The recently released trailer for Season 3 of Star Wars: The Bad Batch sees the return of Asajj Ventress after she was killed in the 2016 novel, Dark Disciple.
Wrecker in a scene from “STAR WARS: THE BAD BATCH”, season 3 exclusively on Disney+. ©.
The trailer, shown below, sees Ventress return saying, “I wasn’t planning on killing you, but you’re making it very tempting.” She’s then shown igniting a yellow lightsaber.
From there, it’s revealed she’s no longer bald and has grown her hair out.
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Accompanying the trailer, Lucasfilm shared a quote from the show’s supervising director Brad Rau claiming despite Ventress being alive after her demise in Star Wars: Dark Disciple, the show will somehow “align with the events of Star Wars: Dark Disciple.
Rau told StarWars.com, “We love Asajj Ventress. She’s a character that we’ve been wanting to tell more stories about. We don’t want to spoil anything, but want fans to know that any new storytelling with Ventress will align with the events of Star Wars: Dark Disciple.”
Star Wars: Dark Disciple (2016), Random House Worlds
In Star Wars: Dark Disciple, author Christie Golden made it abundantly clear that Ventress was dead. Golden writes, “Ventress had been put into stasis shortly after her death and had been prepared respectfully at the Temple.”
Later she wrote, “Asajj Ventress’s face was tranquil. Her hair had been washed and combed. Her arms, their injuries repaired, had been folded over her midsection. They still bore the dark tracings of the Force lightning that had claimed her life, but the marks were oddly beautiful, spidery, and graceful.”
Asajj Ventress in Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2011), Lucasfilm
However, while the book makes clear that Ventress was killed while fighting Count Dooku, it did leave her fate open-ended.
After Quinlan Vos and Obi-Wan Kenobi returned Ventress’ body to Dathomir, Vos laid her to rest in the waters there. After her body was fully submerged, Golden wrote, “Tendrils of mist began to rise, green and glowing. Green, like the Dathomiri magicks Ventress had spoken of, green, like the Water of Life.”
Asajj Ventress undergoes a Nightsister ritual in Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2011), Lucasfilm
Ventress was originally supposed to return in the animated series Star Wars Resistance.
In an interview with the Friends of the Force podcast, the series executive producer and head writer Brandon Auman shared, “We had Mika Grey, who, originally, early on, was actually Asajj Ventress in the storyline.”
He added, “That was going to be an older version of Asajj Ventress. And that was [Dave] Filoni’s idea. And we were even gonna have a scene where Asajj Ventress takes on Kylo Ren. That was something that we had discussed very early on.”
Auman continued, “And then eventually Filoni — Filoni’s notorious for sort of like changing his mind — and then down the line as we were progressing and the story had Asajj. You know, I wrote the story. And then he was like, ‘You know what? If Asajj comes in then it’s just going to be like that’s all the fans are going to care about. They’re only going to want Asajj, Asajj, Asajj. They’re not going to care about any of the other characters.”
Emperor Palpatine in a scene from “STAR WARS: THE BAD BATCH”, season 3 exclusively on Disney+. © 2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & ™. All Rights Reserved.
It’s interesting that Dave Filoni seemingly prevented Ventress from returning in Star Wars Resistance and now she’s showing up in The Bad Batch. It leads one to believe that things are not going so well at Lucasfilm that they are constantly dredging up member berries in order to try and get people to tune into their shows.
The tactic seems to be failing enormously as of late. The Ahsoka finale, which was chock full of Star Wars Rebels and Star Wars: The Clone Wars memberberies had less total hours watched compared to Andor.
As anticipated #Ahsoka‘s season finale came in under #Andor‘s by 99Mil Mins.#Disney #DisneyPlus #StarWars@wdwpro1 @ValliantRenegad @KinelRyan @JonasJCampbell @Nerdrotics @GeeksGamersCom @BoundingComics pic.twitter.com/v6bpGMda3k
— MAC (@NowItsKnown) November 2, 2023
What do you make of Ventress returning to Star Wars: The Bad Batch?
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‘You know what? If Asajj comes in then it’s just going to be like that’s all the fans are going to care about. They’re only going to want Asajj, Asajj, Asajj. They’re not going to care about any of the other characters.”
That’s what they supposedly said about Luke Skywalker when they were writing The Force Awakens…