While The Bad Batch takes the audience from the perils of The Clone Wars era into the heart of the Galactic Empire, that doesn’t mean that the spinoff series is completely ignoring the nostalgia for the Star Wars prequels. One of the chief praises that The Clone Wars received during its initial airing was how the show redeemed, fleshed out, and examined some elements of the prequel trilogy that weren’t initially as well-received. The latest episode of The Bad Batch brings back podracing to the Star Wars franchise. The podracing sequence in The Phantom Menace may be the only universally beloved aspect of the film, even for devout critics of the prequels. It also inspired a fascinating subsection of Star Wars gaming that contributed greatly to the film’s legacy.
The Bad Batch offers just a brief glimpse of the racing world in the latest installment, “Faster.” The geeky mechanical genius Tech (Dee Bradley Baker) gets a rare chance to get into the center of the action when he agrees to participate in a race. Podracing wasn’t featured in The Clone Wars or Rebels, so it was fun to see it brought to life once more. While the new canon hasn’t featured as many podracing-centric stories quite yet, it was frequently an element in older “Legends” content. The brief online comic Podracing Tales explored the backstories of a few of the different racers from the Boonta Eve Classic in The Phantom Menace, and Anakin Skywalker even got back in the cockpit in the young adult book Jedi Quest: The Dangerous Games.
However, the most significant impact that the podracing sequence left on the Star Wars franchise was in the gaming world. While Star Wars gaming had advanced significantly in the 1990s thanks to the popularity of Shadows of the Empire and the Dark Forces franchise, the release of the first installment in the prequel trilogy offered a ton of new environments and set pieces that were waiting to be explored. Despite the divisive response to the film itself, Lucasfilm doubled down on bringing fans as many different ways of podracing as possible.
‘The Phantom Menace’ Tie-Ins
The podracing sequence was featured prominently in many of the initial games that directly followed the plot of The Phantom Menace. The official game version of the film released for Playstation and Windows featured a sequence set during the Boonta Eve Classic, but instead of playing during the actual podrace, the player controls Qui-Gon Jinn as he eludes bounty hunters amidst the arena.
The mainstay of the initial The Phantom Menace gaming output that some fans might still be able to play is the Racer Arcade game developed by AM5 and LucasArts, which served as the franchise’s final collaboration with SEGA following the Trilogy Arcade and Battle Pod games. Distributed to many arcades, the Racer Arcade system included the Boonta Eve Classic, as well as new tracks set in the Tatooine Bantha Tracks, Etti IV Smuggler's Cove, and the Malastare Pixelito Challenge. Outside a young Anakin Skywalker, players could also choose the other racers Ben Quadinaros, Gasgano and Sebulba.
However, podracing certainly played a role in what became a gaming franchise in its own right: LEGO Star Wars. The first LEGO Star Wars game was released in 2005, and featured six levels for each film in the prequel trilogy. The “Mos Espa Podrace” level in The Phantom Menace segment allowed players to control Anakin’s pod during the sequence; it was a clever tie-in to what had become one of the most popular LEGO playsets sold at the time. This level was bundled within LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga, and later revamped for last year’s LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga.
The ‘Episode I’ Racer Series
Star Wars: Episode I Racer is often cited as one of the greatest Star Wars video games of all-time. According to The Guinness Book of World Records, it is the highest-selling sci-fi racing game of all-time, with an estimated 3.12 million sales worldwide. Similar to the Arcade Game, Episode I Racer features all the central tracks from the film, as well as several new planets and locations. Tournament, Free Race, and Time Attack were available in single-player mode, but a multiplayer option was added for additional platforms.
Initially, the game was released on Microsoft Windows, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Color, Mac OS, and Dreamcast, but a PlayStation version was never developed. Nostalgia for the game inspired a recent revamp, as it became available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in 2000. One of the game’s novelties was that unlike other tie-ins, it actually featured voice actors Jake Lloyd and Lewis MacLeod reprising their roles as Anakin and Sebulba, respectively. In addition to the racers featured in the film, including the fan-favorite Ben Quadrinaros, the game introduced several new characters with their own fictional backstories.
Racer’s Revenge
The game was followed by the 2002 sequel Racer Revenge, which was developed for PlayStation 2 (although it was available for purchase to be added on the PlayStation 3 and 4 platforms as well). Unlike its predecessor, which repeated the story of The Phantom Menace, Racer Revenge had a completely new story. Eight years after the events of The Phantom Menace, Sebulba seeks revenge on the young force-sensitive boy that bested him in the Boonta Eve Classic.
The single-player mode included Single Event, Practice, and Time Trial options, and unlike its predecessor, it featured a permanent death feature that prevented competitors from responding. While Racer’s Revenge increased the number of playable species and podracer options, it wasn’t as tactile and easily navigable as its predecessor, and thus became far less popular.
However, there is a strong sense of nostalgia for the entirety of Star Wars’ podracing-centric games, and the fun sequence in The Bad Batch serves as an homage of sorts to the memories that fans have of racing each other in the sci-fi competition. The sequence in The Phantom Menace still holds up by today’s standards of CGI, and anyone who saw the 2012 re-release in 3D on the big screen can guarantee that it’s just as exhilarating as ever. Hopefully, we’ll see new podracing stories in the Star Wars franchise again in the near future.