As Dave Filoni tries to fill in the rather sizable gaps left by “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” he is using The Bad Batch to fill in one major back story. When the trailers hit for The Rise of Skywalker fans were both excited to find that Emperor Palpatine was returning to Star Wars after believed to be dead. The excitement gave way to questions, questions gave way to misunderstanding, misunderstanding gave way to backlash of the film.
Disney +’s Star Wars: The Bad Batch started off feeling like another season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, until roughly three episodes left that is when The Bad Batch escaped the Clone Wars shadow and became it’s own show.
While The Bad Batch Season 1 just concluded it left many unanswered questions. In my opinion that is perfectly fine, after all it was recently announced that The Bad Batch would return for Season 2.
The Kamino cloning facility which first came to the Star Wars universe in “Star Wars: Attack of the Clones” was once again a focal point of Season 1. That is until Grand Moff Tarkin had it annihilated. In part because the Jedi knew where the facility was located.
The finale episode of The Bad Batch revealed just how Emperor Palaptine started experimenting with cloning including on himself, which is evident in The Rise of Skywalker. Make no bones about it Palpatine always had a contingency plan. Remember, Palpatine wanted Anakin to help him find a way to cheat death.
In The Rise of Skywalker we learn of the Sith planet of Exegol. It is there where Palpatine and his legion of Sith Eternals began working on Cloning. The reason was for the Final Order.
When Darth Vader threw the Emperor down the reactor shaft in Return of the Jedi, Palpatine knew he was going to die. Having trained under Darth Plagueis, Palpatine understood he could simply transfer his consciousness to a clone of himself on Exegol. One problem. Clones by virtue of being second hand are not as strong as the templets. Certainly far too weak to host a Sith Lord.
Back to The Bad Batch where we see Nala Se, who happens to be the pioneer in all things cloning. With just one little tiny scene, Dave Filoni effectively answered a big mystery left by The Rise of Skywalker.
