When George Lucas decided to write Star Wars back in the 1970s and inadvertently change pop culture forever, his own words for describing such a motive were “[Giving young people an] honest, wholesome fantasy life… the romance, the adventure, and the fun that used to be in practically every movie.”
It’s in this way (and others) that Star Wars has lost its way. Even Andor, one of the greatest things to ever come out of the franchise, only did so because of its interest in being prestige television rather than a Star Wars show. This, however, doesn’t seem to be a problem faced by Skeleton Crew, especially if this new trailer is anything to go by.
Fans have long been buying into the sentiment that Skeleton Crew will be the result of using Star Wars ingredients in a Goonies recipe, and while such a description is pretty cliche at this point, it’s cliche for a reason. The tots present in Jon Watts’ eight-episode coming-of-age tale seem packed to the brim with prevailing curiosity as they drift through space, completely and utterly out of their depth.
The wider galaxy, of course, is no place for impressionable alien children, and it’s not until a Force-user who looks remarkably like Jude Law takes them under his wing that they begin to morph into the latest inductees of the Star Wars hero gallery.
Skeleton Crew stars Ravi Cabot-Conyers (Encanto), Ryan Kiera Armstrong (It Chapter Two, Black Widow), Kyriana Kratter, and Robert Timothy Smith as Wim, Fern, KB, and Neel, respectively, as four children who happen upon a decommissioned spaceship on their home planet that decides to reactivate and take off while they’re still inside. They’re recruited by one Jod Na Nawood (Law) after he rescues them from an unsavory run-in on a foreign planet, and the gang gears up for a rollicking adventure.
Other notable names among the cast include Kerry Condon, Fred Tatasciore, and Nick Frost, the latter of whom portrays SM 33, a droid who aids the team in their campaign.
Written and directed by showrunners Jon Watts and Christopher Ford, Skeleton Crew‘s writing team also consists of Myung Joh Wesner, while an all-star crew of directors also line the ranks, including Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert of Everything Everywhere All at Once fame, David Lowery (The Green Knight), Jake Schreier (Thunderbolts*), Bryce Dallas Howard (The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett), and Lee Isaac Chung (Twisters, Minari).
Most importantly, however, Skeleton Crew looks every bit as fun as its 47-year-old cinematic ancestor sought to be. Gutsy drama certainly has an important place in the Star Wars canon (Revenge of the Sith is a prime example), but many recent projects have made the mistake of falling back on the inherent cartoonishness of Star Wars when they realize that they can only stretch their dramatic chops so far.
With the Skeleton Crew‘s middle-school-aged protagonists, however, there’s an opportunity for the cartoonishness and the drama to naturally coalesce. Children, after all, have the privilege of undiluted amazement at everything they encounter. We’ll see for ourselves if such an opportunity is seized when Skeleton Crew premieres its first two episodes on Dec. 3 exclusively on Disney Plus.
