Star Wars: The Clone Wars saw Asajj Ventress as the animated series’ antagonist, voiced by Nika Futterman. It took no time for the character to become a fan favorite which is why her “end” in the 2015 novel, Star Wars: Dark Disciple, left the fandom in shock as they grieved their favorite ex-Sith. Now, with the return of The Bad Batch, fans will finally get to see more of Ventress.
The Bad Batch recently returned to the screens with its third and final season, and it has brought a ton of surprises along with it. One of these surprises was when Asajj Ventress unexpectedly showed up in the series’ trailer, sending fans into a frenzy. Take a look at what The Bad Batch actor Dee Bradley Baker has to say about the return of Ventress.
The Bad Batch’s Dee Bradley Baker Talks about Asajj Ventress’ Return
Dee Bradley Baker is a one-man army as he voices all five members of the Bad Batch, a.k.a., Clone Force 99. Not only did he voice the 5 main characters of the show, but he also gave his voice to some other clones in the series, including Captain Rex, Commander Cody, and more. Clearly, Baker knows The Bad Batch the best.
Therefore, when Baker hyped up the addition of Nika Futterman’s Asajj Ventress, we knew the return was going to be epic! During an interview with The Mary Sue, Baker opened up about Ventress’ return to the Star Wars franchise, stating,
“I was particularly excited and happy to see Ventress return. I’m not sure how well she would work with the Bad Batch. She’s a bit of a lone wolf, to put not too fine a point on it. But what a great character to come back and to see.”
While Ventress seemingly met her demise in Star Wars: Dark Disciple, it also set up her resurrection through the magick of the Nightsisters of Dathomir, which has managed to bring back the dead before on multiple occasions. Needless to say, her return in The Bad Batch is going to be absolutely jaw-dropping!
Nika Futterman Contributed to Ventress’ Story in The Bad Batch
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, executive producers of the animated series talked about the return of Ventress and just how excited they were when they realized they could go down this path for the show. The show’s head writer, Jennifer Corbett, stated,
“We’re just such big fans of that character that when the opportunity came up, we were like, ‘We can do this? Great.’ She’s fantastic. Any time we can have someone with such a unique perspective on the galaxy versus our group of guys and Omega, who have a very different experience, it’s just gold. We really wanted to mine that.”
‘Gold’ just might be the right word to describe this! Revealing further, supervising director Brad Rau stated that they went back and forth with Futterman to come up with the best possible arc for Ventress.
“Nika Futterman, who voices Ventress, she’s so cool…In the booth, she knows this character so well. So, we would ask her questions, and she would ask us questions. We would kind of go back and forth. It’s really wild: The way that we record the show, we rely on the collaboration of our cast in a big way, especially a legacy character like that.”
It’s truly commendable that the creators of the show take time to discuss what the cast wants for their characters. After all, everyone being on the same page makes the project run as smoothly as it can and gives the best possible end result.
You can stream Star Wars: The Bad Batch on Disney+.
