'Star Wars' Just Showed How The 'Revenge Of The Sith' Timeline Doesn't Make Sense

The legacy of Star Wars: The Clone Wars lives on! One year after the finale of the seventh and final season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the newest series in the legendary franchise, Star Wars: The Bad Batch, brings forth a brand new era of storytelling within Star Wars on the Disney+ streaming service that continues to build on the previous series. The new animated series follows the Bad Batch, clone troopers with genetic mutations that afford them enhanced physical and mental abilities due to experimentation. The squad (Hunter, Crosshair, Tech, Wrecker, and Echo) are all voiced by Dee Bradley Baker and introduced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, are a part of this motley crew.

The first episode, “Aftermath,” picks up in the middle of the events of the Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith timeline, when Order 66 provokes the clone troopers into executing the Jedi for treason against the Galactic Republic, with devastating results. Order 66 alone shows a new perspective of the clones hunting down their Jedi generals in the series. The standout moment in the first episode is how the opening sequence resonates with some fans of the animated series Star Wars Rebels by inserting a familiar character. But that can be a bit of a problem as well when going over the events between the movies and television series’ and everything in between.

Screen Rant has a nice breakdown on why continuity between Revenge of the Sith and The Bad Batch became very weird starting with the first episode of the series as it recreates and references various moments in animated form:

"The final prequel movie is a particularly curious case in this regard, as Revenge of the Sith spans just four days, despite the sheer amount of story packed into it: Anakin's fall, Order 66, Palpatine's unmasking and the commencement of the Empire, to name but a few key elements. This is something The Bad Batch episode 1 plays upon, and makes the weirdness of the timeline stand out even more. It begins with recreated footage from Revenge of the Sith, such as Obi-Wan and Anakin rescuing Palpatine and Grievous fleeing Coruscant (day 1 of Revenge), then mentions Obi-Wan is facing Grievous on Utapau, and then Order 66 is executed (both of which happen on day 3).

"Once Clone Force 99 has overseen the escape of Caleb, there's then the matter of the trip back from Kaller to Kamino, and then the very next day Palpatine gives his commencement speech in the Senate, declaring the Galactic Empire. All of this happens in a condensed form in The Bad Batch episode 1, packed within the first 15 minutes, whereas it appears to happen over a longer span in the movies, because the presentation is different: in particular, in The Bad Batch the information comes through that Obi-Wan is engaging Grievous just seconds before Order 66 commences, and even accounting for a lag it seems strange those events are so incredibly close together, especially given the liberation of Utapau running alongside it and how Revenge of the Sith frames Anakin's story with Palpatine in between."

Overall, the entire series of events that occurs in Revenge of the Sith works better within the film than within The Bad Batch because it feels more organic. Remember, fellow readers, season 7 of The Clone Wars also overlapped with the Great Jedi Purge from Revenge of the Sith. But the difference between the two series is that The Clone Wars had the final four episodes to sync up with Revenge of the Sith while The Bad Batch crammed everything into fifteen minutes.

Hopefully, the creators learned their lesson about canonical continuity going forward with the series.

Written By Andre Porter

Source(s): Screen Rant

Syndicated From Culture Slate

Join The Team