Star Wars returns to Disney+ with its third show of the year! Skeleton Crew brings audiences back to the turbulent New Republic era of the franchise, which has been dominating the streaming app since 2019. This is the 4th project set in the era (not counting extra seasons) and is created by Jon Watts, the director of the MCU Spider-Man movies. Whilst Ahsoka and The Mandalorian seem to deal with the threat at large in the Galaxy, Thrawn, Skeleton Crew hopes to offer us a smaller-scale adventure filled with pirates, treasure, and getting home.
Star Wars brought us a two episode premiere of Skeleton Crew, setting the scene for what hopes to be a thrilling, intriguing show. This review will cover the first two episodes and thoughts about the series so far.
Skeleton Crew bring viewers a different side to the New Republic era
Skeleton Crew revolves around four kids, Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers), Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), KB (Kyriana Kratter), and Neel (a very cute new alien played by Robert Timothy Smith) who all live on their suburban planet of At Attin, effectively an American suburbia but in space.
Wim, stuck in his boring day to day of school and homework, wishes to find something cool on his boring planet and blast off on an adventure. He gets his wish when he stumbles on an old spaceship buried underground. Along with his friend Neel and new frenemies Fern and KB, they explore the old ship, and kids being kids, begin to touch everything until it starts to take off, leaving their planet behind.
On board the ship is an old droid named SM-33 (wonderfully voiced by Nick Frost) who begins to help the kids after a few misunderstandings. The kids quickly realize they are lost in the galaxy and so end up at a pirate port to ask for help home. Noticing that nobody knows about the planet they call home, the kids realize they are more stuck than ever. Until they meet Jude Law’s mysterious character, Jod Na Nawood, who uses the Force in front of the kids, offering to help them get home if they help him escape the pirate port.
The best part of Skeleton Crew is that it blasts you in the face with every 80s kids adventure trope in the book, from Wim being late to school for a big test and finding himself lost on a shortcut, to Fern and KB attempting to race an older teenager in a speeder race. A lot of this feels very commonplace, but with the Star Wars twist and aliens in the mix, it quickly takes a great spin for the franchise and adds to the vibes of the show. It feels very Goonies at its core, with the ideas of lost treasures, old ships, and pirates. There was plenty I could enjoy and appreciate in these first two episodes, and they managed to keep the Star Wars feel of the show even with the rather Earth-like planet of At Attin, you still felt as if these kids live completely different but also similar to our lives.
The kids, by far, are among of the best parts of the show. Jon Watts has always accurately captured kids and teens, whether through the Spider-Man movies or other. The kids in Skeleton Crew are hilarious, genuine, and full of complicated characteristics and traits, and it is great to see them interacting with each other and the world.
Watts has previously stated that you can watch Skeleton Crew as your first Star Wars ever show. I believe he is right, as with the kids in the show being stuck on their one planet all their lives, heading out into the galaxy, and getting lost in it, allows both the characters and viewers at home to experience the Star Wars galaxy for the first time all over again.
Pirates and plenty of questions make this such an intriguing Star Wars show
Skeleton Crew wants you to know it’s going to be all about pirates even from the introduction. The New Republic may have defeated the Empire, but as we know from other shows and movies, it is plagued by other issues and enemies. It’s great to have pirates as villains for the whole show. We got a taste in the Mandalorian season 3, but in Skeleton Crew they seem to take a much larger role in the galaxy than first thought. We don’t see too much of them in the first episodes, but Brutus, a new pirate captain, quickly makes his mark on the show. With his wolf-like face and several menacing pistols, he is a force to be reckoned with and strikes fear into the kids when they come face to face with him. It will be great to see where else these pirates end up in the show and how they will affect the main plot.
Skeleton Crew offers an interesting subplot to the main one of getting home, in that no one the kids interact with actually knows where their home planet At Attin is. We quickly learn that many pirates think it is a myth or doesn’t exist, calling it the “lost planet of eternal treasure.” The kids also have Old Republic credits that they freely spend. It will be interesting to see where this plot goes and just how closed off At Attin is from the rest of the galaxy, especially when we learn there is a barrier preventing spaceships from entering the planet. This helps make the series that much more intriguing to me as a viewer.
We don’t get to see much of Jude Law’s character “Jod” in the first two episodes, but he is also another mystery that will be great to solve. The kids find him in the brig with them at the end of episode two, and he uses the force in front of them to help lift the keys to escape. This makes Wim especially believe that he is a Jedi. However, there is a lot of shiftiness around Jod and his actions, and some people are already speculating he is the masked pirate captain from the first part of the first episode. It will be interesting to see whether Jod turns out good or bad as the show goes on, but it seems like the kids trust him, which could go one of two ways for them and the show.
Final thoughts on the premiere of Skeleton Crew
Star Wars has needed a very lighthearted show like this for a while, it is easy to forget the franchise is mainly for children when so many have strong opinions about what this franchise should be. I have thoroughly enjoyed the first two episodes of Skeleton Crew, and the rest of the series shows a lot of promise if they can keep the kid’s adventure movie vibes alive and well!
Whilst I love the small scale of the show, I do hope for a few tidbits about the wider galaxy! Skeleton Crew is the perfect cozy little show for the holiday season, and it’s great to see such a joyous, fun show filled with heart in this ever-expansive franchise.
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