Why Star Wars Keeps Bringing Back Saw Gerrera
Emily Bell Star Wars: The Bad Batch brings back Saw Gerrera, following appearances in The Clone Wars, Rebels, and Rogue One, and further shows his importance.
Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Star Wars: The Bad Batch episode 1, "Aftermath."
Saw Gerrera returns in Star Wars: The Bad Batch, but just why does Star Wars keep bringing the character back? Saw Gerrera made his debut in Star Wars: The Clone Wars season 5, episode 2, "A War on Two Fronts" as part of a group of insurgents. While he formed part of a multi-episode arc, there was little to suggest he'd go on to become a key recurring players across multiple mediums, with his story spanning decades in-universe.
Following on from The Clone Wars, Saw was adapted to the big screen for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in 2016, where he was played by Forest Whitaker. That a new movie was using a character from The Clone Wars was in itself an interesting and, at the time, somewhat surprising move, since this was before Disney truly mastered such interconnectivity with the likes of Ahsoka Tano and Bo-Katan Kryze in The Mandalorian. Gerrera was killed on Jedha in Rogue One, but not even death could stop him from coming back for more.
Saw's journey has continued thanks to appearances in the likes of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars Rebels. Most recently, he appears in Star Wars: The Bad Batch episode 1, "Aftermath," where he meets Clone Force 99. At this point, Gerrera is leading a militia to fight back against the rise of the Empire, a struggle he'll continue until his death. While Gerrera once seemed like a relatively inconsequential character in the grand scheme of things, the fact he keeps returning shows just how important he is, both within a galaxy far, far away and to audiences. In both cases, he is a very tangible face of the rebellion (in whatever form it may take), allowing for a degree of continuity across storylines, timelines, and mediums.
Indeed, because of the character being in Rogue One, then it lends even greater weight to Saw's subsequent appearances. It allows not only for there to feel like there's more of a connection between all of these projects, but it makes for an easy way to have a movie character appear in the animated video games and shows. On a story level, it also makes sense. While the galaxy is large, having Saw return helps to show just how much the odds were stacked against what would become the Rebel Alliance. This was not some huge uprising or groundswell of support, but a small band of fighters who paved the way for what Luke Skywalker et al would ultimately finish, and so Saw constantly returning adds to that sense of achievement.
Each of Saw's returns, crucially, serves both the narrative and the story. He is always fighting for what he believes in, even if he'll take that to extremes, and he's used to highlight that to other characters, be it Jyn Erso in Rogue One or Clone Force 99 in Star Wars: The Bad Batch. He hammers home, for other characters and for viewers, the importance of the fight, and by having him return, rather than a different character fill that role each time, it not only makes that seem more believable, but it also fleshes out a character who otherwise could've been a background figure, giving him a quite remarkable arc. Saw Gerrera is a ubiquitous figure across the gap from the end of the Clone Wars to just before the original trilogy - he is one of the select characters to appear in movies, animated shows, video games, comics, and books - but looking at how that adds to the story and gives the fledgling rebellion a face, it makes a lot of sense for him to keep coming back.
