Review by C.J. Bunce
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew has now wrapped its eight episodes on Disney+. For all the speculation, questions, and curiosity about why this series had such different objectives and ideas, the end result was a completely worthwhile outing. The original film in 1977 targeted a ten-year-old audience, and oddly enough the series seemed like the first live-action spin-off and sequel to follow suit in 45 years. For preteens the show was a chance to watch something that could connect with young adventure seekers. For all but the youngest viewers, it gave the rest of us a dose of nostalgia not just for Star Wars throwbacks and Easter eggs, but for the kid adventure genre. And by tapping Robert Louis Stevenson’s timeless Treasure Island for its framework, it followed George Lucas similarly tapping Akira Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress for his first epic space fantasy.
The series is easy to sum up, but unlike Star Wars Rebels and Ahsoka, the implications and potential for further storytelling for its heroes is slight. At Attin is a planet that was once a mint, literally making the money for the Old Republic. Like those secrets that fizzled out from the prequels of Count Dooku setting up plans that never have really come to light since, this great mint was a secret that survived, becoming a legend among space pirates and others. It was even a secret to its inhabitants, so when a group of kids find an abandoned spacecraft they lift and jettison Star Trek Voyager-style way too far away, they learn their home is the stuff of legends. And of treasure in good pirate treasure style. Instead of Voyager’s seven seasons, the kids get only one season to get home, and they make it, only by getting hooked by Long John Silver on the way, in the form of Jude Law’s character Jod. Space pirates have been part of Star Wars as far back as 1977 and 1978 when the comic books continued telling stories after the movie. The only question to ask is “what took so long?”
Did the series stick the landing? The finale disappointed. Who was Jude Law’s not-a-Jedi of many names? All we know is he was a Padawan of a female Jedi around the time when Order 66 was issued in the prequels. Jod is a dastardly villain straight out of 1930s movie serials, but this is a kids’ show so he’s presented with kid gloves–but that only goes so far. He threatens the kids and their parents and seems ready, willing, and able to kill anyone for money. Everyone and anyone is expendable. That’s a pirate. That’s Long John Silver.
But a bigger disappointment lies outside the series’ content. It’s likely most people watch Disney+ via its tier with commercials. Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is the worst series ever at splicing commercials. Even in the streaming era, stories need a breath between scenes. Those simply didn’t line up with the Disney+ commercials, and nearly every key moment of drama and action was ruined by a mid-thought or mid-sentence breakaway. Disney should require its executives to watch this series with commercials–I bet they’d never let this happen again. Disney makes enough money off its properties that it shouldn’t even need this tier. It’s like going to a Disney theme park: That’s an expensive endeavor by any measure, so you spend your coins and show up with your family only to arrive and see that guests with even more money can cut ahead of you in lines with special passes. Walt Disney may have appreciated the business opportunity back when he started the enterprise, but you have to think he might have frowned at cutting into the fun of his creations for this kind of thing. We all know it’s a money grab, but the unartful cutaways really had a negative impact on the ability to watch any single episode and stay interested (especially for kids). Just try a binge of the series–it’s difficult to enjoy because of the commercials. As for the commercials themselves, they are also in no way tuned for the target audience. The commercial for pre-prepped meals delivered to your home with a mini-Star Wars poster as a bonus? Laughable.
But let’s not rate the book based on the bent edge from the shipping company. The design influences in Skeleton Crew may be the most Star Wars-y of any spin-off series yet, while not solely relying on what came before. The art and design people expanded the look and arena for telling Star Wars stories and it worked. The Midcentury Modern and late 1970s influences were only the beginning. The homages to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, The Explorers, Stand By Me, and yes, The Goonies provided a story even the naysayers can’t gripe about. And it doesn’t have a single character that drags down the plot–a problem every live-action Star Wars series so far has been plagued with (like the Karns in Andor and Dr. Pershing in The Mandalorian).
What else worked? The kids were real. Ravi Cabot-Conyers plays Wim, a boy who is failing at school and yearns for adventure. On career day he’s the only one who wants to be a Jedi like kids on Earth might want to be an astronaut. Dear Santa’s Robert Timothy Smith plays his pal Neel, who looks like keyboardist Max Rebo in Return of the Jedi–but the creators say he’s not the same species. The big coming of age story component is a discussion of their career goals in the classroom and an impending important test. When Wim sleeps in, it sets off a chain of events where he misses the test and ends up outside the principal’s office, next to a cocky girl.
That girl is the crafty Fern, a liar who gets her way more often than not, played by Ryan Kiera Armstrong. When the rest of the kids are in class, she’s found zooming along on speeder bikes with Kyriana Kratter’s cyborg character, known only as K.B. K.B. is an update to The Goonies’ young inventor Data–she sometimes wears a Geordi LaForge-inspired visor, and is the character the quickest to use technology to get out of a jam. In the second episode they meet Smee–actually a droid called SM-33–voiced to scalawag pirate-droid perfection by Nick Frost. Frost may have created the best voice work since James Earl Jones for a Star Wars actor not seen on the screen.
The designs, the spaceships–especially in the opening scene–CGI and practical visual effects, and throwbacks to aliens from the Mos Eisley cantina–Star Wars’ original pirate denizens–and fashions that reflect the style of space pirates Han Solo and Lando Calrissian only add to the vibe. More than any series yet, this is the most like the two “Star Wars Story” movies: Solo and Rogue One. Does this show have the most aliens since the original trilogy? It feels like it.
As I noted in my review of the first two episodes, more than the look or story, composer Michael Giacchino tugs on nostalgia–from pirate and adventure movies–and created something special. It may not have a hummable theme like we got from John Williams, but it’s a superb score for a TV show.
This isn’t The Mandalorian or The Book of Boba Fett, but it is as good in its own way, and it arrives as an improvement in Star Wars storytelling over the other series, especially Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and The Acolyte. It’s not perfect but going back to George Lucas’s method of using a classic for its framework worked successfully again. It’s exciting a book, its plot, and characters from the 1880s holds up so well as adapted for the genre today. It’s nice for fans that Christopher Ford and Jon Watts figured that out. Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is worth watching. Its eight episodes are all streaming now on Disney+.
