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Bad Batch Ep 1-8 ft. Jeff Randle
722 Plays4 years ago
J Scotty & Zuhair bring in special guest, Jeff Randle to dive into the exciting first 8 episodes of Bad Batch on Disney Plus.
The Bad Batch Fifth Sun Affiliate Link: https://shrsl.com/31dz4
The Bad Batch Fifth Sun Affiliate Link: https://shrsl.com/31dz4
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Transcript
Introduction and Humor
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back to Animation Deliberation, the podcast where we take action animation and cartoon seriously, but not too seriously. On this special episode, we are covering the first half of Bad Batch season one. We just got episode eight, so that's the halfway mark, and we've got a special guest. We're going to get right into that right after these ads that we don't have any control over.
00:00:21
Speaker
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Guest Introduction: Jeff Randall
00:00:55
Speaker
Sing along if you know the words. A one, two, three, it's time for animation deliberation. A conversation and a celebration of our favorite action animated series. Yeah. That's right. We are back animation deliberation, the podcast where we take action animation and cartoons seriously, but not too seriously. I'm your host, Jay Scottie St. Clair, and I am joined as always by my co-host, Zuhair Ali.
00:01:24
Speaker
And joining us is a very special guest. A host on this network that many people probably already know. He is an established voice actor, and he's a person whose ass I've already kissed a lot, and I will continue to do so. So I won't bury the lead here. Mr. Jeff Randall, welcome to Animation Deliberation. How are you?
Marvel and Animation Discussions
00:01:43
Speaker
Oh, I'm happy to be here, man. Get to talk about cartoons, finally. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Great to have you here. And Zuhair? Darn the MCU for not doing enough animated stuff.
00:01:54
Speaker
Right? I'm looking forward to bringing both of you guys on for literally every episode of What If. I recently tweeted at Marvel Studios, I'm like, shouldn't we be getting some sort of news about What If soon? Like even maybe just a release date would be all right. That would be nice. Wouldn't it? They're on the Black Widow finally hitting theaters and Loki being out high train right now.
00:02:23
Speaker
You know what? Why don't we keep that train rolling and get some news about What If? Yeah. I mean, Miss Minutes, she's kind of like the bridge between an animated character. We can just roll that train right into What If. I'm down for it. Loki basically is What If in its own way, right? Yeah. We're going to have an episode every week just about Miss Minutes' appearance. Oh my god, yes. I mean, pancake. It's Tara Strong, so you kind of have to. True. Very true.
00:02:53
Speaker
Like, she gets her own, like, series of episodes here, probably. Uh, yeah, Tara Strong. She will, she will get, she'll probably get, yeah, she will probably get an entire.
00:03:05
Speaker
What's the word I'm looking for volume dedicated to to her that would be cool if they made a series off of her that like You know how they have like the legends But instead of legends, it's just miss minutes explaining the background of all these characters coming up a new series Oh my god. Yes All for the longest time we as MCU fans have like been begging for Louise to do the yeah
00:03:30
Speaker
But instead we need, oh what if it was her and him? Like we had Miss Minutes and Luis. Okay. Could you imagine her doing an episode on him? Hey y'all. Well this man talks super fast. Have y'all ever heard the tale of the greatest narrator in the multiverse? Sit right down.
00:03:53
Speaker
We're digressing real hard. We are, we are. We're just, we're, this is our audition tape for you having us on your show, for instance, and stuff. We can talk and see. How we doing? How we doing? Well, you need to step up your game, just a touch. Alright, alright. Let's get this, this train back on track, so.
00:04:10
Speaker
We're not here to talk low-key. We already derailed. That puts us in perfect category for your show. That's what I'm saying. You need to derail harder. Oh, OK. Step up the derailment game. We need to be free topics over by now. We got to keep MCU's train going and derail ours. Got it. Oh, OK. So that was the level of derailment. You have to go two shows over and start derailing another podcast to reach the true level of derailment there. Yeah. OK.
00:04:42
Speaker
That's how we roll? I don't know. Choo-choo. Okay. Okay. So about the other Disney property. Yeah.
Nostalgia and Gargoyles
00:04:52
Speaker
Yeah. We are here to talk about Bad Batch, but while we are getting this train back on track and doing a little bit of housekeeping here, I do believe that we got another five star review. The reviews that we get here are the lifeline of this show. So Zuhair, what did we get this time around? What do you got for me?
00:05:08
Speaker
We got one from Ron P. 1979. I am absolutely loving this podcast. The guys knew their information, were well balanced, and very enthusiastic about the content. I subscribed and will be waiting to listen to more. I'm glad I come off as knowing what I'm talking about. No worries. I appreciate that, Ron. We will plan to be here for quite a long time to come as long as the show doesn't continue to get derailed too much.
00:05:39
Speaker
I better go. All right, guys. I was looking at your icon, what is this thing called? Your logo. Guys, those words are hard. I was looking at your logo, and I see in there the expected Ninja Turtles, the Goku of it all. But what really piqued my interest more than anything was
00:06:08
Speaker
Goliath sitting there up top.
Star Wars: Bad Batch Deep Dive
00:06:10
Speaker
Yeah gargoyles. Yeah, I'm glad you appreciate that. Oh, I loved gargoyles when I was when I was growing up and When I found out that that commander Riker was the voice of Xanatos. I lost my shit. I lost it He's a bad guy But he so casually swings his leg over a chair
00:06:37
Speaker
Now Commander Riker, so do you know that voice actor off the top of your head? It's Jonathan Frakes. Ah, ah. Yeah, he was Commander Riker in Star Trek Next Generation. He also grew up watching. Ah, see, that's where you lost me a little bit. I am very much aware of many of the fandoms within this network, but Star Trek is one of the ones that I have the biggest blind spots for, so I recognized the name, but I couldn't quite place it, so.
00:07:04
Speaker
You didn't even lose me, I was just totally left behind. Ouch. Okay, alright. So Jeff, um... Yeah.
00:07:13
Speaker
Jay Scottie has been talking to Matthew Fox over on the Star Wars Universe podcast every week. Pretty much every week. So you and I are getting a lot of our thoughts out for the first time.
00:07:35
Speaker
And I was doing somewhat of a rewatch as much as I could before I naturally got distracted. And that first episode still manages to make me like tear up with the intensity of it. What have you thought about this show as a whole? Like, what were your thoughts going into it? And like, how has it met your standards so far? It's a lot of questions all at once. Yeah, you'll answer them at some point. I'll eventually get there.
00:08:04
Speaker
As far like I can agree with you that first episode when when they got order 66 and You know all of the other all the the regs as they call them all the regular clones were like slaughtering the Jedi and They were they were chasing the padawan to try to like just try to figure out what was going on. I was scared for everybody involved and it was like I
00:08:29
Speaker
you know at first I was thinking okay this is just another you know another uh star wars the clone wars where it's going to be a little bit slow at the beginning to try to get into it's going to be you know kind of a rough start and they blew away that expectation because that especially that first episode was so freaking good
00:08:51
Speaker
and was so touching. I watched it. I remember watching it at least twice that first day and having watched it again later. And I kind of feel bad in that I waited several weeks to watch any more than that first episode, but you know.
00:09:11
Speaker
I'm a super busy guy. I've got a lot going on in my life. It's not the first thing that I thought of every week or whatever. We were doing a lot of planning for MCUcast. I got a lot of things going with the Twitch stream.
00:09:29
Speaker
But when you guys were like, oh yeah, we need to circle back on talking about Bad Batch, I was like, oh crap, I've forgotten to watch that show entirely. So I just binged all of it, except for the most recent two episodes, because it was like a week ago, I just binged all of it and was like, why haven't I been watching this? It's so good.
00:09:49
Speaker
I feel like that actually kind of worked out for you because my opinion has been that the first episode was very movie-like and then it got somewhat episodic from there.
00:10:00
Speaker
Oh yeah, I definitely feel the episodic nature. It kind of feels Monster of the Week, Planet of the Week, sort of, in that it's like we have a new, you know, we got a new scheme, we got a new thing, a new threat that we have to, you know, encounter and deal with.
00:10:21
Speaker
I think the biggest thing is the character growth between Hunter and Omega and seeing how Crosshair is developing and all of those guys and how they interact with everybody else in the world. I know that there are characters that I don't know anything about from not having watched Rebels, not watching the Clone Wars animated series.
00:10:48
Speaker
I you haven't seen I see characters on there, and I'm like I feel like I feel like this is a bigger person than What is happening here, and then I google it and I'm like ah I see Other amazing shows Yeah, I should I should Jeff. I don't think I knew that you have not seen the Clone Wars any of it I've not well. I've watched like the first I
00:11:14
Speaker
probably eight episodes of season one of the clone wars but okay it's so slow it's so slow you would honestly be very happy just watching the last season
00:11:27
Speaker
Yeah, I watched the first four episodes of season seven in preparation for the Bad Batch. And I felt like they flowed pretty nicely, and they felt like the perfect precursor going into the Bad Batch. But I'm curious, you being kind of in the same boat that I am in terms of not having seen Rebels or the Clone Wars, do you talk about not getting some of the references to some of these characters? But I've talked about it with Matthew Fox on the Star Wars Universe podcast. Do you think that they're doing a good job of
00:11:58
Speaker
introducing these characters into a fold to where everybody's on board. It doesn't matter what your level of familiarity is with the franchise.
00:12:07
Speaker
Both of you make me sad. I'm sorry, Zoom. Sorry. Well, the thing with these is I appreciate what they're doing, like the way that they're doing it, because they're not holding my hand. They're not waiting for me. Right. They're not bringing everything down to my level. This show is not targeted at me. It's targeted at the people who have watched everything. Sure.
00:12:36
Speaker
they still make it good enough to where I am like, my god, this is so good. For instance, the episode where they had to go and steal the droid head from the decommissioning factory. Those two characters show up and I'm like,
00:12:52
Speaker
This feels important. I feel like other people are knowing these names being called out. It feels like one of those little nod situations where I'm not in on the joke, but other people are. They're nodding at the other people. I'm like, hold on, let me just Google this. I Google their names.
00:13:12
Speaker
Oh, okay. And then that links to, oh, I could go down a rabbit hole here. And that's kind of how I live my MCU life. I've gotten to the point of being called the comics guy on the MCU cast and having not read many comics, I just go down all the internet rabbit holes because I'm like, oh, and that links to that. I'm going to go read about that.
Character Analysis: Wrecker and Echo
00:13:37
Speaker
So I have a question. I watched Rebels, and there was one big one that I missed. Did you know who the Padawan was in the first episode? Canan? Canan? What's his name? If you're asking, that answers it. Canan Jaren, right?
00:13:56
Speaker
Freddie Prinze Jr. That's all you need to know. I know the voice actors. I can tell you about Dee Bradley Baker all day long. That guy's a legend. I was watching it on an airplane ride when I was going to Tennessee because I knew people were going to ruin it for me the second I reached. So it slipped my mind because it was so early in the morning the first time that I watched it. And then when I met up, everybody was like, oh yeah, that was Canaan. I was like, oh shit, that's a big.
00:14:24
Speaker
crossover because he's one of the main characters of Rebels and throughout Rebels he talks about how he doesn't trust clones because he watched his master die and everything so I wasn't expecting to actually see how it all happened.
00:14:38
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, that has so much more impact there. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Oh, man. I missed, like, it was already really emotional. Yeah. And I missed even more of it. I feel bad. Why am I here? Why am I here to talk about this? To be fair, I didn't know you hadn't watched until just now, so.
00:15:03
Speaker
Not I'm an excitable person I'll make it enjoyable I promise don't kick me out but you enjoy Star Wars and You can speak on film and shows eloquently. So you still have value here Okay, just having the knowledge of the voice actors speaks volumes already. So did you watch Mandalorian? Oh
00:15:23
Speaker
Yeah, I recorded the two seasons worth of podcasts on the Star Wars universe podcast for the Mandalorian. So what did you think of Fennec popping up? Oh god, when Fennec Shand showed up, I was like, hold up.
00:15:41
Speaker
what now yeah I was like I was doing I was doing hardcore timeline math in my head like no that was uh and this is about when and then she's gotta be young or she's really old in the Mandalorian
00:15:57
Speaker
I mean, in real life, she doesn't age either. So who knows? Yeah. Yeah, she's she's a Highlander. You know, when is is just a Highlander. So chops off the heads of other bounty hunters. OK, yes, it could be only one. Now, I'm glad you asked that questions here because it's kind of a good transition. I wanted to ask, like, what were your favorite or what was your favorite episode or favorite moments from this first half of the season? Because on the subject of Phoenix and that was my favorite episode, episode four.
00:16:26
Speaker
Cornered everything getting that connectivity to the world of the Mandalorian, but I talked about The chase sequence and just how well that was shot and the choice of the camera placement and deciding not to cut I mean, I know it's it's animated but still
00:16:42
Speaker
there's something to be said for doing an entire take and having these these these renders and these models never cut the camera and just having the foresight to plan action out that well. I was just completely blown away. And what was the what was that? Was that the moon planet or the the moon of Pantera? Was that that moon? I don't think so. I think the moon was when they had the electric beast.
00:17:10
Speaker
Oh, maybe you're right. Okay. Well, maybe that was Ord Mantell then? Whatever plan it was, I was really impressed with how it was able to evoke multiple worlds of Star Wars. Chiefly, in that chase sequence, there were a lot of homage being paid to episode two in particular. So, I open up the floor to you guys. Favorite episodes, favorite moments, what do you got?
00:17:37
Speaker
Opening sequence of the first episode was amazing. The training sequence was good. Everything with crosshair has been so good. I've loved it every time that he's popped up. And I haven't talked about episode eight with you at all yet, but when I was expecting was it Kate Bain?
00:18:20
Speaker
Right? Oh, man. That was such a good perspective to have on it, too. Like, it felt like being inside Tony Stark's helmet, you know? Oh, yeah, yeah. And there was, like, a split second of... You've always wondered, like, what clones see because the Stormtrooper's aim is just so garbage. It's like, what does it actually look like through those helmets? I was like, that's what it looks like. That actually does look really... That's a very narrow side of feel. Like, it's amazing that you're as perceptive as you are.
00:18:25
Speaker
Cad Bane, right.
00:18:48
Speaker
Right. Yeah, it makes sense now. It makes sense that they they can't hit shit. Yeah, it's basically just a big reticle in the middle of the visor, right? I was watching the episode about when they were talking about the benefits of like, replacing the clones with new people. It's like, they will have skills that the clones never had. And this and that. And I was like, well, aim wasn't one of them. You gave up everything for aim. Like, no, no, this was not a step up for you. I'm sorry.
00:19:19
Speaker
Death Star one would be running so fine if you just step It's so much cheaper to just rip people from their families though instead of you know Invest all this money into training and getting proper genetic material Yeah Yeah, but the the more batches they make the farther it gets from good like it would have gone downhill anyway Fair enough fair enough
00:19:46
Speaker
I mean, that's what we're led to believe, at least, by the Kaminoans. That word is hard. So did you have a favorite episode or moment, Jeff? I'm thinking. It's difficult because there's so many. But every scene with Wrecker, Wrecker has been my favorite character, even though he's got the depth of a puddle.
00:20:19
Speaker
There's something to be said for somebody who's just allowed to be fun, to have fun, like that kind of character I love. So, you know, he's like, he's the kind of guy that's like, I like to blow things up because I like to blow things up.
00:20:36
Speaker
Yeah, it's just a ton of fun. I love that. I love that that character so when When he was running when they were when they were running on the the ship and he like that one trooper It's just like hold and he just chucks the thing Chucks the Torpedo is the guy with the flamethrower. They all get stuck for a second. He's like oh
00:20:58
Speaker
Directing. Yeah. Yeah. It was so good. I laughed so hard when that happened. Yeah. It's funny you should say that because I was doing my rewatch and in the first episode they were talking about like how upgraded the empire's armory is and crosshairs are staying next to me. It was like he actually cried and there's like, shut up, so did you.
00:21:24
Speaker
It's like wow like the love for I mean they even had the scene in Clone Wars where Anakin's mission was successful and like planning all the bombs He's like here you want to press the trigger is like really? I'm so honored and like it's a trigger closing stuff. So they really did establish his love for blowing things up very early on and it's been quite a common factor in the show and
00:21:47
Speaker
Certainly, certainly. And you bring up the fact that he's basically a giant kid, and that's what made, we talk about that whole inhibitor chip and him having the headaches and where that was leading. I was one of the early people not to pat myself on the back too much, but I had those fears that it was going to go to a dark place. And while it did come to a nice resolution, it's worth noting how
00:22:11
Speaker
the juxtaposition between him being that giant kid character to going and being absolutely terrifying just made it that much more poignant and that much more heartbreaking. I can't help but think back on the beginning of that episode when he and Omega are talking about to go get the Martell mix in the first place and they have to kind of convince Hunter to do it.
00:22:31
Speaker
It makes the kid happy. He's like, yeah, right, the kid. He's even more excited than Omega when they get approval to go. It does make the kid happy. The big one. Right. It makes both of the kids, just go, just go.
00:22:49
Speaker
That's what I feel. I feel like Hunter now has two kids to worry about. Yeah. I mean, one can go toe to toe with the Rancor. The other just kind of gets into trouble. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. That Rancor fight was real good. That was the most that we got out of him until the droid factory. And when he was saying a good soldier, a good soldier in the factory, I was like, oh,
00:23:19
Speaker
No, right that was when we really started getting something out of him But seeing him get to just embrace the fact that he's that big strong dumb character and like fighting with an adolescent rank or just slugging it out was so It just it touched my heart, you know, like let the fun character be fun. Right, right Did you ever watch the first Pokemon movie? No
00:23:46
Speaker
No. Well, there was a scene towards the end where it's like Pikachu and clone Pikachu were just like exhausted so all they were doing was slapping each other until one passed out. And that's exactly how this reminded me of. Oh yeah, I've seen the gif of that. Glad you had some exposure to it. Not to go too off subject, when you bring that up I can't help but think of like Magikarp and Splash attack.
00:24:09
Speaker
There was this internet video from a few years back where basically it just had this never ending loop where it was these two Pokemon fighters attacking each other with Magikarp splash attacks. Oh no. Hilarious. That game boy would have died.
00:24:25
Speaker
There was one episode of Pokemon that I remember where Ash and whoever it was that he was battling against, they both had like a cocoona and a metapod and they were like, hard and hard and harder. Oh, that was so early in the series, yes. Yes, it was hard and hard and harder. It's like, no, this is not how you win this fight. You can't just stop.
00:24:54
Speaker
So, Jeff, you were pretty quick to bring up Wrecker. Would you say that he's your favorite member of Task, or excuse me, Clone Force 99? I almost said Task Force 99. Getting my universes mixed up. Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. He's my favorite. He's the fun one, like I said. I identify with tech as far as what my day job is.
00:25:20
Speaker
But as far as just characters that I like to watch, it's record. Record is just so great. And especially when he puts his helmet on, because he looks like a football player about to go out on the field, just like, I'm going to have a good time. For sure. Slams his helmet down.
00:25:38
Speaker
I think his is my favorite helmet because it has more of the skull painted like all over it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But my my perspective of tech and record have flipped because I really like tech at first. And then I was just kind of like, all right, we got the brute dumb character and record.
00:25:57
Speaker
But they've added like so much level of personality to record that I like him more, but Tech is also like that person that he's like, he's an asshole about knowing things. Right. And he's just very presumptuous that like, just because he noticed it, everybody else did. It's like,
00:26:12
Speaker
how many times are you gonna like potentially mess up the mission because you did not convey the information when you were supposed to and sometimes I feel like it is part of like talking to the audience and like regards to like filling them in like he has his opportunity to do that but he's a lot of Sheldon without the comedic relief and it's actually getting like more and more irritating every week like how tunnel vision he is of just like you don't not something to be like oh yeah I guess there are other people I need to work about you don't think the comedic relief is there
00:26:42
Speaker
I think that he's gotten his comedic relief out of Echo. Okay.
00:26:47
Speaker
Yeah, bantering with Echo for sure. Echo's closer. Echo's closer on the technological brilliance scale. Sure. But he's obviously not quite there, but he's smart enough to be pissed off at Tech about what Tech is doing or not saying. Yeah, that's fair. That's the interesting thing about Echo is that every Star Wars property has had that convenient, helpful droid with them. Right.
Omega and Crosshair Speculations
00:27:14
Speaker
It's interesting that Echo is the droid.
00:27:17
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I mean, they've got a droid. He's so helpful. Like, Wrecker curls him. He squats him. Oh, the gong. The gong droid. Oh, yeah. His only purpose on that ship is to be Wrecker's workout tool. Yeah. I haven't seen anything else. I think Omega was using him as a pillow at one point in time. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The feet were going, but he was on his side. So he was just like, he was just something to lean against.
00:27:52
Speaker
I definitely do want to dive a little deeper into Echo especially, but I wanted to circle back to tech for a second because I do think some of the humor is still there just in some of the recent episodes. I think of one that both times I watched got a good laugh out of me.
00:28:06
Speaker
is when Sid said, keep this up and you'll start to see my ugly side. And he's like, that wasn't her ugly side. And then in this most recent episode, when he's on the bridge of the Jedi starfighter with Omega, and she asks him, what were the Clone Wars like? And he gives that very matter of fact answer. It was a war on multiple fronts with multiple objectives that lasted three years. And she's like, but what was it like?
00:28:35
Speaker
just told you I just told you yeah it really like that that was funny but it also just went to highlight how out of touch with emotions he is yeah true and I don't know it kind of felt like it distanced him from my liking a little bit like okay like damn guy this is a kid
00:28:57
Speaker
Can't you just like tell her some emotions like you probably have heard of one or two. Yeah, come on guys Yeah, and we've talked a lot about how Omega pronounces her own name But I did notice in that interaction that she just calls him tick which made me just want to go spoon Nobody of the tick. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, that's a
00:29:23
Speaker
That's another animated series that's had a couple of live action renditions that I was a fan of both iterations, but if you don't know about the tick, do yourself a favor. Yeah. I mean, any chance to follow Patrick Warburton's career is a good opportunity. He's prolific. He's going to enjoy it. Oh yeah, he's prolific, especially in the voice acting community.
00:29:48
Speaker
Oh yeah. I'm kind of embarrassed to tell this story, but I'm going to tell it. Go for it. I was watching a thing that is embarrassing to talk about, I guess, or embarrassing to admit that I was watching celebrity family feud on Hulu. That's not even that bad. That's not that bad.
00:30:12
Speaker
Okay. I went out of my way to watch Family Feud on Hulu. Okay. It was Celebrity Family Feud. Patrick Warburton and his family were on there. They were one of the teams. And whenever I heard
00:30:32
Speaker
Steve Harvey say Patrick Warburton, I was like, I leapt forward off of the, away from my couch position. And I was like, oh my God, I love Patrick Warburton. And I started trying to do a mimicry of his voice and everything, and then he spoke and I was like, I'm not good at his voice. We're kind of getting on another little train here, but as somebody that likes to do a little bit of voices myself, obviously I don't have the acclaim that you have.
00:31:02
Speaker
Get your lips off my ass. His voice is so unique because he like simultaneously like hits these like almost kind of like falsetto notes but he's got like a very deep baritone at the same time so he's kind of like doing a number a bit like this where he's getting real high but at the same time it's like and I'm still not doing it justice but it's I thought you were yawning for a second
00:31:25
Speaker
It's like he's either yawning or he's doing a Hank Hill. I'm not sure. Hank Hill's pretty tough to do, too. I'll tell you what, dammit, Bobby. Dammit, zoo. Dang-o, man. Dang-o, let's get your own magnet to this. Dang-o and powder-cache, man. We're doing that. Dang-o and animation deliberation here, man. Dang-o and tell you what. Whoo.
00:31:49
Speaker
All right, well, I know we're getting back to it. But now I know the next time I ask you to record something, you'll be like, oh, I'm just so busy. I was like, oh, Family Feud, got it. Yeah, it's the watching the Family Feud. I can't. The Feud's on.
00:32:05
Speaker
It was celebrity family feud, though. Yeah. So, with Patrick Borberty. Rob Lowe's family was competing against Terrence Howard and his family. Who won? Who won? Spoilers for family feud. Back to Uncle Wrecker's family. Uncle Wrecker? Yeah.
00:32:25
Speaker
I really like Echo. I mean, he's had quite a... because he was a big part of Clone Wars. He was quite the recurring character. And like every time you look at the probes in his head, it's just like, man, you've gone through a lot of shit to just to still be as active as you are.
00:32:42
Speaker
Right? Every time he shows up on screen, he's like, all right, we're going to go do this thing. Like, hey, we need to go do this thing. And I see his right arm is entirely replaced by whatever that thing is. The droid master key, I guess. Yeah. Sonic screwdriver.
00:33:05
Speaker
Yeah, the sonic screwdriver of the Star Wars universe. He's got that on his arm. I mean, I saw in the first episode, I guess, how he participates in like fisticuffs. He can, especially against droids, I'm sorry, clankers. He can use that to kind of scramble him.
00:33:34
Speaker
Other than that, like what does he do? Does he have, he's just, is he pistol bound and that's it now?
00:33:40
Speaker
Well, yeah, and he also worked with Rex, Anakin, and Obi-Wan. So he was like one of the higher tier ones. So he's a very experienced soldier that's, he's able to adapt and fight with whatever the situation gets to, which is why the bad guys were so impressed with him too. Because even when they rescued him from the droid facility and he was all like messed up, he was just like, I'm still ready to fight, like put me to work. And they were just like, hey, you're jacked up. Do you want to be one of us now?
00:34:09
Speaker
And he's lived up to the reputation of being as beat up and deformed as he is and still being a functional soldier.
00:34:17
Speaker
Yeah. He's come a hell of a long way. I think in the first episode we had that sequence where he woke up to the medical droid and it was just so obvious and apparent how deep his PTSD was there. But talking about how Hunter has had to be apparent to both Wrecker and Omega, I feel like Echo has really stepped up.
00:34:40
Speaker
in a big way to act as a parental figure as well, especially to Omega. He's had to kind of teach her some of those, and maybe it's less of a parental and more of an actual commander where maybe Hunter's being more of a father and he's being more of a commander, but he is teaching her some of those hard lessons, especially I think back when she's aiming and trying to shoot the bow for the first time, he's the one that tells her, you know, it's not always going to come easily, you have to work at this.
00:35:06
Speaker
It seems like every member has had their opportunities to impart some knowledge on Omega with the exception of maybe Tech. So maybe that's coming down the road. So Hunter and Echo are the dads, Wrecker's the uncle, and Tech is the older.
00:35:24
Speaker
Sibling like yeah syndrome in which he's like irritated all the time and just wants to be honest computer Probably the irritated twin that ran away from home
00:35:42
Speaker
Yep, yep. What's going to happen with crosshair? Like, do you guys... In this most recent episode, when crosshair showed up at this place where they got all their inhibitor chips taken out, were you, like, were you begging the writers to give crosshair an opportunity to get thrown into the machine and have his inhibitor chip taken out?
00:36:09
Speaker
yeah because you see how much they there's always an episode where it's like oh that's what crosshair used to do that's that was crosshairs job this was crosshairs room whatever so you see that despite like how he's been like that brotherhood with them is really strong and it's like i want that team to be back together
00:36:29
Speaker
because there's even been situations where it's like they haven't been able to fill that overwatch position. Wrecker got spotted super quick, Echo got attacked by that little dragon thingy so it's like there's a huge void for them like not just tactically but as a family as well.
00:36:45
Speaker
And yeah, there could have been a great moment in which, you know, they stun him and put him in the thing and, you know, surgery him without consent. But at the same time, it's like since after the fight, does it make it okay?
00:37:04
Speaker
that's an ethics thing i was gonna say yeah that's something we should leave the box uh yeah there's just uh there's i don't think they're gonna let us off that easy and something like one of the bad batch is gonna die and i feel like crosshair is going to be one of them that's that's my prediction that i don't think they're gonna let them off
00:37:29
Speaker
I think it's gonna be like one of those situations where it's like hey we have an opportunity to be reunited and it's like now we're just empires gonna kill crosshair before this most recent episode I thought that the show it really did I thought they broadcasted where they were gonna go with the series and where the characters were gonna wind up with
00:37:51
Speaker
Wrecker getting as scary as that moment was, but in the course of that episode, we got his inhibitor chip removed as well as all the others. I was like, okay, that's we're going to wind up with crosshair eventually. But all cards on the table, you talk about begging and hoping that his inhibitor chip maybe got fried or removed during that whole ion engine sequence.
00:38:12
Speaker
I'm still kind of hoping that's the fact. I kind of hope that his inhibitor chip is not in effect. And this is just crosshair being the sadistic dude that he is. And I, again, I don't know if the series is going to go that dark or have that level of heartbreak, but I would absolutely love it if it did. If they made him one of the most iconic villains in the Star Wars franchise, I'd be totally down for it.
00:38:36
Speaker
That would hurt so bad That would that would rip out every heart, you know every heart like Every and it yeah, not not like it wouldn't it wouldn't destroy feelings. It wouldn't hurt heartstrings It would rip out literal hearts for them to do that. Hmm or like if oh if
00:38:59
Speaker
Like if Tarkin or the other guy that they put in charge that was bringing in the other troops or whatever. Admiral Rampart. Rampart, yeah. I always thought his name was weird, because it was like, that's a part of a wall. It is, isn't it? Admiral Fortification, hey guy. But like, if one of them had been like, you know what, this guy is going to be training everybody,
00:39:24
Speaker
I don't want him to catch stray inhibitor signals. Let me, let's take out the chip just so that we have him. You know, since he's, we, we cranked it up that his brain's kind of saturated with for the empire at this point. We don't need the chip anymore. He's good. Like if they, if they did that, God, I would be upset. I would be, I mean, it would be a hell of a swing to do that. Like that's a big shot to take.
00:39:51
Speaker
and I'd be so mad if they did that just for the character. I wouldn't be mad at the writers as this is a bad show. I'd be mad for the character. I want him to come back and I want him to have that brotherhood. And honestly, watching the way that Omega handles the bow, it almost seemed like she was going to take on the role of the long-range Overwatch person.
00:40:20
Speaker
having him come back and teach her to actually do that and show her how it's done would be just, it would be so great to have her getting all of these lessons and if something happens to the bad batch, like they all get kidnapped or whatever, or not kidnapped, but if they all get captured and she's out on her own and she gets to employ all of the lessons that each of them gave to her and use each of those skills, that would be such a great thing.
00:40:48
Speaker
That would be, that would be a nice warm and fuzzy way to end
Sound Design and Moral Dilemmas
00:40:53
Speaker
the series. I'd be okay with that again as much as I'm talking about Heartbreak over here. So, with how small she is, because you said that with how small she is, I want to see her throw an explosive at a clone.
00:41:04
Speaker
Yeah, but it's gonna be a small one, like smoke grenade? Not, she has to pick up a barrel and like chuck it at someone's face. She's gonna pick up the photon torpedo, okay. Yeah, because she's building that arm strength now, so it makes sense. Proton, proton torpedo, not photon, that's Star Trek. Right, right. My bad. Big boom boom canister. Yeah. It was so, oh God, that just reminded me of when she was working on the explosive.
00:41:33
Speaker
Midrack Crew is like, all right, you got to disarm it. Go. She's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And he's like, time's ticking. Yep. She's like, ah, ah, ah, ah. Too late. Get out. He ran away too. Yeah, he did. He's like, it was just a smoke bomb. You think I'd let you work on live munitions? Bro, that's still a live munition. It's just a much more mild one. Right, right.
00:42:02
Speaker
uh jay scott brought up earlier about the the chase scene with finnick and i i expressed about how much i just love the consistency between the audio and the visuals across this whole universe and the most recent appreciation of that is when they were in the ship and the and the cannon went off oh right right right
00:42:25
Speaker
Yeah, when it made that sound, it's just kind of like the familiarity between everything because it's been so consistent throughout this franchise. It's just like whenever it comes in, it's just that little hint of appreciation of man, that sound perfect. Yeah, I almost like when when record through those those troopers out the like out the window, basically. Oh, yeah.
00:42:51
Speaker
in that same area, I was so expecting a Wilhelm screen. Me too, me too, I'm with ya. Throwing out the window. I was waiting for it. Yeah, me too. And it didn't happen, I was like, aw, I'm disappointed. It almost sounded like they set up for it too and then cut it off. Yeah, they were like, no, we're not gonna give it to you, we're not gonna give it to you.
00:43:18
Speaker
I'm glad I wasn't the only one that noticed that. That's great. That's great. Yeah, it's too serious for welcome screws. You can't have it. I know you've got it in there. I know you've got it. Give it to me. Well, we also talk about it being a kid show a little bit and then pulling some of the punches. But I noticed on my rewatch of episode eight when they went out of their way to stun the scrapper guild.
00:43:41
Speaker
but then right after that, so Echo stuns the last scrapper guy that's getting away, but then the ship crashes immediately after that, and his body gets flung off into a crevice in the canyon, so like, a completely limp body. He falls into a canyon, and he's like, well, that guy's dead. Yeah, exactly.
00:43:58
Speaker
Not because he got shot or anything, but because he fell and cracked his skull open. Right. He wasn't dead before, he sure is now. Yeah, right? That guy's gone. I guess we only got two now.
00:44:13
Speaker
As I said, even with the with the opening scene, like when the Jedi was being attacked, she wasn't killing any of the clones. And they talked about how long she had been working with them. So even in that moment of confusion and knowing that she had a new ending, she's like, no, but we were friends. I can't kill you. I'm just going to deflect these until I die. So that level of like compassion for their brothers and the people they've worked with and like they have that
00:44:43
Speaker
the vibe of if they don't need to die why should I go out of my way to kill them which is crazy because they're soldiers and that's what they do but then you think about it it's just crossed my mind they've only been shooting droids so their like ability to actually kill people isn't something that they're actually used to doing
00:45:02
Speaker
And I think that's one of the major through lines in the questions of the show. And it's been asked a couple of different times, you know, their interactions with Sid as well as the, was it the Martez sisters, I think were the ones that we ran into. Um, but then, but then even in this final episode where, uh, echo brought up the fact that had they been with Rex, they wouldn't have encountered any of these things, but Hunter keeps reinforcing the fact that Rex is on a different path than them. So.
00:45:30
Speaker
What is his path? What is their path? Obviously, Hunter is very invested in Omega and wants to, you know, form this, this family. But I think it does beg the question, what does a soldier, excuse me, what does a soldier do when there's not a war to fight, you know? Where is their place in this ever changing galaxy? Rex has a different show that he's going to go beyond. Is that Ahsoka I'm assuming?
00:45:59
Speaker
No, wasn't he in Rebels? Oh, I haven't seen Rebels, I don't know. Yeah, he was in Rebels. He was really old. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. So, you know, he's got a different show to go beyond. All right. Yeah, him and... That's his path. Him and two others end up, like, retiring in one of their, like, six-legged tanks that they, like, converted into their home, and they're just, like, mindlessly going around this one planet.
00:46:29
Speaker
And it's interesting because they're retired from the Empire, so the Empire still kind of like checks up on them and they get like, they get money for it, so like, clones retire and get to like go off whatever and they're getting like their social security or whatever.
00:46:46
Speaker
And it was interesting how they were just kind of like roaming around and doing their own thing. And then they got recruited by, cause Ahsoka told ghost squadron like, Hey, this is the guy that I worked with back in the day should go recruit him. And then Rex and his two homies join the resistance and Canaan has the issue of working with Rex because clothes killed his master. Interesting.
00:47:16
Speaker
I like it. I like it. Such, such heartbreaking stuff. Because even like they got tired of being retired. So when they were fighting against the empire, like there was an opportunity for the, for ghost squadron to get away. And they were just like, nope, we're soldiers first. We're just going to sacrifice ourselves and go out like soldiers do. And you guys can get out of here. And it was just that thing of like, they were so ready to die, even in their old age, just for like fighting for the right reasons. Hmm.
00:47:46
Speaker
And all of these are like Rex and the other two actually got their inhibitor chips removed too, so they were just living life. Right, right, right. Yeah, Rex said that he got his taken out before the events of the most recent episode, or what? This episode? Last episode? He popped up. He was in episode six? He was seven, because he was there when- Right. Seven. Yeah, he was there when Wrecker had to have the inhibitor chip removed and whatnot.
00:48:16
Speaker
Yeah, so spoilers for the end of the last season of Clone Wars, but Rex was with Ahsoka when Execute Order happened and was the first to start shooting at her. And Ahsoka actually knocked him out, dragged him to the medical bay.
00:48:36
Speaker
unconcentrally gave him that surgery and got the inhibitor chip removed and then it was Ahsoka and Rex on the starship fighting the rest of the clones trying not to kill them and you get out of there. Yeah, they went through some shit. That's rough. So I think Rex is actually like presumed dead right now.
00:49:01
Speaker
Yeah, I think he even made mentions of as much, didn't he? I think Tech brought it up. You're believed to be killed in action, so it's easier to hide from the Empire that way, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's easier to hide when they think you're dead. Yeah. That kind of throws into contention a little bit, the whole I'm retired and getting attention. Yeah, I thought about that, as I was saying. And so maybe I need to do a little rewatch of that. Hmm.
00:49:26
Speaker
i guess we gotta go watch rebels the other contention that i noticed that i asked haley hollis about just to confirm because she doesn't know that who does that was um cut more keep on one there was a whole storyline in clone wars about a
00:49:47
Speaker
a clone that defected and then like had a family and just didn't want to go back to the war who Rex like accidentally ran into and they brought him up in the second episode so then I was wondering like if he just defected in the middle of battle does he have an inhibitor chip does he even know he has one
00:50:08
Speaker
Ooh. Is he just like living his life and then like just hasn't heard execute order and then somebody randomly brings it up and he just leaves his family and goes back to what he's supposed to do? Like how does that part work? Is that another plot hole? When we get the when we get the credits for the final episode of Bad Batch season two or Bad Batch season one it's gonna say This October The Book of Cut
00:50:35
Speaker
I don't know. That is a great question though. In Filoni we trust, so it's like I don't mind these little loopholes if they're not like totally impeding, because I can just kind of fully guess my imagination and work with the wonderful storytelling that we're getting, because that batch has definitely met, if not exceeded, my standards so far.
Star Wars Universe and Empire's Rise
00:50:53
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe, hmm, maybe for Cut, maybe it's that he hasn't been around a Jedi.
00:51:04
Speaker
Yeah. And now there aren't any. Yeah. If he, if he runs into one later, he's just going to be like, must destroy. And they're going to be like, what the hell is wrong with you? And he's like, ah, it's a Jedi. Execute order 66. Or we finally get like a little bit of a glimpse into what all went down with like Luke Skywalker to his Jedi Academy one day cut just shows up their crash lands.
00:51:31
Speaker
shift there and they're just like, what the hell? They just take them out unceremoniously. I don't mean to be too disingenuous to a character people have become endeared to, but as we're kind of coming to an end here and wrapping up this conversation, we talked a little bit about where we want to see things progress with the character crosshair, but I'll just kind of
00:51:53
Speaker
open up the conversation to anything you want to address. Where do you want to see the back half of this season go? Any of the characters, any of the through lines? I mean, outside of the things that we brought up, the chain codes are another interesting world building thing that's taking place as the Empire is taking over. So what do you guys want to talk about? What do you got? Thanks, Filoni.
00:52:17
Speaker
Yeah, the chain codes were a weird thing from Mandalorian. The Mando himself not taking off his helmet and being like, this is the way.
00:52:35
Speaker
I remember Fox telling me there's so many instances of Mandalorians taking off their helmets in the Clone Wars. This is not a thing that I have ever heard of them talking about.
00:52:56
Speaker
having Filoni take us down this path of like, this is how we got here has been really, really awesome to like, cause you know, it's just like, this is the world and I will eventually fill you in, but this is what they're having to deal with. We don't have time for exposition. We got to deal with it. Right. Right.
00:53:16
Speaker
I love that they've got the trust in us to come along for the ride to be able to do that. I really appreciate that out of the creators of this show as well as the other Star Wars shows. Because they've all been really good so far. Totally, totally. Especially recently. They've been real good. We're in a bit of a renaissance of Star Wars coming back
00:53:46
Speaker
agreed agreed i also feel like in my personal opinion we're not going down this derail but like i wasn't a fan of the sequel trilogy and i feel like this kind of brings me back to what i appreciate in the star wars universe and it's i i like the okay i like the prequel stuff not a big fan of the sequel stuff
00:54:13
Speaker
and the fact that they're pushing more on Revenge of the Sith and filling in that gap and coming in closer to like how the rebellion started, what led to the events of the original trilogy, how all that connects as opposed to having this sequel trilogy that was like way further down, like it feels more molded now.
00:54:36
Speaker
And as much as I love Jedi stuff, there's so much storytelling to do in this universe about like the everyday Joe Schmell. Yep. And these are the opportunities to look at the stories and look at the world because we see these damn near invincible space sorcerers or whatever.
00:55:04
Speaker
terms they give them throughout this show or whatever space wizards wizards of hats okay yeah so as much as their focus on like how powerful these people are like if you look at some of the other Jedi we we've been watching from the perspective of a couple of the most powerful Jedi alive that we don't even know what the skill set of like the mediocre ones are
00:55:29
Speaker
So we get to experience that a little bit. We get to experience like how proficient clones actually were. We get to see what the bounty hunters are like, what the underworld is like, and the world building, and how other people were affected by it. Who likes the Empire? Who doesn't? Was it good? Was it bad? So much to talk about. And the fact that we get to like solidify this world that we already love so much is something that I'm really proud of them for pursuing.
00:55:54
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, man. To build on that a little bit, the character of Sid is one of the best ones for worldbuilding because Sid is dealing with people that are bad people, dealing with people that are maybe good people. Sid was, I guess, integral to Jabba the Hutt getting his rank-or. Yeah, Mushi. That's right.
00:56:22
Speaker
Yeah, much. Anyway, so like, Sid is kind of integral to that whole thing. And like, there's so much, there's like, the empire can be good for some people. But it also, you know, like we've seen with
00:56:38
Speaker
some of the main characters in Skywalker Saga like it's not good for other people and you know they're oppressive but there are some people who have had an opportunity that you know that they didn't have under the Republic and there's going to be people that that get endeared to the Empire because of that and I
00:56:59
Speaker
I hate to bring up a recent episode of a Marvel thing because we're here talking about Star Wars, but in Loki, he recently said, I know something that kids don't. I know something that children don't is that not everybody who's good is all good. Not everybody who's bad is entirely bad.
00:57:23
Speaker
I love that, especially in an animated series, which often feels like it's supposed to be for kids, they get to have these characters with such nuance. And they have all these different aspects of life, and people who are doing bad things for good reason, and good things for bad reasons, and the whole gamut. We get to see all aspects of life in the galaxy. It's great.
00:57:52
Speaker
Rogue One hits that a lot as well in regards to how Saw Gerrera saw the rebellion, versus how Cassian saw the rebellion, versus how ancient Ursel saw it. The rebellion is arguing with themselves quite a bit. Yeah, and all three of those were different from how Leia does it. Yeah, and they don't know how they want to structure and how they want to proceed or why they hate the Empire.
00:58:15
Speaker
And that happens in Rebels a lot, too, because they interact with Leia and Saw. It's like, why are you doing the way you are? Why are you doing this? We shouldn't be doing this. Saw says in the second episode, sure, the Clone Wars just ended, but the Civil War is just now beginning. And that's not only between the former Republic and the Empire, but it's between the citizens and the people who are wanting to rebel against each
Speculative Characters and Story Arcs
00:58:41
Speaker
other, too. It is utter chaos.
00:58:44
Speaker
you see took a long time to get perspectives together before they took out the first Death Star and even in Rogue One and in the Death Star sequence it was kind of like everybody wasn't on board with it it was like some of us are gonna go we're just gonna hope we have backup
00:59:00
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. There's so much. Yeah. There's so much character. There's so much good character in this in this franchise now. Oh, yeah. Well, thank you, Filoni. It's good to be a Star Wars fan again. Yeah.
00:59:16
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. On the subject of character, I do have one final question for you guys. What's a character that we have not seen yet that you would like to see introduced into the series? I'm going to say Orson Krennic. We were just talking about Rogue One. I think he's perfect. Go ahead and show some of his first interactions with Tarkin. Why not?
00:59:41
Speaker
Not to put you guys on the spot too much. I'm thinking... It's a lot of my knowledge of the Star Wars verse is in the older public. Are there any bounty hunters? They've done a really good job with the bounty hunters between Fennec Shand and then Cad Bane. I was on record saying Cad Bane's not somebody I'm super familiar with, but the three minutes of screen time we got with them was excellent.
01:00:06
Speaker
Actually, actually, yeah after you know, I Cad Bane was another one of those characters where I was like Google in here. Yeah but Having a young Boba under the tutelage of Cad Bane in this series would be amazing. There you go. Nice. I like it
01:00:25
Speaker
Oh my god, if Omega gets to play with young Boba, there it is. That's the scene. That's the one that's that... Oh, creme de la creme right there. I like it. So my excitement for Boba's not as high because he showed up in Clone Wars a few times as a kid, but didn't Jaren's story happen during the Clone Wars? What if you got to see a kid version of him?
01:00:51
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And then we could see a young version of him, maybe with like his adoptive parents or, you know, learning the ways of the Mandalorian. OK. Because I feel like they're kind of in hiding right now, too, or at least his tribe or his faction of it is.
01:01:08
Speaker
Uh, we could see Ahsoka's kind of the obvious answer. Like, yeah, we want to see her work with the Rex and maybe start like playing seeds of rebellion or whatnot. But I really want to see Anakin turning into Vader because this is right during revenge of the Sith. So like he's still limbless on a chair right now. Right.
01:01:30
Speaker
And kind of seeing the progression of the process of like, oh hey, how's Darth Vader doing? And you see like the surgery of him like actually getting his things attached or learning how to walk or, you know, getting fitted for a helmet. But what was the time gap? That's fair, that's fair. What was the time gap of him having this no scene and when execute order actually hit or when he actually got burned?
01:01:59
Speaker
Well, it wasn't that long, though. Right after that is when Padme went into her little, my heart is broken, I can't go on living thing. It's been a little bit since I watched Revenge of the Sith, but I think they intercut those scenes between Anakin's transformation and Padme's death slash the birth of Luke and Leia on Polis Massa.
01:02:28
Speaker
Yes. So I believe that we're led to believe that they happened concurrently, but. But there's nothing that happened in the revenge assist that says that that has to be the case. Yeah. Cool. We have to go back and forth, but like he could have been going through limb attachment surgery or maybe some replacements or learning how to walk or physical therapy or whatnot for like months to physical therapy. Oh man. Make sure you can use the force with your robotic hand.
01:02:58
Speaker
Oh my god, getting a fresh Vader learning how to walk again would be so funny. Dude, I want to see a gag reel of him using his robotic arm to pull the lightsaber to himself and it just keeps hitting himself in the face. I love Vader, but I want to see that.
01:03:21
Speaker
We just, we just, we just got Vader back to being the badass in the hallway in Rogue One and you want to immediately make him the comic relief. There would be a process, okay?
01:03:38
Speaker
Yeah, he's got a kid. It takes work, all right. That was 18 years of work to get to that point. Oh, man, that's so funny. I mean, he got to the point where he could use the force to move his cape in the middle of space.
01:03:59
Speaker
Yeah, I mean your lack of faith in him is disturbing. But I do want to see Darth Vader going through some type of rehab phase. Maybe whether it be like the limbs are still being attached or they're talking about like what could be better for his movement and ability and you see him like kind of working the lightsaber with the state that he's in or just talking to the Emperor.
01:04:25
Speaker
I don't know if I wanna see him interact with the bad batch. Oh, I don't know how much you guys know about him. We decided to give you six legs for extra mobility. I agree with this. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I don't want this. Grievous and Maul both did that, so at least they'd be consistent. Oh, speaking of, Maul would be a really, really fun addition here. Oh, okay. Because he came back in, he came back in Rebels, right? Oh, please, please, please just watch the last season of Clone Wars. Oh, yeah.
01:04:55
Speaker
Yeah, he was a big part of Clone Wars and Rebels.
01:04:58
Speaker
OK, yeah. Oh, yeah, that's right. He took over Mandalore. Yeah, OK. There was a really reading that there was a really, really good fight scene between Ahsoka and Darth Maul in the last season. Those those last four episodes of the last season were basically a movie of its own. It was incredible. And it was going like line to line with Revenge of the Sith. So it's like, hey, where's Obi-Wan? Oh, he's on Utapau right now.
01:05:25
Speaker
It's like, oh, this changed in the story because we just got word that Dooku was killed. And then in the middle of the show, it's like, oh, execute orders happening. So yeah, the way they line everything up was just so, so beautifully done. Yeah, I haven't seen the episode, obviously myself either. But if I'm not mistaken, they actually brought Ray Park in.
01:05:46
Speaker
to do like the fight choreography and do the motion capture. And that whole, they basically choreographed that whole fight with two people there with swords and basically just took the motion capture and animated that. So it was so good. Yeah, I've heard the best things about it. And Jeff, I know you watch the the corridor guys stuff. So they did the stuntmen reacts for that particular fight. They actually brought in the
01:06:09
Speaker
the stunt actress that did Ahsoka's movements, so. Yeah. Yeah, definitely looks pretty sick. I'll have to get on it. Okay, did you guys have any other final thoughts you need to get off your chest concerning Bad Batch, the first half seasons, or excuse me, episodes one through eight?
Leadership and Team Dynamics
01:06:29
Speaker
I'm just hoping the second half of the show isn't as episodic. Yeah, I agree. Because that's what Mandalorian does, too, is like episodic, episodic, episodic. In the last two, three episodes, like really go in hard. Mm-hmm. I'm hoping at least five of the next eight episodes do that. Yeah. It's the Floney formula. Because there's no guarantee of a season two of this, too. Like all of these characters could be dead by the end of the season for all we know. So it's like, I want the most of it.
01:07:00
Speaker
Yeah, we don't know where they end up after this. Yeah. With that in mind, I'm kind of hoping that the kidnapping of Omega is not a result within one episode. I think it's a good opportunity to have some real character growth for Hunter. And as great a character as he's been, I can't help but notice in the course of this conversation, he's the one that we've talked the least about. I mean, he's got a really cool power set, but just something about the show, I don't want to say it's doing a disservice to him, but
01:07:30
Speaker
just kinda having to be that stoic leader. You see it in other shows kinda like this. I've made the comparisons to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the past, but Leonardo kinda falls into a similar rut, I would say. Do you guys agree with any of that?
01:07:43
Speaker
yeah i mean he's he's kind of the the you know like we said he's the dad he's the dad of the group and you know he's had to grow as the you know being the leader he's kind of slotted into that and uh... it kinda makes him a little more straight and narrow uh... he gets to have less fun but you know we still get to see how much of a badass he is when like he's tracking things and
01:08:11
Speaker
Like, when Tech looks at the water in Episode 7, he's like, don't go below the water line. And, like, he just knows that there's something in there. He knows, like, these are the signs. Just looking at it, just like, yep, there's something down there that wants to eat us. As long as we don't go down there, we're fine.
01:08:28
Speaker
No. But seeing him grow, he's growing in a different way. He's got different character traits that he's building in that he's having to be the parental figure and caretaker of Omega and the others. And he's learning how to deal with her and she's not a soldier. So he's having to learn how to
01:08:54
Speaker
how to deal with somebody who's not a soldier but definitely wants to be there with him and making decisions for her that are in her best interest that she doesn't like are maybe not the best ways to go about it in that cut and run episode.
01:09:15
Speaker
having having the the what's the what's the term that I'm looking for like having the the mental ability to stop yourself from just giving an order and kind of checking in you know hey Omega you know what do you want to do about this thing like sure
01:09:37
Speaker
what is your what is your thought on this because you are a person you know it's like yeah you are a person you have feelings how will this affect you you know it's it's not necessarily so consequential like do you want a room you know on the battlefield it's like yes get down you have to do this sure you know I'm I'm saving your life but like for the non less consequential things like talk to her you know he's learning to to talk to her as it
01:10:04
Speaker
person. And it's great to see that growth in him. It's just it's a bit more subtle is all. That's true. Yeah. That's why I said I struggled to call it a disservice because yeah, it is more subtle, but it's it's there. So. And I feel like you call it a disservice because when the Bad Batch was introduced in Clone Wars, like they boast having
01:10:27
Speaker
never failed a mission. They lean into that in the beginning of this show as well. So they put these guys on such a high pedestal. You even see the rest of the truth be like, oh crap, that's close force 99. Like we're good.
01:10:42
Speaker
They never compliment them to their face, but you know regs really think highly of them So for them to be put up so high and then see them fail constantly and lose missions and get hurt You see record get shot multiple times text got in shock a couple of times echoes been knocked out We're seeing their flaws. We're seeing their vulnerabilities. We're seeing them struggle with this transition that they have to make and
01:11:10
Speaker
the communication that you're talking about with Omega, he has this relationship with the rest of the team where it's like he doesn't even have to say anything because they understand their strengths and weaknesses and they can be efficient based off of what they know and what they do. So he's trying to develop that caliber because
01:11:32
Speaker
Even in Clone Wars, he was the face of the group. He was the only one that ever talked to the generals and the commanders and the prime minister. He's the only one that talked to Tarkin because he understands how out of line everybody is, that he has to represent them. He's responsible for all of them. He has no choice but to be like, they come first. Their well-being comes before my life. That's how it is. Yeah. Yeah. And that's any good leader. So yeah, that's good perspective. I appreciate you guys.
01:11:59
Speaker
kind of course correcting me there because I knew I liked the character. You think about him wrong. Here's how you should do it. And again, it's not that the writers did a bad job at portraying it.
Humor and Promotions
01:12:14
Speaker
It's that the story is working in a way where it's like he's actually quote unquote failing because of the situation he's put in.
01:12:25
Speaker
Sure, and if he was perfect every time this wouldn't be as fun to watch so hats off to the writers for actually making him Seem like he's struggling and seem like he needs to adapt and needing to figure these things out because It's kind of how life works
01:12:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. He even had his own brother tell him, like, you're not fit to be the leader. Yeah. Like, tell me that hasn't stuck with him all this time, or every time somebody gets hurt or somebody fails. Oh, no, it's totally stuck with him, because when they finally did have that reunion, and it's fitting that the episode was titled reunion, but when he and Crosshair see each other for the first time, he's like, why did you have to come after us? Why did it have to be you? And then just a few minutes after that, he's like,
01:13:10
Speaker
your issue is with me, not her, referring to Omega. So I think even before Order 66 happened, there was a little bit of friction between those two that maybe we didn't see fully broadcast, but I do think about the four episodes that we got in season seven, there were a couple of times where I felt like Crosshair maybe questioned the leadership of not only Hunter, but Rex as well.
01:13:39
Speaker
I don't know if I want to watch the last four episodes of Clone Wars or the last two of Bad Batch now. Oh, that's so good. Why not all of them? So good. Porque no los dos. Yo soy hella tired.
01:14:03
Speaker
I'm not gonna get into a Spanish language lesson here but certain adjectives you actually say like if you're talking like if you want to say that I'm hungry you actually say I have hunger
01:14:12
Speaker
instead of hunger. I have sleepy. All right, well, on that note, we've become a little bit of a bad match on our own. Fair, fair, I at least embrace it.
01:14:32
Speaker
I just want to take the opportunity, I do want to plug the coverage that we've been doing of this series so far with the Star Wars Universe podcast there with Matthew Fox. He's been great to bring us as a fledgling show, get some more eyes on us. So definitely appreciate that and definitely go and check out the Star Wars Universe podcast, all the great things they're doing there. That is a part of the Stranded Panda Network that we are part of as well, obviously.
01:14:58
Speaker
And yeah, go to StrandedPanda.com. Check out all the wonderful things that are going on there. Twitch.tv slash StrandedPandaTV for all the live casts that we do there. Trivia happens Wednesday nights at 7, 7.30 central. Usually some music and whatnot going on beforehand. Do you gentlemen have anything you want to bring up and plug? Late night, Loki.
01:15:20
Speaker
Late Night Loki is a thing here lately, and I think it's gonna turn into Late Night Everything Marvel. Because they're... Did they say Marvel specifically?
01:15:36
Speaker
Well, Disney has decided that all the new series are coming out on Wednesdays. Right. All of them, not just Loki. So we'll get What If, and Ms. Marvel, and Hawkeye, and I think those are the only other three that are coming out this year. Yeah. But She-Hulk in the future, Moon Knight, like all of them are going to be Wednesdays. So we're going to have to come up with other names other than Late Night Loki.
01:16:05
Speaker
Midnight Miss Marvel, you know We hours what if okay? I was gonna say hella tired Hawkeye what is sleep
01:16:24
Speaker
What was that? Just all of these. And you know, Moon Knight is by itself, that's it. We are the Moon Knights. We own the Moon Knights. But that being said, we are doing a 2am central watch party of Marvel things. Right now we're watching Loki every Wednesday morning.
01:16:47
Speaker
We are then doing an instant reaction with myself and Matt Carroll and usually Brian decline. And then later Wednesday, we're doing another watch party for people who weren't crazy.
01:17:03
Speaker
that starts at 5.05 p.m. Central. We watch the episode and then immediately do a podcast about it and then immediately go into trivia and then late night. So Wednesday is kind of booked solid for us at Stranded Panda headquarters. It's intense. It's a hell of a
01:17:27
Speaker
It's a hell of a time, though. It's a lot of fun. I was really sad that I couldn't be on it this past Wednesday because of all the sinus crap that I had going on. But I still joined the Zoom call and was like, hey, guys, I love you. I can't put headphones on because my head will explode, but I love you. Yeah, did you hear about the stranded Panda Hefei guy that was in the chat just trying to be a know-it-all?
01:17:55
Speaker
I know, right? God, you're so rude. So obnoxious. God, it's the worst.
01:18:01
Speaker
Hopefully, he won't show up when you're back on. Love you too, buddy. Yeah, that's all the plug I have. Oh, we should talk about, since it's a network thing, we've got a partnership, an affiliation with Fifth Sun, and they've got a ton of great shirts of all different categories.
01:18:32
Speaker
Let me oh yeah when I go to when I look at fits on a hit category hit movies the first one that's on there Star Wars So, you know, we've got great great Sorry great shirts of the child from the Mandalorian. Here's one that says Yoda best dad ever You know protect our forests with They have walks on it they have a shirt for each of the bad batch members helmets on it
01:19:01
Speaker
Oh, that's super cool. So I'm going to give you a link, Scoots. I'm going to give you a link to one of these shirts. And we can put that in the show notes and have everybody go and check that out.
01:19:19
Speaker
And what, if they just follow that link, it'll automatically give us the affiliate points, or do they need to enter a special code upon checkout? Yeah, there's not a code that they need to enter. They just go in there, follow our link, and we will get credit, because they use cookies for that sort of thing. Awesome, yeah. Check the show description, the show notes. I will have that there. So you hear anything? What's that?
01:19:45
Speaker
I want these shirts. If you're feeling so generous and want to donate to your local Zuhair... My tag is typically Z with 5U's, 786 on most platforms, so you might find my Venmo there. I don't know.
01:20:07
Speaker
Oh, man, that's a good wrecker shirt. Right? Yeah, I see what I'm looking at these helmets now. This is good stuff. Let us know what your favorite bad, bad shirt is from Fifth Son is at animation deliberation podcast at gmail.com. We will read those next week.
01:20:28
Speaker
Thank you very much. Thank you very much to Jeff for appearing. It wouldn't be an episode that I participated in if I didn't take another opportunity to do some ass kissing. So, thank you Jeff. Yeah. Of course. Of course. Of course. I already told you to get your lips off my ass. At least it's not, at least it's not French. No, not that. That's another great thing that happens on Late Night Loki. We get loopy. Late Night Loopy Loki talks.
01:20:58
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And I will say, keep tuning in. That's T-O-O-N-I-N. You're invited to take a vacation from everybody else's vacation to a place where you can explore cypress swamps and magical gardens and see a 65-foot waterfall that once powered an old mill that you can walk through today.
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Speaker
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Speaker
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01:22:07
Speaker
There's a highway that stretches across the 93 days of summer, where worship isn't offered to the sun, but to the smoking tire, the S-curve, and the spin turn. And if you ride it, make sure you do it in a Dodge Charger, Challenger, or Durango. Because on this highway, the lines being blurred are the ones between drivers and demons. Welcome to Highway 93. Dodge is a registered trademark.
01:22:37
Speaker
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01:22:49
Speaker
And it's not like it was a game-winning play or in the playoffs. And he was out the rest of the season? Because he was injured while celebrating? Yeah.
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Speaker
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01:23:08
Speaker
There's a highway that stretches across the 93 days of summer, where worship isn't offered to the sun, but to the smoking tire, the S-curve, and the spin turn. And if you ride it, make sure you do it in a Dodge Charger, Challenger, or Durango. Because on this highway, the lines being blurred are the ones between drivers and demons. Welcome to Highway 93. Dodge is a registered trademark.
01:23:38
Speaker
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01:24:01
Speaker
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