Star Wars: The Bad Batch Producers Explain How Show Connects With Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the Rest of the Universe (Exclusive)

Star Wars: The Bad Batch returns this week for its second season on Disney+. Since the animated series' first season aired in early 2022, its particular corner of the Star Wars timeline has gotten more crowded. In the months since then, Lucasfilm has released streaming series Obi-Wan Kenobi and Andor. Both of those shows also happen during the era between the Star Wars prequel and original trilogies, and that's not to mention the Star Wars Jedi games that occur in the same period of the canon. ComicBook.com spoke to Star Wars: The Bad Batch producers Jennifer Corbett and Brad Rau about how they coordinate with the other stories set in the Star Wars universe.

"Where we are in the bad batch, it's a bit early into the era of the Empire that we're far enough away from Obi-Wan and Andor," Corbett says. "But that's not to say that some of the storylines that we have don't affect those shows. We really rely on, you know, the Lucasfilm Story Group, who is with us whenever we have story conferences, and they comment on storylines if some are veering into territory that could affect other things that are either in development or are currently being made, we're made aware of that. But so far, we haven't been told, 'No, you can't do that because of this.' It's really more of a collaboration and just making sure that we're telling the best stories without affecting other things coming up."

As Corbett says, The Bad Batch takes place earlier in the era than the other Star Wars shows, beginning with Order 66, the fall of the Jedi, and the rise of the Empire. That allows the show to depict the transition from the Republic era to the Imperial era like never before. In its first season, the series built tension around the Empire's plans to replace the clone troopers with stormtroopers and offered a definitive statement on the moment the prequel era ends. The new season depicts how the Imperial Senate functions, an institution mentioned in the first Star Wars movie after the Emperor dissolved the body but not seen until Andor in 2022. 

"The Senate, it's awesome as fans to see what's going on in there," Rau says. "And speaking of the story group, we talked with them, also, all the way through. In the Senate, we were discussing how we see the Senate pods in Andor, and that had an effect -- although it's not a one-for-one, it's different -- but it did have an effect on how we redesigned those pods slightly. We just try to be consistent and true through all of it. But in the trailer, when you see Palpatine in the Senate, it's like, give me a break. 

Corbett adds, "I think we were excited to just do something that was very political, sort of a noir type vibe because it felt it felt very much like Clone Wars, and even prequel era. We had a lot of fun doing those."

While there are plenty of politics and noir vibes in The Bad Batch's second season, there's also plenty of variety. The season's first 14 episodes include an Indiana Jones-like adventure episode and a story involving the Star Wars equivalent of street racing. 

"Whenever you get a group of creatives in a room, everybody has inspirations from different things," Corbett says, explaining the show's approach to genres. "So that really gets the ball rolling as we're talking about the next batch of episodes, things we'd like to see, things that could be fun and that opens up Omega and the Bad Batch's eyes to different pockets of the galaxy and what's going on there and not making the world feel so small because it's a massive universe. So we get to go to different places, have different vibes. But yes, there are several movie inspirations, but again, I think it makes season two very eclectic and that's what we were aiming for."

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 2 premieres on Disney+ on January 4th. The Bad Batch's first season is streaming now.