Bad Batch S1:E4 Chat (SPOILERS)

"MasterSeedy;c-2263113" wrote:
@Wookieflyer

All good points. I'd like to add though, that they're clearly setting up a power struggle WITHIN the empire about how the Imperial army will operate going forward: clones or non clones.

People have been asking for a long time why the StormTroopers are not clones when the Clone Troopers were already there & trained. The series is obviously set up to answer that ... and answer it in a very interesting way. After all, we have experienced the clones as nothing but heroes up until Order 66, and their participation in O66 wasn't their fault. This series has the Bad Batch set up as heroes (mostly, leave Crosshair aside for now), with non clones (the Kaminoan cloners and the Imperial hierarchy) clearly making overtly evil decisions.

Usually in fiction the clones are set up as inherently unworthy, inherently less than, and very often inherently lacking in free will.

In this story, the lack of free will is not inherent to the clones. It's something added that's not organic, that isn't just about "growing that way". It's the inhibitor chip. Here the clones have the potential to be as morally interesting, as heroic or evil, as non clone persons so long as the inhibitor chip is defeated.

Meanwhile, Omega is our entry point to the Imperial clone trooper vs. storm trooper conflict. If the Bad Batch were only on the run (an important part of the story as you mention), we would never get to see what's happening with the conflict inside the Imperial military & between the military and Kamino. But with Omega being a next gen clone needed for Kamino's capitalist project to make more and more money by proving their clones superior, Omega's protectors, in this case the Bad Batch, are very likely to discover what's going on with the Kaminoan clone industry. And if they discover what, they have a good chance to discover why.

This is obviously the point of Omega: while the story lines of going on the run can be interesting, Omega provides a reason for the Bad Batch to get involved in a conflict that will ultimately provide the answer to the question, "Why aren't Storm Troopers clones?" that the fans have been asking for decades now.

Omega is crucial. Making the Bad Batch actually care about Omega, bringing her into the family, that's also crucial. I mean, there are lots of people kidnapped or harmed in the galaxy: it's a big place. They can't rescue everyone, so we have to see that Bad Batch has a reason to risk it all for this one particular person, Omega.

That's what we're getting now, that's why there's so much focus on relationship development. It's crucial to the whole structure of what follows, and to achieving the resolution for which fans have been waiting.