Star Wars: The Bad Batch Disney + Animated Show

[Asta]

I'm pretty sure this episode just canonized the origin of Jabba's Rancor and that they didn't give a flying **** what Wookieepedia said, lol.

The Wookieepedia articles quotes sources.

The name Pateesa is from Aftermath: Life Debt, a canon novel from 2016. It also apparently confirms he was male, which was recorded in Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know from 2015, which had a disclaimer that it drew mostly on Legends.

Another difference apart from the name and sex, is eye colour. Muchi had green eyes and Pateesa black. Then they may as well change eye colour when they change sex. lol

LUKE SKYWALKER IS THE COLDEST-HEARTED MURDERER in Star Wars. Not only does Luke kill thousands of people aboard the Death Star in A New Hope, but he also brutally rams a spiked door into the spine of a trapped rancor in the opening moments of Return of the Jedi. After that, Luke blows up a sail barge, presumably filled with servers, food workers, and other people who were catering Jabba the Hutt's party and had no ties to his crime syndicate.

I know. We're not supposed to think about Luke like this. He's the hero of Star Wars, and if you just don't think about all of Luke's (necessary?) killings, we'll all have way more fun. The only problem is that recent Star Wars stories aren't letting us forget about these darker moments in Luke's life. This brings us back to the rancor. In the latest episode of The Bad Batch, we get an entirely new backstory for this poor beast. And that added context makes Luke's most brutal murder 10 times more tragic. Spoilers ahead for The Bad Batch episode 5, "Rampage."

When the Bad Batchers head to the planet Ord Mantell (mentioned by Han Solo in Empire) they're looking for a Jedi informant from the Clone Wars named Cid. After meeting with Cid, they're set up with a job to rescue a child from some local slave traders. The Batchers take the job because they need the information Cid has to offer them: specifically the identity of the bounty hunter after them. (We already know it's Fennec Shand.)

A twist arrives about two-thirds of the way through the episode when "the child" they're rescuing turns out to be an adolescent rancor named Muchi. Eventually, we learn that Cid was hired by Jabba the Hutt, via Bib Fortuna, to bring Muchi back home, presumably to Tatooine.



IS MUCHI THE RANCOR FROM RETURN OF THE JEDI?

Okay, here's where things get weird. According to some canon sources, including the novel Aftermath: Life Debt, the rancor in Jabba's Palace was male and named Pateesa. This would suggest Muchi is not the same rancor from Return of the Jedi, which is confusing for those of us not prone to Googling the history of rancors. By introducing a teenage rancor - that belongs to Jabba the Hutt - roughly 20 years before the events of Return of the Jedi, The Bad Batch strongly suggests to any casual viewer that there's a connection between this rancor and the one Luke kills. Why bother connecting Muchi to Jabba the Hutt if we're not supposed to read into it?

It should be noted that canon novels have been slightly revised by onscreen Star Wars canon before. For example, Cobb Vanth first appeared in the 2015 novel Aftermath: Empire's End, but his backstory feels slightly different by the time we see him in The Mandalorian Season 2. The point is, onscreen canon tends to take precedence over what's in the books or comics. It's possible that Muchi's introduction in The Bad Batch is a subtle retcon of Pateesa.

WHY THE RANCOR DEATH IS NOW 10 TIMES MORE TRAGIC

Even if we're meant to think Muchi is not the same rancor from Return of the Jedi, the fact that she's meant to live with Jabba the Hutt is depressing. "Rampage" spends a good deal of time making us love and want the best for Muchi so it's tragic that, in all likelihood, things are not going to turn out well for her. Is Muchi the mother of the rancor from Return of the Jedi? A friend living in the same cage? Either way, two decades later, Luke comes in there and slaughters a rancor, so any warm feelings we have for Muchi are tainted by that knowledge.

A future episode of a Star Wars cartoon (or novel, or comic) could reveal that Muchi was eventually freed and was nowhere near Luke's rancor-killing in Return of the Jedi. But right now, it doesn't look that way. Even if we're dealing with unrelated rancors, Wrecker revealed a much more humane way to deal with them than Luke's strategy. (It's like how Din Djarin can talk to Tusken Raiders, instead of following the Skywalker path of murdering them as an easy out.)

Muchi's rescue is cute in the context of The Bad Batch. But in the overall story of Star Wars, it's unsettling. Interacting with the likes of Luke Skywalker and Jabba the Hutt, these rancors have terrible lives with grisly outcomes. Muchi would have been better off joining the Batchers.

https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/star-wars-bad-batch-rancor

 

[Khev]

The name Pateesa is from Aftermath: Life Debt, a canon novel from 2016.

Wait "Pateesa the male Rancor" is a CHUCK WENDIG concoction? Oh **** that. No really **** that.

"Muchi" it is then.

 

[Asta]

Wait "Pateesa the male Rancor" is a CHUCK WENDIG concoction? Oh **** that. No really **** that.

"Muchi" it is then.

Don't know him, and never read him, but you make him sound bad enough that he could've been the ghost writer for the The Sequel Trilogy. lol

 

[Khev]

Don't know him, and never read him

Count yourself lucky. Star Wars doesn't need his scum.

 

[jye4ever]

Wait "Pateesa the male Rancor" is a CHUCK WENDIG concoction? Oh **** that. No really **** that.

"Muchi" it is then.

They totally just gave us ROTJ Rancor no and ifs or buts lol

 

[ZE_501]

The Rancor has a name now?[...]

It has a name now.

 

[jye4ever]

 

[Asta]

They totally just gave us ROTJ Rancor no and ifs or buts lol

Jabba's rancor existed for 33 years as 'the creature', until it got a name and sex in 2016. Why would they overturn such recent canon so soon?

The Bad Batch writers were careful to avoid any such connection, making the point that this wasn't the same rancor in three separate ways: different name; different sex; different eye colour.

"Rampage", directed by Steward Lee and written by Tamara Becher-Wilkinson, takes great care to differentiate the rancor at the center of this week's shenanigans from the rancor who met his untimely fate at the end of Episode VI. For one, Muchi is Muchi, not "Pateesa," the name of the rancor who famously tries to make lunch out of young Skywalker roughly 18 or 19 years after the events of this episode. What's more, Pateesa is male while Muchi is female - a teenage female rancor who, yes, might be age-appropriate enough to be slotted into Pateesa's role as Luke's titanic adversary but is still a totally different rancor nonetheless. So there's no need for panic.

https://www.avclub.com/star-wars-the-bad-batch-raises-some-big-moral-question-1846992609

The Bad Batch's latest episode sees the team rescue a baby rancor for Jabba, but thankfully, it's not the one Luke killed in Return of the Jedi.

https://www.cbr.com/star-wars-bad-batch-muchi-not-rancor-return-jedi/

The Rancor we meet in Jabba's palace is named Pateesa. Obviously, he was a mighty titan who routinely gobbled the dopes who foolishly made pests of themselves against the Tatooine crime lord. We thought he was a unique specimen within Jabba's crew, but we now know he was not alone. There were others. Or at least one other: Muchi.

Don?t confuse her for Poochie, because Star Wars: The Bad Batch has most definitely not jumped the shark. Instead, the series continues to broaden what we know about the franchise, coloring in those edges and making Star Wars? canvas all the richer. In this franchise, every walk-on has a name and a history. What you see on first-pass will no doubt be stretched into an epic by the writers and artists who come after.

https://filmschoolrejects.com/the-bad-batch-episode-5/

 

[jye4ever]

Nope that’s his Rancor now

 

[Khev]

Nope that’s his Rancor now

Yeah. It'd be one thing if Muchi was a full grown Rancor that was revealed to be pregnant or something. But having her being barely bigger than a human 23 years before ROTJ? No way can she grow to full size and then give birth to a *new* Rancor which must then *also* grow to full size in time to eat Oola, lol. I think it's pretty clear that we just witnessed the canon origin of Jabba's ROTJ beast which definitely begs the question as to whether Bad Batch should be stricken from people's personal canons or not, lol.

 

[chrisstbh]

He could also just have more than one Rancor that he keeps elsewhere.

 

[jye4ever]

Yeah. It'd be one thing if Muchi was a full grown Rancor that was revealed to be pregnant or something. But having her being barely bigger than a human 23 years before ROTJ? No way can she grow to full size and then give birth to a *new* Rancor which must then *also* grow to full size in time to eat Oola, lol. I think it's pretty clear that we just witnessed the canon origin of Jabba's ROTJ beast which definitely begs the question as to whether Bad Batch should be stricken from people's personal canons or not, lol.

Omega freeing Muchi was the beginning of the end for Oola?s life and Malakili?s feelings lol

He could also just have more than one Rancor that he keeps elsewhere.

Nope just one sorry lol

 

[Khev]

Yay the SJW sisters are back.

 

[jye4ever]

Haven’t watched the new episode yet and it sounds like I won’t lol

 

[Khev]

They're tasked with retrieving Chompy the baby Space Slug, lol.

 

[guyver1]

How many more episodes left

 

[Asta]

The irony is that I thought the girls' episodes in TCW kicked The Bad Batch's sleep) into the long grass. The Batch only became interesting in their own show.

I was expecting a 13 year old Han to show up and befriend Omega, the way Star Wars often condenses the universe into a smaller inter-connected world - like Darth Vader building C-3PO.

But at least they didn't go for the low hanging fruit this time. Just the sisters instead.

 

[Khev]

Yeah I was glad that they didn't run into Han or Qi'ra but then almost wished they had after seeing who they did meet up with, lol.

 

[chrisstbh]

How many more episodes left

10 more.

 

[TheDucky]

Oh god the two SJW sisters from TCW are back.