Fans of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series will be familiar with Clone Force 99, an elite squad of clone troopers with genetic mutations, and the stars of the new Disney+ Hotstar show Star Wars: The Bad Batch.
The team is led by Hunter, who has enhanced sensory abilities, and also includes Tech, a hyper-intelligent tech whiz, the expert marksman Crosshair and the simple-minded Wrecker, who is the muscle of the group. Also in the team is Echo, a ‘veteran’ character of the Clone Wars series who made his debut in 2008, but was severely injured and had most of his body replaced with cybernetic parts.
Now, these five characters may seem as different in personality as Jedi and Sith, but they are actually voiced by just one man – veteran voice actor Dee Bradley Baker, who is well-known amongst Star Wars fans for voicing almost ALL the clone trooper characters in the Star Wars animated universe.
During a recent video call from Los Angeles, Baker explained what it was like voicing so many different characters in the same show.
“Clone Force 99 is kind of another step beyond what I've been asked to do in the Clone Wars series. The tricky part (when voicing the other Clones) is that the difference is much tighter between the characters – although it has to be decisive, it has to be clear, ” he explains.
“The Bad Batch are actually much further apart from each other, which oddly makes it a little bit easier to jump from character to character to character. For me it feels like I'm jumping from rock to rock on a stream. I can see the rock. The writing is clear. And that's what I jump to.”
Baker also explains that during the recording process, he just switches from character to character to character as they go through the script.
“It actually helps that they're further differentiated vocally and also in terms of their personality. It's still a really fascinating process as a voice actor to have these scenes where I'm just talking to myself!” he says, laughing.
According to supervising director and executive producer Brad Rau, The Bad Batch is sort of like a spiritual successor to Clone Wars, including having a similar visual style, unlike Star Wars: Rebels and Star Wars: Resistance, which each established its own unique looks.
“We wanted to honour the style and the legacy of that. The way that it's designed is still the legacy of Clone Wars, but a little more detailed and focused, ” he says.
Story-wise, The Bad Batch is set in the period of time right after the Clone Wars have ended, with the self-proclaimed Emperor Palpatine issuing the deadly Order 66, which results in the Clone army wiping out almost all the Jedi.
According to the series’ head writer and executive producer, Jennifer Corbett, The Bad Batch tackles the question of what happens after the war is over.
“What happens to the clones, who have only known one thing their entire life, which is being soldiers? Especially for the Bad Batch who do things differently as it is with the Republic? How do they fit in now that it has become the Empire?” she says, adding that it was interesting to just talk about the transition from the Republic to the Empire and what that looks like.
“It's not like what we saw in the original trilogy (which sees the dominance of the Empire is already the dominant force in the galaxy). This is the early stages, and I found it interesting to show planets and places that were happy that the war is over. They don't really understand the implications of what an Empire actually means. So we’re laying the groundwork for what everyone knows the Empire will be like later on.”
Baker concurs, adding that with the transition from Republic to Empire, the galaxy suddenly has a more rule-based power structure.
“And the Bad Batch is not exactly a rule-based unit! So it's very interesting to place them in the middle of this transformational moment and to see how that plays out.”
Star Wars: The Bad Batch is currently streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.
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