I felt like the Bad Batch episodes of TCW could behave as a fairly decent episode zero of that show, since they slow down TCW’s important escalating rush towards its tragic conclusion. But they do feature some valuable Anakin/Padmé content that helps in its current placement. That said, I don’t think they’re as good a first episode as Bad Batch’s episode one, in terms of setting up the stakes and themes of that show, nor the state of the galaxy which it delves more deeply into.
Definitely have a point there about the intros. After reviewing TCW episodes of them it’s just… rather boring as a movie opener. Very generic battle scenarios, no drama, no tension, whereas TBB pilot episode is intense. I will probably reformat TCW episodes into an abridged Bad Batch focused prequel episode 0 as optional viewing like you suggested, but I don’t think it will work as part of a full Bad Batch film.
To give an idea of how I’m going through and cleaning up the content in terms of basic storytelling elements, here’s the changelist for the Aftermath episode.
- Cut some of Captain Grey and Kanan’s back and forth where they are either overly depressed or showing baffling confusion
- Cut the rolling snowball from Bad Batch’s debut scene, now they appear as though they ARE the wrecking ball mopping up the droid forces down the side of the mountain
- Cut battle droid tank commander’s “Huh? Hey, stop that!”
- Cut Tech throwing grenade to tank commander, doesn’t accomplish anything since the tanks are already falling off the cliff and I want to reduce as much battle droid nonsense as possible
- Cut battle droid, “Hey, what’s that?” to Tech’s sticky grenade on its chest
- Cut a Wrecker, “yeAaAhHHH!”
- Cut Tech’s overly nerdy time explanation and Wrecker being a doofus not knowing how many days are in a galactic standard year. Now transitions with, “Kamino… How long’s it been?”
- Cut Wrecker’s, “Awwww man, what did we miss noooowww?”
- Cut Wrecker’s, “Ooooohhh, it iiiisssss just like you said!”
- Cut Wrecker’s, “We sure don’t!”
- Cut Wrecker’s, “You can say that again!” Filled the gap in the speech with a shot of Omega not on the balcony, so it’s more of a genuine reaction when Hunter notices her the first time, and then sees she’s soon gone.
- Cut Tech’s nerdy analysis of Omega’s age and species
- Cut Wrecker and Tech’s back and forth about him loving to blow things up
- Cut Wrecker forgetting who Omega was 5 minutes later
- Cut some of Tech and Wrecker’s confusion about Omega sitting with them. Replaced it with a shot of Tarkin watching the squad
- Cut some of Omega’s tossing her food up and down
- Cut Wrecker’s, “Oh, I like this kid!” It is an extremely unnatural pause in the conversation, and it makes his standing up to support Omega much more surprising and impactful
- Cut Clone Trooper’s, “That’s it!” and Wrecker’s, “Ohhhh yeaaahhhhh!” Keeping Wrecker as much of a strong, competent warrior as possible is really benefiting his character. He is actually intimidating instead of a total moron.
- Cut Wrecker’s WWE table jump
- Cut Wrecker’s, “You owe me two credits!”
- Cut Wrecker’s utter shock and awe at the medical droid saying he is genetically defective. They are all already well aware of that fact.
- Cut some of the Squad’s goofy comments about Echo’s condition
- Cut Wrecker talking about how much he enjoys food fights
- Cut Wrecker getting childishly excited about getting to be combat tested
- Cut Wrecker’s, “Come oooonnnnn, give us a real challenge.”
- Cut Wrecker’s whining about hating hand signals
- Cut Wrecker’s “Incoming!” and overly drawn out WWE tackle
- Cut Tech’s, “… not going anywhere.” So now it actually appears for a bit that he was legitimately injured in the battle instead of being a joke.
- Cut Wrecker’s, “Whoooaaaaa…!”
- Cut Tech and Wrecker’s back and forth about not liking being used as dummy droids. Now it appears as though Tarkin barges in, agreeing with Crosshair’s statement that they get shot all of the time and it’s no big deal.
- Cut Crosshair talking about how Wrecker cried when he saw the new Imperial armory
- Cut Wrecker’s, “Oh, I’ll make room for it!” Now it appears as though he just ignores Tech and loads up the equipment anyways.
- Cut the whole bit of everyone trying to calm Wrecker down because he is whining about how he hasn’t blown something up in days
- Cut Wrecker almost in tears about not getting to blow up droids
- Cut Wrecker not believing Tech about Omega
- Cut Echo and Wrecker not understanding Tech
- Cut AZ loooooving research assignments
- Trimmed AZ’s exaggerated scream
- Cut Wrecker sniffing the brig cell
- Cut Wrecker acting clueless about how they can get out
- Cut Tech, “Oh, why didn’t I think of it before?!”
- Cut the whole loud explanation of the cell escape. Now it seems like Tech begins to suggest an idea and Hunter picks up on it without having the redundant explanation to the audience.
- Cut Tech’s “ackshually” answer to Wrecker being too big
- Cut Wrecker spilling the beans on the entire plan to the prison guards
- Cut Wrecker, “Hey, friend!” before the punch.
- Cut Wrecker whining about not being able to find his stuffed animal
- Cut everything to do with Wrecker’s wound treatment on the ship. He truly acts like he is 6 years old and snuggles a stuffed animal. It’s horrible.
- Cut Wrecker talking about how tough he is.
- Cut Wrecker’s,”OhhHHhhh yeaAAhhh!” It’s pretty crazy how many times they make him say that…
Still working on integrating everything into a larger plot, but it at least gives me a much more usable short story to work with.