Star Wars Shows Keep Closing Old Holes and Opening New Ones

 In theory on Monday I talked about The Bad Batch, the latest Star Wars show that like The Clone Wars, Rebels, Resistance, and The Mandalorian is both a sequel to some stuff and a prequel to other stuff.

If you put them in order, The Clone Wars takes place between Episodes II and III.  The Bad Batch picks up after Episode III and before the start of Rebels.  Rebels begins about fifteen years after Episode III and about 5 years or so before Episode IV/Rogue One.  The Mandalorian takes place a few years after Episode VI and many years before Episode VII.  Resistance takes place right before and then during Episode VII and Episode VIII.  Got it?  No?  Good.

So really what each of these shows does is to fill in some of those blanks in the timeline between episodes and to a lesser extent to patch up some of the plot holes or other questionable things between movies.  In The Clone Wars it was obviously what happened during the Clone Wars that began in Episode II and ended in Episode III.  With Rebels it was to show how the Rebellion began to come together and also how the Empire went from the former Republic at the end of Episode III to the Galactic Empire of Episodes IV-VI.  The Mandalorian helps to fill in some of what happens after the fall of the Empire in Episode VI and before the rise of the First Order in Episode VII.  And Resistance tried to fill in the rise of the First Order in Episode VII.

The Bad Batch comes in then to help fill in the transition from the Republic to the Empire.  Most importantly it helps to explain why the Empire didn't use the clone troopers the Republic had grown and trained in their war.  And also it helps to explain why no one, like the Rebellion for instance, could go and clone their own army to fight the Empire by hiring the Kaminoans.

The only problem is the same as these other shows:  for all the holes they fill in, they open up new ones.  The Bad Batch were introduced during the Disney+ season of Clone Wars as basically mutants with special powers.  The question then was:  what happened to them?  Why weren't they in anything else?  The practical answer is because they didn't exist yet, but fans don't like practical answers.  So now we have a show to help try to tell us that.

The show then introduces its own characters like the young female clone Omega and the evil Admiral Rampart.  So now we have to wonder what became of them.  Why aren't they in anything?  Which should be answered whenever the show folds, but in the meantime we don't really know.

But really there are only two answers for most of these: 

1. They died
2. They went far away somewhere

The Clone Wars was the first show that started with a theatrical movie.  That movie introduced Ahsoka Tano, the young padawan of Anakin Skywalker.  It also introduced Ventress, the student of the evil Count Dooku.  Through the seasons of the show those characters had whole arcs where they both wound up dropping out of their respective orders and going out on their own.  I forget what happened to Ventress, or maybe they just never said.

Meanwhile, an adult Ahsoka appeared in Rebels as the mysterious "Fulcrum" who provided help to the Rebels.  She died in a fight with Vader until Ezra went back in time to save her.  She and Sabine Wren at the end of that show were going to find where Ezra went.  Then a live action version appeared on season 2 of The Mandalorian, where she was searching for Grand Admiral Thrawn.  So she wasn't in Episode III because she had left the Jedi by then.  And then she wasn't in Episodes IV-VI because she was looking for Ezra or whatever.  And she's not in Episodes VII-IX because she's out looking for Thrawn.  In each case she went far away somewhere.

The Clone Wars and Rebels also brought Darth Maul back to life before ultimately killing him.  He also had a small cameo in Solo, which in continuity is before Rebels.  So he wasn't in Episode II because he hadn't regained his sanity yet from wherever he wound up.  And he wasn't in Episode III because he was on the run after his former master destroyed his criminal enterprise (or whatever) and then he was dead by Episode IV.

Clone Commander Rex is introduced in Clone Wars and then shows up again in The Bad Batch, where he's left the Republic Empire and an old version of him shows up in Rebels.  I forget if he actually died in that, but even if he didn't, he was pretty old, so it would make sense he wouldn't show up in Episodes IV-IX.

Hera Syndulla originated in Rebels but a young version of her was included in The Bad Batch.  The final episode of Rebels says she was in the Battle of Endor and maybe some future "Special Edition" will show the Ghost there.  It was part of the fleet in Episode IX.

Though not a TV show, Rogue One infamously killed off its entire main cast by the end of the movie.  That way there could be no question why they weren't in Episodes IV-IX.

Anyway, the problem with all these new properties is that while they help to clear up some stuff about the timeline, whenever they introduce a new character, they then have to figure out how to explain why that character(s) isn't in the movies.  And as I said more often than not that means killing them off or just having them somewhere else or otherwise not involved in anything.

Right now The Mandalorian has that problem since Grogu ("The Child") went off with Luke Skywalker.  So you have to wonder if Grogu was killed by Ben Solo in his rebellion or if he had already gone somewhere else.  And if the latter, why wasn't he in Episodes VII-IX?

Marvel has had the same problem as the Cinematic Universe has grown and it's only getting worse.  Because you might wonder why Captain Marvel didn't fight Loki and the alien invasion in The Avengers or Ultron in Avengers 2?  And now with The Eternals, you have to wonder why they didn't appear in any of the Avengers movies?  The obvious answer again is they didn't exist then but there will have to be some explanation for the fans, which will probably be that they're far away doing other shit.

So far the Marvel TV shows take place after the movies so they don't really open up questions like that, but that might be a different story down the road.  The good thing for them is they can do the whole "Multiverse" thing and just reset the continuity when they want; Star Wars doesn't really have that luxury.

As they add new shows and eventually movies, it's only going to add even more characters who will then have to be disposed of somehow.  Of course they could always do sequels instead of continuing to stuff things into the movie timeline or go way back in time like the books are with this "High Republic" thing.  But then again, seeing how much Disney fucked up the sequels maybe it's not such a good idea.

Maybe they should have listened to Princess Leia in Episode IV when she told Tarkin the more the Empire tightened its grip the more star systems would slip through its fingers.  In the same way, the more they try to shore up the timeline and fill in continuity, the more it keeps slipping through their fingers.