It appears that Star Wars: The Bad Batch will not only opt to tell an original story set after the fall of the Galactic Republic, but also bring back a host of familiar faces from The Clone Wars and beyond.
Up until now, we’ve learned that Captain Rex will return following his rough encounter with the 501st last year. In addition to that, Dave Filoni has resurrected Grand Moff Tarkin, one of the Emperor’s most trusted governors, for this outing. Fennec Shand, the mercenary who served on Mando’s rescue team in the finale of The Mandalorian season 2, is also making her animated debut in the upcoming series, and to top it all off, Lucasfilm has teased that Palpatine will be appearing as well, though to what extent is unclear at this point.
Considering the executive producer’s track record, of course, we can bet that there’ll be a ton of other surprises that the promotional campaign is purposefully neglecting. In fact, according to sources close to WGTC – the same ones who told us Luke Skywalker would show up in The Mandalorian – Kanan Jarrus from Star Wars Rebels has a role to play in the story of Clone Force 99. Though since the narrative takes place before the events of that series, it’s a safe presumption that the character will be a mere Padawan who escaped the onslaught of the Jedi Order.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch follows the lives of a squad of misfits in the Grand Army known as Clone Force 99, whose world plunges into a hellish nightmare when Darth Sidious initiates Order 66, compelling all clones to hunt down and destroy their Jedi commanders. How or why the Bad Batch manages to override the mind control is anyone’s guess, but since we can see them working with Rex in the trailer, they’ll continue to be the heroes of this tale for at least a while.
As for how Kanan’s story brings him into contact with the commando unit, that we don’t know and we’ll just have to wait and see what the producers have in store for him when the show premieres on May 4th.