The Bad Batch The Bad Batch Season 2 Discussion (Spoilers Allowed)

Yep, one only has to look at the early seasons of Rebels.

 

Folks keep reccing Andor to watch next; I am leaning towards Visions.

 

They don't have unlimited supplies of talented artists either.

 

That was because Disney viewed animation as less, and got a budget.

 

It got a budget, because they don’t have an endless supply of money to throw at every single project and they have to weigh the cost of production vs the revenue it’ll bring in.

 

The behind the scenes of Rebels shows that they had to cut cost and got beyond downgrade of Clone wars and Bad Batch. They had more ambition plans like getting a Zillobeast.

 

That’s because Disney didn’t think it would be successful enough to recoup losses accrued by the cost of production. It’s pretty standard studio mentality.

 

And thats a shame, just think what Rebels could do with assets from Clone Wars.

 

There’s only one season of each thus far, so it’s no struggle. They’re both very different. Andor is the best live action Star Wars TV, in my view (and one of the best TV shows period), and Visions is the best animation,

 

Going cheap is the wrong approach to Star Wars. Lucas spent to make everything cutting edge. The reason we see so much cheap product these days is because Disney doesn't care about Star Wars remaining bleeding edge top dog. It's by far the most frustrating thing about Disney SW.

 

A New Hope was made on a shoestring budget, and some of the disney shows are among the most expensive live action sci-fi out there. And say whatever else you will about the Bad Batch, those are some of the most gorgeous scenery I have seen in 3d animation, rivaling some of the best 2d stuff as well.

 

These kinds of arguments on this board never cease to amaze me. I'm sure if you wanted to think about this for a minute, you'd see the problem with your logic.

Very quickly, ANH was a rare situation because Lucas happened to have many connections with cutting edge FX people, so despite budget limitations, the effects were more about the next generation showing would could be done.

It doesn't make sense to compare this rare situation to today, not surprisingly.

The situation today is more comparable to Lucas busting his budgets to achieve his artistic vision, and this is how it usually happens today, with money, because technology is expensive.

 

Also, a good chunk of the original Death Star sequence shots looked pretty bad. I don’t want that replicated.

 

I absolutely agree about Andor (although I also like the others), but, for me, Vision may have some claims about being the best animation only in the art department, and only if one is partial to anime style. However, in my opinion, Clone Wars, Rebels and Bad Batch are levels above Visions as dramatic narratives, character studies and interpretation of the lore. I liked Visions, but only one or two of the shorts can legitimate belong to the Star Wars mythology. Most of them, while great in isolation, are just samurai stories, fairy tales, or psychedelic dreams dressed in SW attire.

 

Well, we’ve only seen one episode of each of those stories, so it can’t really be compared to Rebels, TCW, BB and even Resistance on the character front. I’m mostly referring to the art style, the refreshing weirdness of some of it, and that sense of anthropological authenticity that I feel hasn’t existed in Star Wars since George injected that it into Star Wars in 1977, and has been glimpsed in RO, Andor and my favorite elements of Mando. There’s that sense that we’re plunging into a familiar but slightly uncomfortable and weird culture, vs. a derivative Star Wars product, and that’s thrilling. Especially with Akakiri, which to me felt like a Japanese George Lucas, fresh out of school and brimming with ideas and energy, was given the chance. And for me it worked. On a level, and with an artistic depth, that the other cartoons (with an exception for certain episodes, especially in TCW) haven’t reached.

 

Well said. Now I understand where you are coming from. I also find most of them between good and great (considering the limited runtime each of the episodes). Yes, the talent, the vision, the artistic audacity are definitely there. And maybe I have wrong expectations that SW stories must always conform to Lucas's template (e.g. the Hero's Journey (which, ironically, happened only to the droid Jedi in T0-B1), the Jedi as monastic order with clear rules (which was hinted only in the Elder and definitely not in the Ninth Jedi, which was otherwise one of the best shorts), a clear backdrop of clashes between democracy and totalitarianism (which the format didn't allow).

Still, considering that I want SW to have consistent worldbuilding, albeit with different voices, I will always have a preference for works that are more attuned to the existing lore.

 

I don’t think it is fair to compare the one and done stories in Visions to ENTIRE shows. It would be fairer to compare them to arcs and I think @Bor Mullet is being a bit romantic with his comments on Akakiri.

It was an interesting short and I really enjoyed it and most of the other Visions shorts, they were just about all excellent. But compare it to say the Fives arc, Palps v Maul and Opress and a few other outstanding arcs in the Clone Wars or given what has been said, especially the Mortis arc, did Akakiri really stand out that much?

 

Yes, Visions stands out against the best of Star Wars animation and amongst the best of Star Wars period. If you want to take it to the Visions thread, I'd be willing to elaborate.

 

I tend to think anime in general is more up my alley than Western Animation. Visions was all over the place because it was a series of shorts instead of a single narrative, but I do appreciate the nuance and poetry a lot of the shorts had.

The dream would be for a Japanese studio to just do a full on 12 episode anime series. With the right people behind it (Mappa, Kinema Citrus, Madhouse, Studio Bones, Studio Wit etc) I could see it eclipsing the Filoni shows.

 

Yes.

Perhaps you are being “a bit romantic” about the Fives, Palps v Mail and Oppress arcs?

 

Nothing has yet beaten the Mandalore arcs.

 

Tomorrow is 2 episodes, right?

 

Yes and where we might see Palpatine and Bail Organa.

 

Cool beans, two-for-one special. Sad I may not get to watch until Thursday this time.

 

Might be revealed in these two episodes coming today. Or later. Could we see The Empire using clone cadets as slave labor.