Early in Disney Plus’ new series Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, a group of precocious kids wander onto a dilapidated ship that blasts them beyond the shield encompassing their planet into space, where they’re able to see actual stars for the very first time. It’s a rollicking bit of action that gives you a sense of the Goonies-meets-E.T. vibes showrunners Jon Watts and Christopher Ford are clearly shooting for. But the moment also feels like Skeleton Crew making an unsubtle statement about how far away Star Wars has drifted from its roots as a trilogy of films meant to speak to children.
The Star Wars franchise’s growth over the past five decades transformed it into a multimedia outfit so sprawling and focused on recapturing the magic of the original films that it has sometimes felt like Lucasfilm lost sight of who its target audience is. The studio’s desire to appeal to aging fans of the first trilogy gave us years of films that refused to break free of the Skywalker Saga’s narrative trappings. Series like The Clone Wars and Rebels proved that Star Wars could still enchant new generations of young fans by telling stories about people like them who just so happened to get wrapped up in epic space dramas. But rather than infusing that energy into all of its Disney-era projects, the franchise has seemed much more inclined to silo it off so as not to distract from its forays into sci-fi Westerns and politically charged thrillers.
The concept of living in a hermetically sealed bubble features largely in Skeleton Crew’s first couple of episodes, as it introduces you to its quartet of younglings whose dreams for adventure unexpectedly become their new reality. The show doesn’t have all that much to say about where it fits into the larger Star Wars universe or how it’s responding to the franchise’s evolution into an unwieldy morass of never-ending stories. But if it did, it probably wouldn’t be anywhere near as charming.
Image: Disney Plus / Lucasfilm Ltd.
Set after the events of Return of the Jedi and concurrently with other Disney Plus series like The Mandalorian and Ahsoka, Skeleton Crew centers young Jedi fan Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers) and his elephantine buddy Neel (Robert Timothy Smith). Like all of the children growing up on At Attin — a planet that looks like a hyper-manicured suburbia where droids drive hovering school buses — Wim and Neel know that their parents intend for them to become productive members of society. They’re supposed to spend their time studying all of the different bureaucratic jobs they could take to contribute to At Attin’s Great Work. But the boys would much rather spend their time roleplaying as the heroic Jedi they’ve read about in storybooks.
Much in the same way that Wim’s dreams of becoming a magical hero cause friction with his civil servant father Wendle (Tunde Adebimpe), hoverbike racer Fern’s (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) need for speed strains her relationship with her politician mother Fara (Kerry Condon). Fara doesn’t know that her daughter sneaks off with her best friend KB (Kyriana Kratter) to scavenge parts whenever a piece of their futuristic bicycle / scooter craps out on them. But Fara can’t shake the feeling that Fern’s drifting further away from her every time she ventures out into the world. It doesn’t take long for Wim’s constant daydreaming and Fern’s rebelliousness to land them both in At Attin’s answer to the principal’s office, where they’re reminded of what’s expected of them as the planet’s next generation of desk workers. They’ve also got a very important test coming up that will determine exactly what kinds of paths they’re meant to follow into the future.
When the kids happen to find a mysterious hatch buried in a forbidden zone outside of their neighborhood, though, they can’t stop themselves from breaking in to figure out what it is. And by the time they realize that it’s a ship inhabited by skeletons and rat-infested droid SM-33 (Nick Frost), they don’t know how to stop it from jumping into hyperspace.
Whereas the most recent trilogy of Star Wars films and some of Disney Plus’ shows have felt overly fixated on appealing to older fans’ nostalgia for the characters they grew up with, Skeleton Crew is more focused on what it would actually mean to be a kid shaped by stories about the Jedi and Sith. Part of the kids’ relatable charm is that they’re just regular people, rather than Chosen Ones™ around whom larger-than-life drama always seems to be unfolding. They all feel like kids who are really trying to figure out how to embody the personalities of classic adventurers — Armstrong in particular stands out as the series’ answer to a Han Solo.
There’s an endearing sense of whimsy to the way Skeleton Crew brings its young heroes together on a ship that feels equal parts rickety haunted house and sunken pirate ship. But the show quickly turns that feeling of wonder on its head by reminding you that these kids are lost in space and have no idea how to get home safely.
Even as the series introduces shady Force-user Jod Na Nawood (Jude Law), it’s clear that Skeleton Crew means for its younglings to be its driving force. The show could easily pivot away from its coming-of-age beats as it ventures deeper into the Star Wars universe, but it feels like the creative team here understands the potential the crew’s more personal stories have to resonate with kids. Though a big-name crossover / cameo seems all but inevitable given Disney Plus’ track record with past series, it’ll take a lot more than a CGI Luke to put a damper on Skeleton Crew’s fun.
Skeleton Crew’s first two episodes are now streaming on Disney Plus, with new episodes dropping every Tuesday until January 14th.
