Palpatine? Fell down a hole and then the space station exploded.

In DD, Ventress is mortally wounded, dies in Quinlan's arms, and then spends months as a cadaver under the care of the Jedi before her body is buried on Dathomir. It's more akin to resurrection Qui-Gon after his death in TPM.

I suspect they'll explain this away as a Nightsister thing. We'll see.

 

No, probably something she learned after Dark Disciples book.

 

Me too, they use literal magic to bring her back to life.

 

She was in a magic Lake, sooo

Thrawn was right about Nightsisters.....

 

The problem with bringing him back in AOTC or ROTS instead of inventing Grievous is that he would have needed to kill him off again at the end of ROTS. And then resurrect him again for TCW.

Maul was cut in half before falling down the hole. I had no doubt he was dead at the end of TPM. 'mortally wounded' indeed. But, yeah sounds like some far-fetched retcon acrobatics will be needed for Ventress. She had connections to Dathomir, so Nightsister magic might be the path they choose.

 

It seems clear that George never planned to use him again back then.

 

This is how Nightsisters used to "raise people from the dead":

They could only animate corpses as a mindless horde. Usually one powerful Nighsister that did that, and as soon as she was killed, all the raised corpses fell.

Ventress is full on resurrection. Like she didn't even change whatsoever and it didn't seem to impact her at all. This thing only became possible with Ahsoka show, where it seems Marrock the Inquisitor was also full on resurrected person, even though he became a green fart when sliced. All of this is a mess. There needs to be hard rules. Otherwise, you have to ask, how come Nightsisters never resurrected anyone like that before? That sure would help after Grievous slaughtered them all. Indeed, as someone above has mentioned, Ventress was mortally wounded and she died. She died in Quinlan Vos' arms. She was dead for months. And then she was buried. Some fans try to cling to the fact that there were whispers and the pool started glowing green (like all Nightsister magic) when they put her body into it. But it was already known: Dathomir is a highly mystical place, and this is how the Force works there, Nightsisters become one with Dathomir, it is similar to the way the Jedi transform into the Force. That doesn't mean that they can physically come back from the dead. It was a metaphor for Ventress becoming one with the Force, one with her fallen sisters: "Asajj Ventress at last had come home." But, apparently, her sisters did not want her home, somehow. This cathartic ending, a full circle for the character, is irrevocably ruined, and they will never give her a closure as good as this. Just like Ahsoka will NEVER get a closure as good as "I won't leave you, not this time." This is where it peaked. And after that... it's just spinning the wheels.

 

Marrok was weird indeed. He reminded me of poorly written comedy character in Finnish television that was literally called "fart" and had a tagline "I am nothing!". That what Marrok was but in SW. He indeed was a fart. He was no one, he was nothing.

You made good points how Ventress story don't really come any better but worse with this change. I must agree it lacks closure now and she was completely unnecessary in this show really.

 

Marrok was revealed by the director to just be weird fart alien like one Inqusitor in Tales of the Jedi. And we cant really say wether its better or worse after one episode with Ventress and not Many fans have read the book do they thought she still alive.

 

A “weird fart alien”? Please show me the quote where the director said Marrok was a “weird fart alien”.