SPOILERS AHEAD!
The third and final season of Star Wars: The Bad Batch debuted on May 1, which brought home a well-known Star Wars trope. Offering all kinds of twists and turns that led to a happy ending, the show however featured some of the most dark and dangerous moments, through its course. But the one aspect that drew attention was the subtle head nod to George Lucas’ legacy.
Implementing one of the most iconic Star Wars tropes in Crosshair’s storyline in the season finale, Star Wars: The Bad Batch remade the famous Mark Hamill scene from the original films. Yes, we’re talking about the meaningful hand-loss scene that serves almost as a tradition in the Star Wars universe.
The Bad Batch Repeated the Famous Star Wars Storyline
The Disney+ animated television series, Star Wars: The Bad Batch, created by Dave Filoni, acts as a sequel to Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Focusing on the Clone Force 99 squad from the seven seasoned 2008 show, The Bad Batch follows the elite and experimental clones as they find their way into a rapidly changing galaxy in the immediate aftermath of the Clone War.
2021’s Star Wars: The Bad Batch recently dropped its third and final season, which was hailed by fans following its iconic ending, and plot twist. While the show highlighted the final adventures of Clone Force 99 and featured a thrilling moment of Omega being trapped at the Mount Tantiss lab, The Bad Batch majorly attracted people’s attention with Crosshair’s allegorical scene.
According to reports from ScreenRant, Star Wars: The Bad Batch continued George Lucas’ mythic tradition that initially began with the OG Star Wars movies. By the end of the season finale, the Disney+ show implemented the iconic Star Wars trope in Crosshair’s storyline, which showed one of the mysterious CX clone assassins, cutting off Crosshair’s hand in The Bad Batch season 3 ending.
Crosshair’s Loss of Limb Mirrored Mark Hamill’s Scene
Throughout the third season, Crosshair struggled with a tremor in his right hand, which appeared as a result of the trauma he endured while being experimented on at Mount Tantiss. While his hand became a major focus for his character, the limb was shockingly cut off in the season 3 ending of Star Wars: The Bad Batch.
Cutting off Crosshair’s hand repeats the Star Wars storyline, where characters like Mark Hamill‘s Luke Skywalker lose a hand. Although in the OG movies, this particular scene gets played out as a result of a lightsaber blow, Star Wars: The Bad Batch offered a significant plot twist to pay tribute to George Lucas’ legacy.
Previously, this particular tradition began with Luke Skywalker and continued with Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones. Losing a limb to a lightsaber initially featured in A New Hope, but Luke’s run-in with Darth Vader is what made it focused specifically on the hand. Even The Bad Batch focused on the same thing with Crosshair’s loss of limb.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch Flipped the Script With a Twist
Crosshair’s loss of limb certainly mirrored Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker scene from the Star Wars movies, but Star Wars: The Bad Batch seems to have added a subtle twist to it. While in the original Star Wars films after Luke lost his hand, he used the dark force of his pain to overcome his grave situation, in The Bad Batch Crosshair instead got better at shooting.
Although audiences were devastated to see Crosshair lose his dominant hand which aids him to shoot, people were later stunned when the series featured the character’s shot getting better after losing his shooting hand. While he previously wasn’t able to make the shot on CX-2’s ship to track Omega, Crosshair eventually made a stunning shot to free Omega from Dr. Hemlock in the finale.
Therefore, while Crosshair’s loss of a limb in The Bad Batch paid tribute to the usual iteration of the hand-loss trope in Star Wars, it came with a twist that depicted a more compelling story behind why it happened.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch is available on Disney+.
