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:: An ongoing episodic story of fan-fic set after Episode VI Return of the Jedi, and inspired by George Lucas' historical draft concepts ::
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| January 2025 |
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Reviewing 'Skeleton Crew'
31st January 2025 |
Through December 2024 and January 2025 eight episodes of the latest TV series 'Skeleton Crew' aired. Promoted as a "Goonies meets Star Wars" it certainly lived up to its name. Four children of At Attin escape the mundanity of school life by accidentally stowing away on a pirate ship that, piloted by a droid-pirate, blasts them off-world and into adventure : desperate to return home, they ally themselves with a jailbird fugitive who turns out to be a disgraced pirate captain and erstwhile Jedi padawan, who thinks only of plunder. This captain, Jod Na Nawood, and played by British actor Jude Law, leads them across various worlds until they find the means of returning home... only to discover that, not only is their home an Old Republic 'Mint' and deliberately hidden from the rest of the galaxy under an artificially induced gaseous nebulae, but it's re-appearance now whets the appetite of Nawood and his accompanying pirate crew !
Overall, it was light and fun and easy-going, and 'ticked all its boxes' as a kids show, or an in-franchise light entertainment for all ages and starring kids. It would be churlish and unfair of me to criticise it, but, as a Star Wars fan, I do have criticisms. I found insubstantial plotting of certain scenes - near inconsequential stuff happens that barely moves the characters from A to B, when they could have easily achieved their aims (threat of a local war, requiring the children to be trained as soldiers ?!), or had a more interesting and directly relevant and fulfilling bridging adventure - and narrative conveniences to justify certain actions (a meticulous pirate code is often quoted to accommodate situations, but then appears to be circumvented or dismissed later on !) ; this, I recognise, is borne out of my SW fanfiction where I now expect tightly crafted story-telling and rationalised in-world logic, with plots and sub-plots expicitly moving the overall story forward.
I also found I struggled, perhaps unfairly or unnecessarily, with the time settings : passing references to "Alderaan" and "the War" would place the immediate story in the New Republic timeframe, yet the plot conceits of the world being hidden, plus those inhabitants referring to the "Old Republic", would put the Coinage Mint and its procedures in the past.... at least twenty years, if not more.... because of the confusion over 'Old Republic', 'High Republic', and 'Republic', and the lack of any title card or character exposition from the show itself, and, possibly a visual 'Imperial' (pill motif) influence in the design style of the At Attin central computer headquarters, the comprehension of the time-frame for the hero characters is blurry - are they from a world that's been removed from the galaxy for a hundred years or a thousand years ? Reference is made to outside Emissaries visiting the Mint to ship-out coinage, but has that been happening in the interim, and if not, why hasn't that been questioned, and what of the consequence of an interrupted production line with no disembarkation point ?
Furthermore, there seemed to me unanswered questions, or a lack of situational clarity, with much material remaining with the writers and not making it to the screen : more and more it's becoming obvious that Disney imposes a thirty to forty minute eight-episode limit per season (with Tony Gilroy's Andor being the only exception), with the creative challenge of crafting a consistent and meaningful story within that limit ; it can be the case that restrictions can promote creativity, and a tighter creativity at that, but too many times we have seen 'filler' episodes or 'flabby' material that could surely have been re-worked into improved content, and 'Skeleton Crew' had moments of this (the third series of 'The Mandalorian' was a particularly painful victim of this).
As an example, apparently a short scene was filmed revealing that Jod as a young Force-sensitive child had been discovered by a Jedi Master and partly trained, before the Master was killed (presumably in the Order 66 aftermath) and Jod fled into a life of rough living. The writers found that the scene could not fit with the flow of the show in the final edit, but I'd argue that such a scene, well-placed or not, would have added much-needed depth and information to the character. As it is, we get a few lines of dialogue from Jod, which is probably sufficient, but, with possible 'filler' episodes, a visual cue would have been welcome !
In addition, this coinage factory world of At Attin, perpetually working hard whilst hidden away with very little or no contact with the outside Galaxy, also had six other 'sister' worlds, possibly even directly mirroring each other ; I believe they were also hidden from sight, but we 'easily' visit one of them, which has been devastated by a war (either a local civil war, or by an external force), and, with the episode plot not really advancing, the hero children discover further clues and circumstance that allow them to continue with their journey home. But very little information is provided for this tantalising concept that there was a set of planets deliberately hidden by someone/something, and for some purpose. I fear these are all 'cool' concepts but as soon as they are presented within an existing 'universe', then they require some logical explanation for it to assimilate within the known lore. Oh, and there was a "1139" reference, which was puzzling, because we'd be expecting a "1138" one instead !!! Was that a mistake or a deliberate irony ?
Overall, 'Skeleton Crew' was fun... but I found certain episodes weaker than others, and plots and characters that seemed flimsy and insubstantial. I would say that the show would have benefitted from more clarity and perhaps some different scene set-ups (that more successfully move the characters from A to B), as well as either more episodes, or longer durations to the eight episodes.
The obvious comparison is with the recent 'The Acolyte', which was also 'restricted' to eight episodes of similar half-hour durations, but though it had poor direction and execution, it more explicitly and fundamentally fitted into the existing wider lore (of the movies), and had so much potential to explore not only Sith and Dark Side lore, but also specific character and event histories. For this reason alone, I would find it a shame if the ideas in 'The Acolyte' weren't explored further in some (visual) format and those in 'Skeleton Crew' were promoted simply because the latter might have been a more well-received kid-friendly show.
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| Nathaniel Reed, 31st January 2025 |
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