An Executive Producer on The Bad Batch, Athena Portillo has a long and illustrious history with Lucasfilm Animation and as we prepare to kick off the third and final season of the show she sits down with StarWars.com to discuss the show, the characters and her own journey through the Star Wars galaxy.
Lucas, of course, created Clone Force 99, although the elite team of clone troopers was to be introduced into an episode of The Clone Wars that was originally shelved mid-production during the original run of the series. When the series returned a decade later for one final season, the four-episode arc introducing Hunter, Wrecker, Tech, and Crosshair was resurrected. That opened the door for Clone Force 99 to star in a series of their own.
“Dave Filoni loved the idea of going in depth into telling the story of each clone being unique and having special abilities as well as introducing Omega who became a key part in keeping the Bad Batch together,” Portillo recalls. The series has changed the way she views the clone troopers. “It is a story worth telling in that it’s about family. I love how Omega is the big sister to the Batch, playing the role of mediator, instituting reason, logic, balance, camaraderie, and is essentially the motivator to instigating missions for the good of the galaxy.”
