There have been so many underwhelming Star Wars TV series in recent years (The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka, The Acolyte) that it’s borderline astounding to discover that the franchise’s latest small-screen outing, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, is the best thing Lucasfilm has produced since The Mandalorian.
Basically The Goonies in space, Jon Watts and Christopher Ford’s eight-episode show, premiering Dec. 2 on Disney+, is a zippy and charming odyssey involving a group of kids who find themselves traversing the galaxy alongside a roguish pirate eager to acquire a mythic treasure. With a collection of assured directors, a cast of fine young actors, and Jude Law as the material’s untrustworthy swashbuckler, it’s a family affair which captures some of that old far, far away magic.
On the planet At Attin, Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers) dreams of having a grand adventure like the ones involving Jedis that he reads about on his tablet. His fondness for lightsaber battles is shared by his best friend Neel (Robert Timothy Smith), who has an elephant noggin, a trio of younger siblings, and a do-gooder attitude that’s only partially shared by Wim, whose head is in the clouds far more frequently than in books.
This concerns his dad Wendle (Tunde Adebimpe), a systems coordinator who’s always at his job and leaves credits for his son to get lunch. Wendle expects Wim to follow in his footsteps and get a job working as an analyst, an administrator, or another civil service gig that contributes to the “Great Work” which helps keep the Republic peaceful and strong.
Those positions are determined by young students’ performance on the Assessment test, but Wim—who plays with action figures and wants bedtime stories, the latter of which prompts his dad to ask, “Aren’t you getting a little bit old for that?”—has other things on his mind. Chief among them are Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) and her visor-wearing techie compatriot KB (Kyriana Kratter), who race around town on a hoverbike that’s a far cooler mode of transportation than the trams he and Neel take to school.
At Attin resembles a Star Wars variation on the California neighborhood that E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial’s Elliott called home, and its characters are intergalactic versions of children from various Amblin productions. Watts and Ford imagine their protagonists as likable and relatable dreamers and troublemakers who, as with their compatriots on Earth, are torn between duty to their parents, friends and communities, and allegiance to their own adolescent desires.
Oversleeping for the big test, Wim tries to take a shortcut to school through the woods and lands in a ravine from which he can’t easily escape. While stranded, he locates a concealed hatch that, to him, looks like the entrance to a lost Jedi temple. Though his dad doesn’t believe him, Fern does, and in fact attempts to lay claim to it later that afternoon, thus initiating a standoff between her (and KB) and Wim (and Neel).
Inside, it’s a decrepit and scary space covered in cobwebs and dust, and populated by a dead droid and even deader human skeletons. When they get the power on, they’re shocked to learn that it’s actually a starship, and before they can exit, it blasts off and passes through the Barrier that encases At Attin and which, protocols state, should never be breached.
Hurtling through the vast unknown, the quartet is joined by resurrected droid SM-33 (voiced by Nick Frost), who sounds like a pirate (“Aye!”) and wants to know the whereabouts of his captain. To satisfy him, Fern assumes that position—much to Wim’s dismay—and they head to a distant, dangerous port in order to find someone who might be able to guide them back to At Attin, a planet that SM-33, strangely, doesn’t know.
There, they wind up in trouble with dastardly locals who covet Wim’s seemingly rare Republic credits and cackle upon hearing where the kids claim to hail from—because, it turns out, At Attin is a “lost planet of eternal treasure.” In a jail cell, they meet Jod Na Nawood (Jude Law), who uses Force powers to extricate them from confinement so he might depart the port on their starship—a deal that’s struck despite Fern and KB’s reservations about his reliability.
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew’s prologue tips viewers off to the fact that Jod Na Nawood is also known as Silvo and was a pirate leader until his gang mutinied and the wolf-headed Brutus (Fred Tatasciore) seized command. Jod is as interested in finding At Attin as Wim, Fern, KB, and Neel, albeit for greedier reasons, and they’re soon striking a wary alliance, with even SM-33 eyeing the pirate with intense skepticism.
Aided by big-time directors David Lowery, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Jake Schreier, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Lee Isaac Chung, Watts (who helms the first and last episodes) and Ford do a solid job establishing their protagonists’ dynamics amidst action-adventure mayhem, most of which is typified by jaunty staging and CGI that—in a departure from many prior Star Wars TV series—is consistently convincing, varied and, at least on At Attin, colorful and bright.
In its initial three installments (which were all that critics received ahead of the premiere), Star Wars: Skeleton Crew does nothing to tether itself to the larger franchise saga; rather, it merely contextualizes its tale as taking place between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens and then sets about telling a stand-alone fable. Of course, it’s possible that the show will eventually succumb to interconnectivitis. But as this affair’s early going suggests, that would be a mistake, since what’s most refreshing about its tale are its original characters and distinctive marriage of Lucas-style grandeur and Spielberg-ian wonder.
Best of all, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is a lighthearted blast thanks to its pint-sized stars and the wily Law, whose Jod—or is his name Silvo or, as later acquaintances suggest, Crimson Jack?—wields his charisma for shady and self-interested purposes. Together, they’re an affable bunch who fulfill the promise of the tantalizing final scene of The Last Jedi—and, in doing so, make this interstellar crusade worth joining.
