Rosie Jason X Men ninety seven. Man ah, I mean late latest episode, Tolerance is Extinction. We are recording this on Thursday morning, May the second, the day after that episode came out. And this is the most Magneto was right episode yet, to the point that there is a huge monologue about it.
Yeah, coming from the most unlikely source as well.
You know what is my I'm just blown away at how continuously hard this show is going. And yes, tell me that the most unlikely source just goes to show you, like human allies are still human and it's mutants are left to fend for themselves in an increasingly dangerous world. And you know what, Magneto was right.
Magnea was right, baby. I mean, what an episode to introduce a completely new origin to Bastion that kind of makes him even stranger and avoids the siege perilous, which we're obviously not going to get, and to just have this great, you know, resolution of Magneto being right and then having the reappearance of a certain professor. And I just was so angry when he showed up and said the words, and.
I thought, how dare you? Just how dare you?
But yeah, I mean, what an episode and to get those super cool cameos. It was very much in the vein of that nineties animated Marvel stuff where all the shows were crossover.
So I think that was really exciting. I just I can't believe how right they've got it.
They got it right.
Every point with this show. It's it's just such a delight.
One more thing, I am convinced that Bastian XPAN ninety seven Bastian is influenced heavily by zeb Wells, mister Sinister, because oh yeah, he's so fun with how evil and terrible he is.
Oh and he's exceptionally campy. Yes, very very he's very campy. He's just aware of what he has to do and he does it in an incredibly suave and terrible way. It's wonderful to watch.
Shall we start the show.
Let's start the show.
Oh my name is Jason Concepcion and I'm Rosday Night, and welcome back to X Revision, the podcast where we dive deep but dear favorite shows, movies, comics of pop culture, coming to you from my Heart Radio, where we'll be bringing you two episodes a week every Tuesday and Thursday.
And today we're hopping into our matching X Wings. I always like the Y Wing, but you know, X Wings are fine, and we are heading out into a galaxy far, far far away to catch up on all the things that have happened in Star Wars.
So that means in today's episode, previously on, it's all your Star Wars news, baby, your May fourth news, your news from four months ago because we weren't here, we're going to talk about Star Wars Hunters, racepin off movie. And in the airlock we're gonna break down that epping and heartbreaking ending of the Bad Batch season three, the final season, see what our.
Favorite clones have been up to.
And in the back matter, we're gonna explain what is the Star Wars Expanded Universe, what Star Wars legends.
Well, now you're gonna know. But first, previously on.
Guess what it's May fourth, May the fourth be with You, Revenge of the Fifth, etc. So we have a new trailer for the Acolyte. The other Star Wars show we're getting this year is Skeleton Crew, which does seem like it's coming out. Kalida has a report saying it's coming out in twenty twenty four.
Something that I think is really.
Cool that Joelle picked up on that I hadn't heard of was John Watts, who was the Spider Man MCU trilogy director.
Great director.
He's in charge of the Skeleton Crew room now and he was at CCXP in Mexico City, their first Mexico City version of the con dishing how he's mixed the latest tech with some good old fashioned movie matt and he's actually saying some stuff that if you're a Jurassic Park fan, this is going to blow your mind. I got to use all the cool stuff on my most recent Star Wars show. We had previous moap, we shot
on the volume. We did everything, but the most fun part was that we also used old school techniques as well. We got Phil Tippett to do stop most. We did mat painting, We did old fashion Matt paintings, ILM painter out of retirement to come and do that. So to me, that stuff is fun, but it's just another tool and it depends how you use it. So Phil Tippitt was supposed to be doing the stop motion on the dinosaurs
for Jurassic Park. You can see those old reels on YouTube are incredible, and obviously he got replaced by the guys at the upstart company at that point, ILM with their amazing stop motion combo animatronic combo CG combo. But Phil still got the famous credit of dinosaur supervisor. And to hear that he is coming in is very very exciting.
Yeah. I mean he worked on Episode four or New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, returning to the Jedi, among many many, many, many many many other films, both as a stop motion guy and as as effects supervisor. This is really really cool.
Other big news from May fourth weekend, they re released The Phantom Menace, the much maligned Phantom Menace twenty fifth anniversary this year, which is now.
The such beligne, much beloved.
You know, and the kids grew up on it.
The gen Z kids love it, and I remember working in the comic shop and they loved it. And in a surprising twist, the Phantom Menace came in second place at the box office this weekend, which is pretty huge for a summer box office h weekend that you can do a re release, and there was loads of fun stuff that they did for it. You and McGregor showed up at screening in Atlanta. We got to see once again Armor Best, finally getting the respect he deserves and getting to kind of reshape his.
Role in the Star Wars universe, which we love.
Speaking of Armor Best and Jar Jar Binks, Armor Best will be returning for the new Star Wars animated series, Rebuild the Galaxy, which is going to be a mashup series celebrating the anniversary of Lego and Star Wars first collaboration.
And we're going to get to see Darth jar Jar Binks.
Whoa imagine.
Now, that's crazy. I never thought I would see that. There was also a fortnit Star Wars update. You can rescue Chubacca and then it'll give you his wookie bocaster. Oh so you know if you defeat Darth Vader, you're gonna get his iconic lightsaber. We're also getting a ton of new toys Hasbro vintage Attack of the Clones figures, Black Series Darth Sidius if you want to say somehow
he returned. We're getting a half Boys Dark Luke if you're feeling spenny and you want to spend some money, and even a desuric board game if you've ever wanted to play Star Wars chess.
So truly, just all kinds of exciting news this may fourth.
Next up the Ray spinoff movie New Jedi Order. According to Collider Quote, Kathleen Kennedy confirmed that the film will introduce an all new era of the Star Wars timeline,
officially titled The New Jedi Order. As such, the film is expected to follow Ray she works to rebuild the Jedi Order now that her grandfather and her Palpatide and this Citizen and the Citizen First Order have been defeated, and recently in Variety, Daisy Ridley was quoted as saying her meaning Charmine obay Chinoi's director, the director's plans for this film, her idea for the story is cool as shit. No spoilers, but she gave me a rundown of the
entire story. If it weren't amazing, I would have been like, okay, call me in years. But it's worthwhile. So that's very exciting.
That's exciting.
Look, I when I was a kid and I was growing up, and I was reading Expanded Universe books, everything that I loved was like anything to do with Jedi School yea as to the Empire, the Jedi Academy trilogy, Like I love anything to do with this.
So I think it's exciting.
I'm also like kind of of the mind that like, if John Boyeg is not coming back, I don't really care about it, Like I'm in that weird jewel space of like I love Finn and I feel like John wasn't treated well by Star Wars and lucasfilm as a whole,
so I feel bit sweet about it. But I do think it's an interesting route and it would actually be cool to see a real Jedi Academy story that isn't you know, a cartoon that is focused on reimagining the Jedi, and I'll be interested to see what kind of new threat they invoke.
I am I'll get more into this topic when we talk about The Bad Batch, which just finished up its excellent third and final season. But I am interested in seeing how, if at all, Daisy and the Jedis have learned from the mistakes of the past as they rebuild the Jedi Order, because I think present in Bad Batch is a really cutting critique of the way the Jedis have run their affairs for centuries. We've talked about this
a lot. Yeah, so I'm sure people are like, Okay, we go to the Jury's are bad, They're not bad, it's just we'll talk about it imperfect. They're imperfect, and I think that how Ray deals with that imperfection, if at all, is going to be faster.
I totally agree.
Going to be fascinating to me. Next up, Star wars Hunters, a new free to play video game coming out June fourth. Star wars Hunters by the developer the long running and story developer Zinga. It is going to be an arena shooter in the clearly in the vein of Fortnite folks.
Yeah, I think they really want that Overwatch Fortnight vibe. It's going to take a place on a cannon planet a Vispara, which I think is very interesting, and it's going to be kind of like a cool arena battleground game. I was not expecting it to be free to play.
Me neither, so I'm very.
Interested in that turn of events and kind of what that means. I love the Switch that is still my favorite console, so yeah, I'm I'm interested in this one. I'm not usually like an arena player kind of guy and more of a fighting game guy, but the character designs look so cute, and I want to be a Wookie with a giant sledge Hammer. Like, there's just so many cool, like cartoony characters you got like Zana a rebel war hero, scorer e Rodian saw Bones, Sentinel and
Imperial Heavy Gonna, oh Sprocket a monk, Kalamari prodigy. I love Montcalorai char a tradeotion trapper. You know, it sounds like a fun roster throughout the Stars universe, and obviously a lot of us grew up playing you know, Masters of Terras CARSI yeah, like these weirder like forgotten Star Wars games, And in a way, I feel like this is invoking that kind of more casual fun in the world of Star Wars, but not like a Triple A, you know, Jedi Survivor, which we both loved and played extensively.
But I like the idea that this could be a little bit more accessible for casual gamers.
And this being Star Wars. There is of course Italian book Star Wars Hunters Battle for the Arena by Marc O'shiro. The blurb is on the planet Vespara lies in the Arena, a series of battlefields where fighter is known as Hunters, face off in teams to compete in front of roaring Crowds includes original illustrations based on the game. Came out March seventh and looks fun if you want to know more about the lore of Star Wars Hunters. Next up, we open up the Airlock to talk about Bad Batch
Season the Street. We open following the events of season two. Omega finds herself a prisoner of the Imperial cloning program run by Royce Helmlock and the Camino and scientists. Now Las Crosshair is also there, and Omega plots her escape and she wants to take cross Hair with her and she all and cross Hair is like, no, don't do it. And she also befriends a wonderful beast which she names bad Batch. She names Batcher. Meanwhile, the bad Batch is
searching the galaxy for intel on Omega. They're rating various Imperial bases try and find out how they can find her. They meet some stranded clones along the way, and they are increasingly getting more and more data on Hemlock's plans. Meanwhile, Palpatine get this Rosie very interested in something called Project Necromancer.
I wonder, OK, so this is I think is actually like so huge because it.
Is it is actually huge since we've we saw poor Oscar Isaac.
All he wanted in his life was to just have Poe and Finn.
Be in a relationship, and instead they had him out of the Immortal Words.
Somehow Palpatine has returned.
Ever since we've seen that, every single Star Wars project, we've been like, when is it?
How did he return?
And it turns and they've been teasing it, you know, oh, is it going to be in the Mandalorian?
Is it going to be here?
And they're like, boom, Project Necromancer, I'm gonna just he's he's had his people working on it in an animated world, in the live action world, but it seems like here they're finally onto something.
And this is a very controversial project. I feel like on many levels.
Top secret project, very controversial, very few people know about it, and also very clearly in beta because basically it doesn't work unless they get Omega back bits, you know, the other things that they've done. And I made this clone, which is like just me another one. They they they which is why they have Noveleds say there of course, but it's just they're in this bottle neck because they gotta have Omega. What is Project Necromancer interested in it's
interested in individuals with a high m count. What could that be a minty Glorias da Glorians of course, but our but our characters don't know that. And if you're anything like us, you spent several episodes, you know, seventy percent of this of the season saying it's mina Clorian's.
Guys.
Okay, So Omega's blood is very promising in this regard, and nals Say, who has all kinds of concerns and doubts about the program and the direction of the program, warns Omega like, you're in danger. Girl escapes despite crosshairs objections. She takes him with her Omeia Crossair go on the Lamb. It's a very very odd couple stuff where Crosshair is always like, well, we could kill them and take this ship, and Omega's like, no, no, We're not just gonna kill
people and take their ships and stuff. Eventually they reunite with Hunter and Recker, who are very happy to see Omega and really kind of not that happy to see Crosshairs, but very interested in saving all the clones that they can save who have been either stranded or left behind or otherwise abused by the Empire. In the wake of Order sixty six, Omega and the Reunited Batch investigate what the Empires up to on Tantis. They need to find it. They want to know what's going on there. It's where
Project Necromancer's going on. They rate an other abandoned base on the snow planet Part and four to unlock a data path that Omega has to get more information about Tantis, and they have no idea where Tantis is. Still we meet up with Rex and his band of road Clones. They're working as bodyguards to a ex separatist senator. They're also trying to kind of foment rebellion against the Empire. They come against a clone named CX one. Now there's a lot of bad things going on on tantas Rosie
one of them. One of them is a Clone assassin. It's like the Born Identity but for clones, where they take the.
Clone's terrifying sniper Clone.
Terrible, and they even and they take these clones and they break their minds even further than you would think would be safe and find to do and create these just killers who are completely dispensable. Now Rex and crew pretty shockingly easily take a CX one hostage and they and they start interrogating him. They want to know, like
what do you know? So what happens? Hemlock is like, we'll send another one to like go take care of CX one because we don't want CX one talking, So they send another assassin to go kill c X one. The new assassin CX two gets yes, learns that Omega is alive and is with the bad Batch, and now they have a location on her. They send an Imperial strike team over there to the planet Pabu where they're all hanging out, led by Lieutenant Hilo and our good
friend Commander Wolf. They are surprised to be attacking a group of clones and in the chaos, the Batch and other clones they escape. C X two pursues them. The Batch gets in a ship, which X two shoots down. Wolf is like, hey, we need Omega live, don't shoot down the ship. What the fuck are you doing? And then Rex meets Wolf as they're about to escape. Wolf is about to arrest them, and Rex is like, do you know what they're doing? They're hunting little kids. You want to be a part of this.
This is what you mean?
Yeah, they're experimenting on clones.
They're and then hunting children, like that's what you're that's what you do now, and Wolf is like, okay, you guys can go.
You guys, that sucks. I'm sorry, that's that's terrible.
Everybody is like laying low on Pabus so they can like figure out what does m count mean? Guys?
Just ask anyone, Ask anyone.
I'm sorry it's been Dave Felony, I love you and I love this show, but it's been too long since the.
Terror of Midiclorians was introduced into Star.
Wars canon and became the world's biggest controversy at the time for us to pretend we don't know what m count means.
It definitely means Midiclorians, guys.
And there they learn from Fee that the Empire, in their hunt for high am count individuals, is using bounty hunters to hunt kids. So omay, it's like, well, you know, I know about a bounty hunter Phenix Shan. What if we what if we contact Fanic and ask if she's ever been hired or knows anybody who's done one of these m count hunts. And they meet up with her and they do a little job with her, and she gives them a little bit of information and then immediately
betrays them to someone else. Meanwhile, Omega teaches Crosshair to meditate like the Wookies on cash Sheet. Now take this fact the meditation. Also take Omega's bond with Batcher the hound Batcher, Okay, and just put that in your pocket for a second, because I want to return to those two yeale things.
Ask me too, me too.
Also, I just want to say, like, this is such it's kind of funny in a way, how this I'm X Men ninety seven.
I feel like they both suffered from but also.
Get gaining something from the lack of promotion around them when reading the different names and things that happen in this episode, in these episodes where it's like Fenick Shan's there, that.
Feels like a huge moment.
You know who she betrays them to, that's gonna be a huge, huge anyway. And so instead of kind of this being promoted as like it's the final episodes, you got to see it. It kind of dropped on Disney Plus. But I feel like it's getting even just since it dropped.
Is like word of mouth, word of mouth, word of mouth, word of mouth, word of mouth, and it's interesting because I feel like X Men ninety seven is the same way the way that's been dropping that is like a weekly show that is the water cooler show right now, especially since Shogun ended, but Disney hasn't necessarily.
Promoted it that way.
But it's that animation is not seen in the same way as live action, and it's just funny because when you're reading these things, I'm like, if this was an episode of The Mandalorian or something, everyone would be like losing that. But yeah, yeah, yeah, let's I want to talk more about about those things. But also I just want to say something that I think is really cool about this that again leans into that way that all these things intersect, is that, you know, Kieran Gillen was
doing weird Palpatine experiments in his Darth Veda comics. Yes, and he had you know, Darth Veder kind of saying this is an abomination, like you shouldn't do this, and we get like a reference almost to that here when Palpatine's like people who think this would be an abomination, and it's like, ohh and I love that they kind of I love the impact that someone writing a comic can impact this show that comes out like seven years later.
I just think that that collaborative building blocks is what makes this stuff so exciting.
I completely agree. Turns out that Fennick dimed the batch out to none other than our favorite assage ventress eh Or sensitive das Amerian outlaw tells the batch what everyone has been dying to say about m count, that it's Midichlorian's alan. She runs Omega through a bunch of different exercises. In doing so, she also has to like mind bond with this huge like squid beast and get it to calm down. Then she tells the batch that Omega's yeah,
the tests are normal. She's like nothing, nothing weird, no high m count. They know she's lying, okay, And remember the thing I said about the the meditation, the bonding with the with Bacher, the hound. Take that out of your pocket. Now, we just saw Venturs bond with a beast. We have seen Omega do it as well. We know that jedis fucking love to meditate. Omega's doing these things instinctively. She clearly has a connection to the forest house strong.
We don't know, But why is my just lying about it?
This is like fascinating, I know, so Is she trying to protect her? That's what I know? Is it because her m count is so high?
Also, I thought it's interesting the way that they kind of they're like, oh, midichlorians can predict an individual's connection to the force, whereas as we've known it before, it's it's a direct.
Act if hospital, Yeah, it's causality.
So I like this kind of loosening of what a mediclorian.
Can mean, because that was not a huge popular choice when they added midichlorians to the cannon. But why is she lying? I think, is she protecting her? Is it because her m count is so high? Is it because she knows what Palpatine is planning and she doesn't want It's very interesting.
Because like we know that. So speaking of.
The expanded universe, right in the books, Han Solo has kids called Jason and Jana, and Jason is very connected to animals. That's like his force power, and whenever it comes up, I always think of Jason.
I always think of that.
The bond between nature and humanity and how that is like a huge part of the force. And I think it's really interesting to see it here because it usually means someone's force powers are immense. Yeah, and there's something there that is special about them.
Obviously, for Jason went terribly wrong. If you've seen the sequel movies.
Kylo Ren is very heavily influenced by Jason. But I'm I'm very interested in what this means for Omega. I want to see Omega become, you know, a main core Star Wars character, because she's so interesting and clearly they they're planning more for her beyond the finale.
What's also fascinating with this scene is Venturos then says, well, you know, if she did have a connection to the Force, because Hunter basically says, why are you lying? You know, just straight out asks her, why are you lying about this? She says, well, and you know, if she did have a connection of the Force, she'd need to be trained. The Empire's going to come after, she'd need to be trained. That means she would have to leave you forever for
years to go undergo her training. Is that okay? And the Hunters like that will never happen. And to your point about protection and I'm going to come back to this topic later after what we see, when we see the truth about Project Necromancer, because to me, what I think Venturess is protecting her from is the way that Force users are exploited and treated. I think that I think Venturess maybe has come to a place where she's like, Okay,
give this connection to the force. You didn't choose that, But why can't you just have a connection to the force. Why do you have to develop it? Why does it have to be developed to Who does it benefit? What does it benefit anyone that all these kids are trained as Jedi or Sith or whatever it Actually, certainly they don't get any benefit out of it because most of them get killed.
Over time, exactly exactly, And that's like, I love that read.
So that's what I think ventures is saying, is like, opt out of all of this. Don't even pursue it, don't care about it.
Just don't care about it. Yeah, it's not important. You're just a kid.
Back on Tantis, doctor Carr takes over for Nalisa after Hemlock throws Nalis in the brig. Hemlock is under huge pressure to take Project Necromancer out of Beta, move it at least into Alpha, and of course he needs Omega's blood to do that. Car However, as she's seeing the true face of project Necromancer that it's it's all the experimental subjects are kids, begins to become attached to these children and is gradually growing disillusioned with the the you know.
Turns out the Empire's bad Doctor Carr Are you kidding me? C x two manages to get to Pabu After torturing Sid for information, he confirms that Omega is there. Imperial forces shortly thereafter arrive on the planet and just start blowing everything up indiscriminately, firing like at anything that moves. The Bad Batch tries to escape, but in the running fight that ensues, Record is pretty seriously wounded. A hunter
is shot out of the sky. Omega is distraught. She's seeing her friends and the regular citizens of Paboo getting getting visited by terrible destruction, so she surrenders. She's like, just stop all this and take me, take me to Tantas. C x two takes her away. Hemlock welcomes Omega back, puts her under the care of doctor Carr, who begins immediately running tests. Meanwhile, the Bad Batch is like, we gotta find her. They're reading they this is a crazy
twist that I did not say see coming. They raid an Imperial concentration camp to free none other than our good friend, former Imperial Admiral Rampart, who they think, well, I was like, what very rogue one of he doesn't know where Yeah, super rogue one, he doesn't know where it is, but he's like, you know what, I'll help you. And of course, you know the whole time that Rampart just wants to get back in the Empire. Anyway, back on Tantas, Omega's tests come back and they're just what
Hemlock was hoping for. He takes her down to the vault. The horror now of Project Necromancer becomes clear as Omega meets her fellow prisoners and all of them are children like herself, and she vows, I've escaped ones I'm gonna fucking do it again. Meanwhile, of course, the Batch and Rampart meet up with Echo. They hijack an Imperial shuttle and their whole thing is like, we got to get you know, how do we sneak on this shuttle? And
they have this whole plan that falls apart. But long story short, they managed to like attach their shuttle to a ship that's jumping to light speed that's going to tantus. Hemlock gets worried that the bad batcher coming. He starts shooting at them immediately as they enter like orbit and now the big shit is the big climaxes happening at once. Omega hears the cannon. She knows her friends are here. She starts putting her plans into motion. The batch crash.
They're in the jungle, They're getting chased by beasts, They're getting fired at by stormtroopers. C X two is trying to kill them. Meanwhile, Echo has managed to sneak into the base, where he gets a shocking assist from a conscious stricken Doctor car. I want to say this, you know, a plot story whatever. For me, it's like, how do I feel when I watch something exactly doctor Carr's strike
of like her conscience starting to nag at her. I think was one of the most emotional things I've seen in a Star Wars story in a long time.
Yeah, I have to say, like, I think that one of the things that Dave Filoni's always been fantastic about in these spaces is adding the nuance that you don't often get, you know, the kind of conversations we always have of like you know, what.
About the people who worked on the Death Star, Like what about that?
And here you actually get to see someone have an emotion journey who otherwise would have just been like another dead body that got shot when you're trying to escape. And I think that that emotional nuance in space is very interesting. And I also think something that and we'll get to this, I'll kind of talk about it more, but it's very interesting because I would say this is like a heartbreaking emotional finale, but it's also not all
bad news. But they managed to be good news and goodness with this kind of really heartbreaking, horrible story about these children being you know, experimented on.
Well, and with what Venturis said to Hunter about the way the Jedi is trained. To me, I couldn't stop thinking about how this is also like an oblique criticism of the Jedi, who do the exact same thing kidnap kids, take them to Coruscant to train, and your parents never seen them again, and they go through all these.
Religions your parents in slavery.
Yeah, And honestly, what's the difference. It's like you make it. If we're right about Venturis, is, does she not have a point like forget all of it, forget Jedi, forget training to be a Sith, forget all of it, and just go be anonymous in the galaxy.
It is extremely silly as well when you think about it, because the truth is Jedis will just take you away from your family, train you all your life. But then fucking Luke Skywalker just got trained for like three days in a fucking bog and he was an emergency. Yeah, I'm just saying, like, you can do a summer camp version when you take children away from their families, but it is about essentially training child soldiers. And also, I
mean even just the rules of the Jedi. You know, you can't love, you can't.
Feel anger, like all that stuff is very repressive.
Like we've talked about this over many years, and this is what it is to be a fan is to look at this stuff and go wait a minute, And I love it.
It's more complex than it appears, and I love that they.
Chose to explore that in this series and kind of once again, like the Last Jedi did, like ask a question about what is the purpose of the Jedi and and how does it feel to be in that situation and would you be better off without it, and in Omega's case, the answer is definitely yes, I would rather she stayed with had like ten dads.
Omega launches her escape plan proper, their their Imperial Droid ally drugs are guard, they escape, They free a zillobeast again seeing Omega's easy bond with creatures and animals, the Zillobees fucking goes Godzilla on base. Uh. Doctor Carr and Echo learned that Omega and the kids have escaped, and Hemlock is like, car, go find Omega or else. And meanwhile, standing next to Doctor Carr is Echo in disguised storm troopers. Guys.
They're like, Bett, we were already planning to do that. Meanwhile, in a juggle, Crosshair wants to sneak into the base of Loone but like Wrecord is badly injured and uh, and Hunter, who he's just begin to rebuild his relationship with, is there and he's like, I want to go in because if you guys die, then Omega is alone. This was like a really for me, powerful full circle moment
for the Crosshair journey. Another really good dark like light to dark back to light journey for a character that I just and that's.
That's that complexity that we don't always get in the movies when you've got like two hours, Like this has been a journey throughout of becoming being rogue, then becoming a villain, then coming back to the light. And I think that that is like shows that same complexity of thing about Luke Skywalker when he was training Kylo Wren and he saw a moment of darkness and he was gonna kill his nephew.
Yes, him, he was killing.
People's gonna be They can be tempted by the dark. They can they can make mistakes, they can do villainous things, but they can also come back to the light. And I think that that's such a powerful story.
I agree.
Yeah.
Then all of a sudden, when they're kind of arguing about this, they watch an OWZ the Zillo Godzilla's out of the outer wall of the base, so they're like, oh, perfect, let's go in there. They go in there and they meet immediate vicious resistance from the ex Clone commandos and early versions of the Stormtroopers. They're taken prisoner. Echo and doctor carfind Omega and the kids. Car loads the kids onto a shuttle onto her shuttle to get them off the planet. They leave, Echo and Omega go back to
rescue the Batch and the other and the other clones. Now, I just want to say this. The base is like under heavy attack. It's half wrecked. Their prime test subject, Omega, she's in the wind. Nobody knows where the fuck she is. A zill O beast just punched through the base. Nonetheless, Hemlock can't resist taking the opportunity to be like, you know what, hey, hold my calls, I'm going to take a hunter wrecker and crosshair and I'm gonna wipe their minds,
however long taken. I'm just going to do a little mind wiping. I understand this is an emergency. The base is literally on fire, but hold all like a hole in the wall.
But yeah, I gotta do some mind wiping, Like.
You just can't wait anyway, Echoing Omega free the other prisoners, including Nala, say, Nala is determined to keep the science data, which she considers Camino and IP from the Empire. But now I am all for what Nala is trying to destroy the data. But let's be clear, she wants to
destroy the data because she feels it's the property of Camino. Yeah, any moral and anyway, she's shot by Rampart, who's thinking, oh, if I get this info, like, I can use it to leverage my way back into the Empire, which is crazy. That's never gonna happen. Anyway, she shot by Rampart. As she dies, she lets go of a grenade, kills them both, kills all the data, wipes all the data. Wonderful. Hemlock then squares off against Omega and the Batch. He gets killed,
Hunter and Wrecker, everybody are freed. They all make their way to Pabo, along with doctor Carr and the kids. We fast forward. Tarkan learns that okay, well, Project Necromancer is a bust. All the fucking data every time with these people.
How many how many Palpatine cloning exercises have we seen go wrong since this company was cleaned?
Too many?
Like lists, You guys are flopping.
You had the gro you.
Had grogu to baby and then that was terrible. You did this with the Mega terrible. You guys are so bad at that.
Rome wasn't built in a day. It's gonna take a few other tries. But right now, listen that the Empire does not have infinite resources, so we need to take this funding from Project Necromancer, and we need to divert it, Moth Tarkin says to Project Stardust, which we all know is the death Star Dunk Dunk Dunn. And then years later we see an adult Omega join the Rebellion. I have a million questions about that, Rosie. Your thoughts about season three of The Bad Batch.
I love this engine yet, I love this show.
I love if it exists.
I am just incredibly incredible high note to end on. Yeah, and I love it was surprisingly happy ending ish. Yes, you know, more people, more of the Batch survived than I expected.
I thought it was gonna be a rogue one situation.
I thought everybody but Omega does the situation.
We also get crosshad losing his hand, which is like a classic Star Wars situation. You know. Yeah, I just I just thought it was delightful and I'm very I want to know more about Omega because that is like I love her. I also kind of love how when Omega was introduced. When they bought The Bad Batch back, it was like, oh my god, they've given them a kid's sidekick, Like this is gonna suck, Like that was
the general response. But I love a kid sidekick historically, and I feel like Omega has really become a fan favorite character. And I feel like they did a great job of making her a part of the batch rather than making her a kind of like Dorfy, like now kids can watch this when it was always a kids show, and instead she became like the emotional heart of the group. And I really want to see more stories with her. So I'm excited about this time skip situation.
But what does it mean?
Like that is what I want?
And when are we gonna see? Are we going to see her again? Because what does the timeline mean?
Like what do you think?
That's what I mean? I have no idea, but that's what I want to know. What was her role in the coming rebellion? If any how active was she? Did her connection to the force develop at all? Do people know that she's? Like how open is she about her history as a clone? And then who's left at that stage? Clone? Was like do we have does she have any of that found family around her by the time she's an adult?
Still I have a ton of questions, And it's that same question I have with any of this, with any of the stuff that's happened on Disney plus or elsewhere the animated shows that fill in the holes anything from the Felony Ooves. How does this connect with the major stories that we know. That's what I can't wait to find out.
That is always the most interesting thing is you know, where was this character during the rebellion or whatever? And the answer is they didn't exist. Then that's why they're not in the story. That's the narrative reason. But we want to know the in world story reasons. We want to find out where these characters were, how they played into it. That's what I think Rogue One did so fantastically is it added this context so that every single time you watch a new Hope, you are thinking about
Rogue one and the sacrifices that were made. And I feel like these animated series for people like us who really love them, they have also added that. So I'm interested to see where that goes and kind of what we're going to see in Mandalorian and Grogu and how Omega potentially plays into that. Okay, so we got a new Star Wars animated series, Tales of the Empire, released on May fourth, of course, and this is a different
kind of animated series than we've had before. The official description is thus, journey into the fierce Galactic Empire through the eyes of two warriors on divergent paths set during different eras. After losing everything, young Morgan Elsbeth navigates the expanding Imperial world towards a path of vengeance, while former officer Jedi barriss Offi, whoa does what she must to survive a rapidly changing galaxy. Their choices will define their destinies. Jason, what did you think.
I thought it was good. I certainly enjoyed the barrass Offee episodes, the back half of the six episodes a lot more than the Morgan Elsbeth centric episodes, because it was something that I think we've never really seen before, which was a Jedi indoctrinated into the ranks of the Inquisitors, and what that would be like for a Jedi who trying to maintain a grasp on their morals and on
their feelings, you know. And it made me think of a thing that we've talked about a lot, and which I'm concerned about a lot when I watched Star Wars, which is like this deteriorating delineation between light and dark, Like here is a character that goes almost full dark, like you know, stuff happens towards the end where all of a sudden barrass is like, oh wait a second, I guess the Inquisitors are bad and I shouldn't do but like she's been going on missions with the Inquisitors
for x amount of time before she realizes fully that they're bad, Like this can't be the first time she's like, oh wait, I guess the Inquisitors are bad.
And she.
Is able to like pull back from even you can't even say the brink. She went beyond the brink. So what we're seeing again is this ability to navigate between light and dark, where you can cross over into the dark and maybe pull back to a I thought that was really interesting. What did you think?
Yeah, I'm I I agree with you completely. I felt like this was very expanded universe. Like there's actually an old EU book called Tales from the Empire that was like a short story thing. I definitely feel like this is in that space, that same space of just adding in some important historical context.
I thought it was interesting to see the fall of the Night Sisters.
I thought that was interesting and get to kind of see how unprepared. They were for old Grievy, General Grievous to like, come, I just love him.
I can't help it.
He's he's a bad guy, but I just he's so cool.
But getting to see that kind of play out, see the Separatist Army with battling the Night Sisters, and also getting to see where the connection between Morgan and Thron came from. Also, I think something that's very interesting about this and I think we can which is good for
me because I the Datha Marian Knight Sister stuff. I think they're starting to do with the Night Sisters what they did with the Jedis, which we always joke about, which is like Order sixty six who survived, Oh nobody survived.
They wiped out all the Jedi. No, they didn't, And in the canon.
We only thought that it was Darth Moore and a Sarge Ventress who really survived the Master of the Night Sisters. Now we know Morgan Elsbeth did. And I think they're gonna start building out these cosmic magic characters and showcasing their impact on the galaxy in a way that we haven't really seen before.
Morgan's kind of her rise.
I'm like that's cool, but I was most interested in sort of seeing the ways that she navigated the galaxy too, and kind of how she came into contact with Drawn and that space. I liked the concept of doing these short, spunky Star Wars stories, but I will say I think both of these characters could have been better served by like an animated movie or something.
You know.
I feel like there's a way where I would have liked to see them more cohesive. I love these kind of short stories for more wacky, like when we got to see Yaddle yeah and kind of see how brave Yaddle was and that interesting fight between her and what her fate was and her disagreements.
With the Jedi.
I kind of like the wacky secondary characters where I feel like both of these are quite like key villains.
I agree.
You know.
The thing that the one thing they've kind of made me sit forward during Elsbeth's episodes is kind of getting a taste of how incompetent the New Republic is. I think, oh, you know, like, listen, let's give them some credit in that it's a really hard job, and democracy in general is a lot more chaotic and loud then you know, one person rule under the Emperor, there's gonna be a lot of you knows, you allow voices to rise, there's gonna be a lot of disagreements, and thus there are.
But it was like shocking to see how how unprepared the New Republic is to impress the force of their authority across the galaxy. I think that was one of the most interesting things to me in that first three episode arc.
Yeah, and Aboo raises a great point, and he just popped in the chat like what's the purpose of these tales shorts? Like what are they thinking strategically here? Because if a kid watches these, is this going to be their entry point into Star Wars?
I'm not sure? Like is it for people like us who want to see these things expanded on? What do they do next?
We've had, you know, Tales of the Jedi, now we've had Tales of the Empire. Are we going to get a different space where we're sort of like Tales of the Outer Rim? Like?
What what is the plan?
That's a great question, and I think it's this. I think these stories these properties much like the Clone Wars before, it is kind of like batting practice. Listen, what's the thing that we didn't see in any of the May the fourth News, New movie news. Really yeah, it's just
it's happening. It's just it's happening. But like all those all those projects are in some stage of pre production, right, meaning like no sets, no nothing concrete, and projects like that go away often more often than not, you hear, oh this this thing is in pre production. The you know, the Game of Thrones prequel is in pre production, the John snow a sequel is and then what happens those things go away? They're looking to go back to the box office in a big way, right, in a big way.
That's the missing piece right now for Star Wars. And that's where Star Wars really really moves the needle as a cultural force. You know, we love the Disney plus stuff. A lot of people do, a lot of Star Wars fans do, a lot of general nerd fans do, but it's not the thing that moves the needle for Star Wars as an ip and I think this is how they find the storylines, the things that move the audience that they can then say, okay, we have this, we know this kind of works. How do we translate this
into whatever our next movie project? Is because that's what they want to do, that's where they want to go is get back to the box office.
I think that's such a great point. And also I think that connected.
To that is that these are probably projects that got green lit when they were trying to make so much content on Disney Plus, so they might actually not necessarily have a bigger plan for these outside of what you're saying, which is like do these characters hit people are about? What are they talking about? Almost a testing ground because that first Star Wars movie needs to be a billion
dollar movie, especially with the delay. Yeah, I'm very interested to see I mean, I wouldn't be surprised as much as I want new stories in the Galaxy. The next one will be Star Wars ten. It would be Star Wars X, you know, episode ten. So I wouldn't be surprised if we see a turn more towards something like that as they get closer to deciding what the next movie will be. But I'd love to see the weird origins of the Force. I'm interested to see what they
do with the Jedi Academy. But yeah, I think you're right on the number.
Then.
Yeah, in this week's back matter, we're answering what is the Star Wars Expanded Universe. I talk about it a lot because I am a complete nerd who grew up reading boxes of books from car boot sales, and many of them were Star Wars Expanded un of us books. It is now known as Legends, and it was for many years a cannon space in Star Wars, which began with a serialized adaptation of Star Wars that was released six months before the movie.
Even came out.
Crazy, And then you had Splinter of the Mind's Eye, which was seen as a potential sequel by their sci fi legend Alan Deine Foster, and it was made so that if the movie didn't do well enough, they could adapt the book as a low budget sequel, and that was kind of the origins of what would become the Expanded Universe, and over years it would until twenty fourteen, encompass hundreds and hundreds of books, comics, video games. There was a big video game comic crossover that Dark Horse did.
You got some classics like Era of the Empire. That's where Timothy Zhn's trilogy that began with that book that ended up introducing Thraun Granddadmiral Thorn. You had Star Wars Young Jedi Knights my favorite. That's where we learned about Luke's nis and nephew and Lea's kids, Jason and Jane are tales from Java's Palace, which was a short story book, and that's where we learned that Boba Fett actually survived something that we saw adapted directly in Book of Bobaffett
where he climbs out of the starleac pit's stomachs. And then there were hundreds of books, many of them that contained continuous storytelling, and basically anything that was written there was considered canon, which meant we got some really cool stuff.
In two thousand and nine, there was a book by Joe Schreiber called Death Troopers, which is a zombie stormtrooper story kind of like Alien where they go on a star destroyer that's abandoned in space and they find out that there are these kind of zombie stormtroopers on there, which was super cool. We also got a really great Dark Plagis book where you can kind of learn about you know, did you hear the story why the Wise, Well now you can read it Why James Losno's book.
It's a really interesting, completely unique to Star Wars phenomenon where they literally would just allow these stories to exist in this kind of amorphous clinical space. And then when Disney took over it, and in twenty fourteen they decanonized it and now we know it as legends.
But Disney does still dip in and out.
Occasionally take they take the best bits exactly, They take characters people love, and it is a really fun space. The cool thing is you can you can go to Banzanoble, you can buy some of these books as legends, like
the hand Solo Adventures. But if you just go to any thrift store, any second hand bookshop, you can likely find more of those old strange store about Princess Leiah getting married, about you know, weird creatures who live on the edge of the galaxy and who Hans Solo must go and steal from because that's just what he does. It's a completely wild sci fi space and I'm so
glad it still exists. And that is what the Star Wars Expanded Universe is, or if you hear someone talking about Star Wars Legends, that is what.
They are referring to.
Thanks Rosie.
Every episode we like to end the show with a fast moving segment this time, we're doing Who's Who with our favorite weird characters from the Star Wars Expanded Universe.
Do you want to go first? Should I go first? Oh? Go for it? Okay, My I don't know a favorite, but I think one of my most interesting weirdos is I don't know how to pronounce this stuff a lot of the times. Okay, so if I'm wrong, I apologize. Kudar move Bat from from nineteen ninety eight The Mandalorian Armor. Kudar Mubat is a like space spider of the Assembler species. They basically like create little like arachnid drone nodes, and this is the only one I think like this is
the most evolved member of its species. Kudar Mubat.
Yeah, I love the name. That's like such a Star Wars name. I mean, there's so many.
I have many favorite characters from the Star Wars Expanding Universe, like Jason and Jayna mar Jay all these different, but my favorite weird character is Jackson with two exes Jacksons. Oh, and who is like a cool green Bunnie who has two pistols and is in the Star Wars comics from the seventies and eighties.
The Marvel comics, and he is.
Like a very weird bounty hunter green bunny who flies through space and has a group called the star Hoppers and they just do like super weird Guardians of the Galaxy esque adventures and it's very.
Good and I love Jackson.
And that is just like one of those great weird things about the Star Wars expanded Universe, which you know encompasses hundreds and hundreds of books and comics, is you get these.
Really joyous little moments and weirdos.
Like both of our favorites. That's right, because the galaxy is so huge, Rosie, the main takeaway from this episode today and that is it for our show, Rosie, I had a great time.
I had a great time too. I'm so happy we got to talk Star Wars and I'm so excited about all the new Star Wars stuff that we're gonna keep getting to talk about.
Now.
With that, see y'all next time. Bye. X ray Vision is hosted by Jason Getupsion and Rosie Nighte and is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our executive producers are Joelle Smith and Aaron Kaufman. Our supervising producer is a Boo Zafar. Our producers are Carmen Laurent and Mia Taylor. Our theme song is by Brian Basquez.
Special thanks to Soul Rubin and Chris Laude, Kenny Goodman and Heidi Our disco moderata