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Season Review: Star Wars: Skeleton Crew

randazzojj123

Welcome back to the blog readers. As you guys may have been able to deduce, Star Wars on Disney+ has not been hitting like I wanted it to. While I liked Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022) and Ahsoka (2023-) a bit more than other people, I liked Andor (2022-25) a bit less and the third season (2023) of The Mandalorian (2019-) and The Acolyte (2024) were not up to par at all. When I heard about this series, I got kind of excited because for one, I love Jude Law. But another reason I got excited is because a coming-of-age story in the vein of The Goonies (1985) has never been done in Star Wars before. With my partial excitement for this series, would I be able to have an enjoyable Star Wars experience for the first time in four years? Stick around to find out.


Star Wars: Skeleton Crew was created for television by Christopher Ford and Jon Watts, based on Star Wars by George Lucas. Ford and Watts handled most of the writing, with Myung Joh Wesner contributing to the scripts of two episodes. The series features direction from Watts, David Lowery, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (the Daniels), Jake Schreier, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Lee Isaac Chung. The series stars Jude Law, Ravi Cabot-Conyers, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Kyriana Kratter, and the voices of Robert Timothy Smith and Nick Frost. Featured co-stars include Tunde Adebimpe, Kerry Condon, Alia Shawkat, Hala Finley, Mathieu Kassovitz, and Kelly Macdonald. In the series, four children from the legendary planet At Attin make a discovery on their planet that leads to them getting lost in space, and they befriend a Force-user on an adventure to return home.


NOTE: I will be using spoilers for my thoughts, do DO NOT read ahead if you have not seen the series. And for obvious reasons, I will not be talking about the performances of any of the child actors in this series.

 

Like I already mentioned, Star Wars is in a bit of a murky place right now. The only things we know of that are coming are Andor's (2022-25) second season (2025) and The Mandalorian & Grogu (2026). So it suffices to say that with not many confirmed projects on the horizon (I desperately want to see James Mangold's film about the dawn of the Jedi), Star Wars needed an absolute win with Skeleton Crew to get me somewhat hyped about these coming projects. And I have to say that I am very happy that I loved this series as much as I did. I may never have seen The Goonies, but I felt that vibe through and through. There was so much charisma and childish heart (in the right way) and I thought Jude Law was having more fun than he ever has.


I may not be a connoisseur in the art of Jude Law performances, but the one I really have seen him in (Captain Marvel (2019)) was the case of an actor doing something outside of their wheelhouse. When I heard he was going to be a part of this series, I was both excited and hesitant because since I did not see the two films he was Oscar nominated for (The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) and Cold Mountain (2003)), I did not know if he could carry the range required for a series like this. But not only did this guy ooze charisma as Jod Na Nawood/Captain Silvo/Crimson Jack/whatever he's calling himself today, he nailed this role in a way I never expected him to. His performance is two-faceted, and I am going to talk about his performance in two different halves. The first half of the performance we see from him is as the man named Jod Na Nawood that befriends our four children. There is a certain confidence to this version of the character that seems almost childlike and charismatic. He really does make you believe that he is a good person with a bit of a shady past. And up until the switch-up near the midway point of the episode, he gets you hook, line, and sinker. When it happens and we get to see who he really is (which is Captain Silvo), that is where I think he relishes in this role and blends that same charisma with the right level of madness. Knowing this is who he really is and Jod is the act he was putting on only makes me love this character even more. And Law gets to unleash in the final two episodes with a childlike fury not seen since Biff Tannen in Back to the Future (1985-90). I do also appreciate the decision to not kill him off because it leaves the door open to possibly explore new stories with him, like how he was a victim of Order 66.


There are two major elements to the story that I want to discuss about this series, and I am going to talk about them separately even though they intersect each other by the end of the series. The first element of the story that I want to talk about is the planet of At Attin itself. When we first start the series, we get no inklings that anything may be wrong with this planet, but we do instantly have some questions about the nature of this planet. Some of the questions that we have include:

  • What exactly is the "Great Work" that characters like Wendle and Fara are talking about?

  • What is the deal with the "Supervisor" that literally nobody has seen him or knows anything about him?

  • Why is the planet sealed off with a "barrier" that punishes people who cross it and what exactly are they protecting themselves against?

And as the series goes on and we follow our characters in their galaxy-spanning adventure, we learn a few answers about At Attin but are presented with more questions such as:

  • Why are the credits used on At Attin considered valuable?

  • What turned the planet into a pirate legend that everyone is after?

  • Why does SM-33 not remember anything about the planet that him and his captain literally crash on?

As we get through the final four episodes, we get some answers about the planet, learning that it is one of the "Jewels of the Old Republic" along with sister planet At Achrann (that our children find themselves on in an episode). We also learn that the reason the planet has been sealed is because their mint that can print out infinite numbers of credits is the treasure that everybody has been trying to get. I did not touch on this in my review of the finale, but I am a bit upset we did not get some major questions answered. We never found out what the "Great Work" was or why the Supervisor is a massive artificial intelligence system, which are questions I hope somehow get answered in a second season. This in no way takes away from how much I loved this series and how much I desperately want to see these characters again.


The second aspect of the story that I want to talk about involves the adventure that the kids wind up going on. When we meet our four protagonists, we learn that they are just four kids trying to do their best to fit in in a world where they are required to work on behalf of the leadership. When the four begin their adventure and get on board the Onyx Cinder, the four begin to question everything that they have been taught, and I think that is a brilliant story mechanic, especially with what is going on today. When the kids meet with Kh'ymm the owl-like creature, this is really when they begin questioning their reality. But another aspect of the growth of the characters that I love is how they wind up getting closer as the episodes roll on. When the series starts, it is very clearly Wim and Neel against KB and Fern, and the two groups do not like each other in the slightest. But as the adventure happens and they are forced to grow up real fast, you see these kids becoming inseparable and I love that aspect. Multiple times you see Wim trying to cheer Fern up and the two becoming really close, and I also absolutely appreciate how the kids are written to be like kids and not adults writing for kids. Chris Ford and Jon Watts really understand the Amblin-style they are writing in because that era is when these two most likely grew up in, and it is wonderful to see someone who understands that era being able to take us into that era.


In conclusion, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is a great look at a different side of Star Wars that we have never seen before that gives us everything we could want from its Amblin-styled structure. Thank you all for reading, and I will see you for the next post.

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