Back in the second season of “Clone Wars,” we were introduced to a creature called the Zillo Beast. The Zillo Beast was, in its first appearance, very much a stand-in for Godzilla. At the time, the Old Republic was testing a new weapon on the planet Malastare that looked very much like a nuclear bomb. It was from a hole in the ground and this explosion that the Zillo Beast emerged, growing rapidly and unstoppable. Its hide repelled lightsabers and no weapon the Republic had could defeat it, but eventually, they were able to take it down. The episode that followed similarly featured a send-up of “King Kong,” with the Zillo Beast being inadvertently unleashed on Coruscant and climbing the Senate Building as though it were the Empire State Building.
That episode ends with the Zillo Beast subdued, taken down by the combined might of the Republic and the Jedi. But secretly, Palpatine orders his science team to clone the creature and study it. He wants the fruits of its incredible physiology weaponized for himself and the Sith.
“Clone Wars” ultimately left that subplot hanging for “The Bad Batch” to pick up in the season 2 episode “Metamorphosis.” In that case, though, the creature’s appearance mostly amounted to a cameo, unlike its return in “Flash Strike.”