Stars Dee Bradley Baker and Michelle Ang look back at three years of voicing Clone Force 99 and a bittersweet goodbye with the series finale, now streaming on Disney+.
After the Season 2 finale of Star Wars: The Batch, Clone Force 99 actor Dee Bradley Baker sat down for an unusual writing assignment: a eulogy for Bad Batch’s fallen soldier, Tech. Penned from the perspective of Echo, two of the many characters Baker has expertly voiced over three seasons of The Bad Batch, seven seasons of The Clone Wars, and countless other shows, the exercise was an essential part of Baker’s process. “The loss of Tech hit everyone hard,” Baker tells StarWars.com. “And this was just for myself, Echo writing out how he looks at this. Because Tech got to finish his life in a way that saved the mission and it saved his team. That's how I frame it for myself, as this heroic and admirable finish to a well-lived life.”
With the final episode in Season 3, which also serves as the show’s finale, Baker — who voices no less than 22 characters this season alone, — co-star Michelle Ang, and the rest of the cast, crew, and fans of the series are forced to say a different kind of goodbye to the Batch.
Since Ang’s bright-eyed Omega first joined her brothers and left the rainy world of Kamino, the series has explored the clones’ role in the early days of the Empire, as they tried to make sense of a changing galaxy and forge their own identity as elite soldiers without a war to fight. At the heart of the series, Omega has instilled a sense of hope and certainty that things would improve.
Spoiler warning: The story contains details from the series finale of The Bad Batch.
This season alone, Omega and Crosshair had to bust out of Imperial lock up and reunite with Hunter and Wrecker, the team adopted a lurca hound named Batcher, joined forces with Rex and Echo, and ultimately returned to Mount Tantiss in the hopes of rescuing the other clones — and kids — who were trapped there.
“I think a key Omega trait is her certainty,” Ang says. When Omega hears the alarm bells sounding from inside the windowless Tantiss vault, she has no doubts her squad has found her. “She just knows. And I think that's the special bond that she has with Clone Force 99. They don't leave anyone behind.”
Bringing the Batch to life
After years of virtual recording sessions over Zoom, Baker and Ang visited Lucasfilm headquarters earlier this year to say goodbye to the Batch in style, with a special fan event to launch the final season. Seated side by side, they looked back on the journey and the optimistic and satisfying conclusion for their characters.
“It's really been wonderful watching Michelle bring Omega to life,” Baker says. As the first female clone to be introduced amid the massive clone army, and one that was still a child at the end of the war, Omega shifted the way we saw Clone Force 99 as much as she changed the way the individual members saw themselves. “Ultimately, Omega powers this story,” Baker says. “She is the moral compass, the center, and the push that moves the story forward and even navigates it. And [Michelle] has done such a beautiful job with it.”
Ang has had no shortage of kind words for her co-star over the years as well, as Baker served as a seasoned mentor for her as she first navigated voice acting in the role. “I feel very lucky,” Ang says. “Not only to have a talented co-star, but also I feel like casting got it right. Dee and I both share the idea of morality being important to each of our individual characters, to the series, and also to us as humans. That is really kind of the heart of both the series and of us as people.”
“It’s a really unique experience to be involved with a show that's fun, it’s an adventure, but it's also about things that are important and things that resonate with people deeply,” Baker adds. “It’s a great, interesting story with really interesting characters.”
“And they can be wrong!” Ang chimes in. “That's what I really love about Hunter and Crosshair. Just watching these two opposing personalities have to sort of face each other, find commonality, and put aside some of their preconceptions. It's really cool that these two characters are able, in Season 3, to address the fact that that they have differing viewpoints and that they both have felt wronged by the other in some circumstances, but then they're able to build on that and move past it for their greater sort of connection and family. And what I love about Omega is how she facilitates that.”
“Sometimes with a team or a group of friends or even with family, things have to be worked out,” Baker adds. “Ultimately, you end up still together and still on the same mission, but you've learned something along the way.” The episode’s penultimate scene finds the surviving members of the squad home safe on Pabu, ready to begin the next chapter in their lives. But it’s not quite the end to their story.
A final moment
Taking a page from Star Wars Rebels and Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which both incorporated an epilogue to give fans a hint at the future of their favorite characters from the series, the final scene flashes forward in time to find a grizzled Hunter and a grown-up Omega saying goodbye.
“The Bad Batch has a spectacular finish, as you would expect from Star Wars, but it has a particularly beautiful and affecting epilogue,” Baker says. “It's really a beautiful moment that plays out.”
The final recording session was an emotional last day for the assembled cast and crew, saying goodbye to each other and the characters they had helped to create and shepherd through a tumultuous story. For Omega to come out the other side resilient and ready to continue the fight was deeply affecting for Ang, who used something closer to her normal voice for the final lines of dialogue.
“That epilogue really hit me in the feels,” Ang says. But it was the perfect way to send off her character. “This idea of Omega starting a new chapter that she's so ready for, that she feels compelled and drawn to, that everything has been leading up to, has resonance for me. This whole experience was so new for me. Working with the Star Wars family, working as a voice actor, doing things remotely, holding space with [Dee] when we get to do Celebrations and conventions. And now, having this character realized and grown up, I feel like my personal journey has mirrored Omega's in some way.”
Baker was just glad to know that his characters survived. “It was a bit of a relief to jump ahead in time and to see ‘Okay, everyone's okay. We're still here. We're all right. Good.’” Baker says. The peace they fought so hard to accomplish seems to have given Clone Force 99 a life on Pabu for years to come. But amid that happy ending, Baker is also happy to see Omega take her first steps into the larger world on her own. “What really inevitably has to happen is the child needs to step out into the world her own person and to do what she has to do,” Baker says. Through the series, Omega evolves from a naïve child to an experienced and valued member of the team, a big sister who learns every plan by heart so she can help her brothers, who are more like father figures given their sped-up aging. “If you can call the Bad Batch, you know, the Dad Batch…I think everybody has learned something along the way,” Baker says. “The good news is that Omega makes it out and she makes it on her own. Off she goes. Dad’s left back with the dog, and you've got the satisfaction of the memories that you've forged together and [the knowledge] that she has become her own person. What more could a parent want?”
