Star Wars Skeleton Crew Made Me Care About Star Wars Again
Finally a new Star Wars product I can relate to!
In one of the opening scenes in George Lucas’ masterpiece Star Wars (maybe you’ve heard of it), Luke Skywalker, after whining about power converters, looks beyond the horizon of two suns in the sky. We see a moment of Luke taking in the scenery of the planet Tatooine, where he resides, as John Williams masterful score swells. This scene is one of the best sequences in any Star Wars movie in my opinion. There’s no real action, no big character revelation like the ultimate villain is Luke’s father- but it’s a moment that helped ground George Lucas’ space epic. We were following through the coming of age story of Luke and how he had to grapple with his newfound responsibilities and heritage. The original Star Wars trilogy is one of the most technically groundbreaking films in cinema history, but the technology is grounded by a human and relatable story.
This aspect of Star Wars is what has gotten lost in translation over time. As Star Wars became the biggest franchise to happen in pop culture history, the fandom grew and grew. Theories about future films and concepts for different arcs in the Star Wars universe started to arise and all of them focused more on ‘world building’ or ‘plot development’ over actual themes that make movies so interesting to me. George Lucas developed Star Wars out of a love of Akira Kurosawa samurai epics, most notably the classic Seven Samurai, a film about seven samurai coming together to defend a poor village from a fascist regime. Star Wars in its original state is about the same concept, it’s a group of rebels attacking the empire who want to control the entire galaxy. It’s a lot more broad than Kurosawa, but it’s still politically minded. The last person who understood that Star Wars about more than the sum of its parts was Rian Johnston, who’s film The Last Jedi was about rejecting tradition and paving the way for a new type of revolution. This was also commenting on Star Wars in general, let’s give the audience something they haven’t theorized yet, something bold and new. Audiences rejected and revolted against The Last Jedi, which led to director J.J. Abrams making the final film in the trilogy Rise of Skywalker, which is a film that exists just to retcon every decision that Johnsons film made, making a movie critics loathed and audiences shrugged at.
After the release of Rise of Skywalker, I lost interest in new Star Wars properties entirely. The streaming shows on Disney Plus all felt very familiar. They were just throwing in references the sweaty fans of Star Wars wanted to see without really challenging them in any way. The soul of George Lucas’ beautiful trilogy stripped away. I heard about Skeleton Crew, sold as a Goonies or Treasure Island take on the Star Wars universe and it immediately peaked my interest. Then I heard some of my favorite directors working today; including David Lowery, director of The Green Knight, The Daniels, directors of Everything Everywhere All At Once and Lee Issac Chung, director of Minari, were attached to the project. I had to see what led them to work on a Disney Plus streaming show based on Star Wars. This one had to be different.
The show stars a boy named Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers) who aspires for more than his suburban life, he dreams of being a Jedi. One day him and his friend Neel (Robert Smith) and two other kids who stumble onto their discovery, KB (Kyriana Kratter) and Fern (Ryan Armstrong) all get lost in space after discovering the ruins of a spaceship. Together, the four must travel the galaxy to find their way back home.
To get the obvious comparisons out of the way, Skeleton Crew shares a lot of similar DNA with films and shows in the kids on bike sub-genre. There’s elements of Goonies, season one of Stranger Things, Super 8 and Time Bandits. So in that regard, Skeleton Crew as a piece of storytelling feels inherently nostalgic but also familiar. However, a kids on bike narrative taking place in the Star Wars universe gives the show a new identity. It helps ground Star Wars again and make it relatable. The stakes in this show are lesser then the other shows where the threat of the universe is in the hands of our heroes. This show harkens back to how we saw Luke Skywalker at the start of A New Hope- it gives us a glimpse of the normal working class in the Star Wars universe. I find this refreshing, instead of seeing heroes and villains spout out needless exposition about the world and politics of the universe, we follow two kids who want to go on adventures and worry about rather they will pass or fail their test at school the next day. To me, this is a lot more investing because I feel grounded with these characters already, which will lead me to care about them even more when the stakes start to rise later in this series.
Some people are thrown off by seeing suburbia portrayed in the Star Wars Universe and I think it’s really cool. I love seeing how everyday working people in this galaxy go about their lives. How the stories we’ve seen unfold are told to them like history and legends. I love seeing Wim aspire to be a Jedi and not just immediately be granted powers by a higher calling. They are even able to ground his friend Neel, who is a talking blue space elephant creature similar to Max Reebo. He’s a sweet character akin to Rowley in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. Their friendship is sweet and poignant, but, you can tell Neel is happy with his life in suburbia with his mom, dad and siblings. Wim only has a father at home who is more concerned for his work than his sons happiness, so Wim desires to do more than be a cog in a machine.
The coming of age sensibilities here are so charming, but while the stakes might seem lower in this show the scale isn’t scaled down. Star Wars Skeleton Crew is one of the most gorgeous shows I’ve ever seen. This show is ready to be shown theatrically. The production design is stellar and the way they are able to incorporate suburbia and put a Star Wars twist to it is inspired. The practicality of the creatures created in the show and the way they are ingrained in the universe so organically feels germane to the universe without loosing its grounded touch. The color theory here is something I would also love to point out. So many films and shows now like to put a saturation filter on a shot to make it feel more grounded or realistic. I never understood or liked this trend at all. As much as I enjoy the Wicked movie that recently came out, that is one thing that stood out to me. Make more movies look like technicolor again, have movies be bright and vibrant in its hues. We are watching fantastical fiction after all! Skeleton Crew understands this and I was consistently in awe by its shot composition and use of light and color. It’s gorgeous to look at.
We only have the first two episodes of Skeleton Crew to watch, but if the rest of the show is as good and even improves upon the first two episodes, I’m happy to say that there’s a Star Wars product out again that I really enjoy! Skeleton Crew is so much fun. While the show is formulaic in plotting, it is also engrossing and a nice breath of fresh air for the Star Wars Universe that it’s needed for years. I hope in future episodes it starts to become even more subversive and poignant. I’m invested to see what happens next!
