Where are the Star Wars Easter eggs in the fourth installment of The Bad Batch on Disney+? After a trip to Saleucami and a brush with a dragon, Clone Force 99 and the Havoc Marauder are looking to settle down and hide from the Empire in peace. Before then, they must make one more stop for repairs and supplies, but what should've been an uneventful restock quickly turns into a high-octane aerial chase when the group are assailed by a skilled bounty hunter.
Through Clone Force 99's trademark blend of skill and luck, the quartet safely escape with Omega, leaving behind a fearful hangar owner, a disgruntled bounty hunter, and a few dozen angry drivers in the skies of Pantora. The Bad Batch is becoming increasingly expansive, with each episode taking in an exotic new locale, and the Empire busily spreading their influence into the farthest reaches of the galaxy. As such, references to the wider world of Star Wars are in bountiful supply, continuing a Disney+ tradition started by The Mandalorian, and furthered by The Bad Batch's jam-packed opening episodes.
Recurring Easter eggs this week include Gonky, Clone Force 99's resident droid, and the striking wipe transitions that have become synonymous with Star Wars over the years. But there are also of plenty new nods fans will undoubtedly notice, this week incorporating prequel trilogy homages, carefully hidden creatures, and tie-ins to Star Wars' long history. Here are the Easter eggs from The Bad Batch's "Cornered."
Scrambling The Signature
Clone Force 99 have exactly that many problems, and being on the Empire's "most wanted" list is definitely one of them. While Hunter seems concerned, Tech remains unmoved, promising he can modify the Havoc Marauder's signature key to scramble the readout, thereby remaining undetected. In Star Wars Rebels, set not too far ahead of The Bad Batch, ships such as the Ghost use signature modulators when needing to go incognito. Tech's method could be an early version of modulation, or perhaps a workaround to stay stealthy without the necessary hardware.
Pantora
Clone Force 99 have chosen the previously unseen Idaflor as their overall destination, but the gang's temporary surrounds of Pantora are far more familiar. Not to be confused with the similarly named American metal band or the apocalyptic doom box, Pantora first appeared in The Clone Wars. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker were accompanied by the moon's officials while investigating disappearing clone troopers in season 1, before Count Dooku tried bringing Pantora under Separatist sway in season 3, only to be thwarted by Ahsoka Tano. Although the blue folk spotted around the moon bear a resemblance to Thrawn's race, the Chiss, they're actually Pantorans.
Aurebesh
Throughout The Bad Batch, you'll see plenty of unintelligible alien writing popping up on screens, in towns, and scrawled across walls. This unfamiliar language is known as Aurebesh, and translates directly from what we know as English. The written script debuted in Return of the Jedi, but only became usable thanks to the efforts of fans and Star Wars Legends canon. Aurebesh has been prominent throughout animated Star Wars releases, and deciphering it reveals plenty of unspoken information.
Raspar-6
When Clone Force 99 land at Pantora, they're soon greeted by a greedy hanger owner who promises to keep their whereabouts secret in exchange for extra credits... then promptly contacts the nearest bounty hangar. Credited as Raspar Six, this shady figure is a Sullustan, a species best known for giving us Rebel pilot Nien Nunb. While past Sullustans have generally been good guys in Star Wars, they're also well-versed in the art of business, which is perhaps where Raspar Six gets his negotiating skills. Digging deep into Easter egg territory, Raspar-6 was originally used as the name of a moon by George Lucas in a 1993 book.
Fennec Shand
The biggest takeaway from "Cornered" is the return of Fennec Shand, fresh from The Mandalorian. Voiced by original actress Ming-Na Wen, The Bad Batch finds a younger Shand operating as an elite bounty hunter, and her attempts to abduct Omega prove the character wasn't always the courageous, sharp-tongued sharpshooter that helped rescue Baby Yoda from the Empire.
Dentons
The Bad Batch must sell-off all non-essential gear in order to buy food, fuel and supplies for their trip to Idaflor, and Wrecker is distraught to learn this galactic garage sale includes their last pyro denton. Packing a fiery punch that belies their small size, denton explosives were first identified in The Force Awakens' visual dictionary as the charges used on Starkiller base by Han Solo and Chewbacca. No wonder Hunter wants nearly 2000 credits for one!
Vehicles On Pantora
The bustling, jam-packed skies of Pantora are like a poor man's Coruscant, full of fumes and flying traffic. Among the raft of vehicles roaring across the Pantoran skyline are the kind of speeder bikes and airspeeders Star Wars fans would've seen many times before, including models such as the ComfortRide Passenger and RGC-16 from The Clone Wars, and Revenge of the Sith's BARC Speeder. The police bikes are also similar in style to the Flitknot speeder driven by Count Dooku on Geonosis.
Tooka
When Hunter, Echo and Omega stroll through the brightly-lit streets of Pantora, the child spies two feline creatures sitting atop a cage nearby. On the left appears to be a Loth-Cat - a type of Tooka native to Lothal and seen regularly in The Clone Wars. To the right is another Tooka, but with brighter, more colorful fur.
Gran Shopkeeper
The surly shopkeeper who refuses to buy Hunter's bombs (but takes a strong liking to Echo) belongs to a species known as the Gran. The first of his kind to appear was Ree-Yees, one of Jabba the Hutt's palace pals in Return of the Jedi, but the Gran suddenly became far more prominent in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, most notably as one of Anakin's pod racer rivals. Identified by their trio of eyes, the shopkeeper's eye-wear is especially curious, clearly custom-built, but leaving one of the eyeballs exposed.
The Rogue One Stormtrooper Doll
While Hunter sells one of his closest friends to the Gran, Omega peeks around the store, coming across a doll made to resemble a clone trooper. The idea that children might play with trooper toys just as real-world kids have G.I. Joes and green army men is an intriguing one, but isn't original to The Bad Batch. In 2016's Rogue One, a young Jyn Erso was the proud owner of a similarly floppy stormtrooper doll, which she left behind as actual troopers assaulted her family home. The Rogue One doll represented how initial optimism for the Galactic Empire soon turned to fear, and the Bad Batch doll reiterates that same message, shown immediately after a parade welcoming the arrival of clone troopers to Pantora
Species On Pantora
Although Sullustan and Gran characters are afforded a spotlight in "Cornered," the streets of Pantora harbor various other famed Star Wars species in a less prominent capacity. A Rodian can be seen walking behind Hunter and the others, an Aqualish is obliviously driving the truck Omega and Fennec Shand land upon, and a Goatal bumps into the lost Omega, while Balnab and Bith also lurk.
Hello There!
Shortly before Omega runs off, she's distracted by a box full of cute animals. Spotting the beady-eyed creatures inside, Omega uses that classic Star Wars greeting, "hello there!" Famously uttered by Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequels, "hello there" became a meme on par with taking the high ground and slaughtering the younglings. The Bad Batch has already referenced the "guess I'm in charge now" meme from The Clone Wars, so Omega's Obi-Wan quote is unlikely to be a coincidence, but whether the line is a mere Easter egg, or denotes a deeper meaning, is yet to be seen. Omega clearly harbors some inner power, and linking her to Obi-Wan Kenobi may, at a stretch, further the widely-held theory that the child is Kamino's first Force-sensitive clone.
Voorpaks
Obi-Wan references aside, Omega's cute new friends are Star Wars Easter eggs in themselves. These bouncy little critters are known as voorpaks, and originated as part of Star Wars Legends, before being canonized through a mention in Solo: A Star Wars Story, where Qi'ra wore their fur as a fashion accessory. Animated voorpaks went on to appear regularly in the Star Wars Resistance series, but The Bad Batch is their first time being animated in the Clone Wars art style.
The Protocol Droid & Astromech Combo
A protocol and an astromech can't stop bickering... stop us if you've heard this one before. After being mistaken for a droid and bought by the Gran shopkeeper, Echo quickly acquaints himself with his new roommates. There's rusty C-3PO lookalike CG-67, Clink the LE droid, and two astromechs, not dissimilar to R2-D2, called 225 and DK-3. Perturbed by the arrival of Echo, CG-67 is flustered and panicky, but lacks the courage to do anything about it, whereas the other three are happy to get stuck in fixing the Havoc Marauder. The dynamic of these storeroom droids seems like an intentional reflection of the classic relationship between C-3PO and R2-D2, who showed much the same traits.
Droid Restraining Bolts
To break the aforementioned droids free of their assigned duties, Echo first must disable the restraining bolt attached to CG-67. Although The Bad Batch glosses over the scene quickly, restraining bolts have a long tradition in the annals of Star Wars history. These bolts of compliance are first referenced by Luke Skywalker in A New Hope, as he fixes up C-3PO and R2-D2. The iconic astromech cheekily gets his new master to remove the bolt, and promptly takes off to find Obi-Wan Kenobi, while Skywalker liberates Threepio shortly after (this scene is limited to the novelization only). Between the big screen and The Bad Batch, droids are far more interesting with these restrictive bolts taken off.
The Attack Of The Clones Chase Sequence
"Cornered" concludes with a high-flying city speeder chase between Hunter, Omega and Fennec Shand, with the various participants all swapping vehicles and dropping from great heights. The entire setup feels like a homage to the opening minutes of Attack of the Clones, where Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker chase an assassin across the traffic lanes of Coruscant. There's plenty of aerial gymnastics and clinging onto the backs of speeders, and both involve two heroes against a masked female bounty hunter who only shows her eyes. The Bad Batch inverts the original, however, since it's Fennec Shand doing the chasing, and the good guys trying to escape.