'Star Wars: Skeleton Crew' Scoundrels Follow The Law Of Adventure
Creators Jon Watts and Christopher Ford, and star Jude Law talk about making the new Disney+ series
2024 has begun its final two months, which means there’s less than one month until the Star Wars: Skeleton Crew television series premieres on Disney+ December 3, and it has occurred to me that I have a bit of catching up to do. Two trailers have been released, both labeled as “Official Trailer” and a lot of discussion had since the first images were released.
The first trailer was released at D23 in August, and it sees the young heroes in a rather sterile school yearning for adventure and a more exciting life, not just leaving it to the imagination. They come upon what they believe is a lost Jedi temple, and fall into a ship. The droids and pirates they encounter are punctuated by the Jedi that breaks them out of a jail cell, Jod Na Nawood played by Jude Law. The four young adventurers are Wim (played by Ravi Cabot-Conyers), Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), KB (Kyriana Kratter), Neel (Robert Timothy Smith), with droid SM-33 (voiced by Nick Frost), the decrepit first mate of the Onyx Cinder. Tunde Adebimpe and Kerry Condon also star. The kids will get lost in a strange and dangerous galaxy and meeting unlikely allies and enemies as they find their way home.
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is created by director Jon Watts, who directed the first three Spider-Man films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and writer Christopher Ford, who also serve as the showrunners. In addition to Watts, the episodes were directed by David Lowery, the Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), Jake Schreier, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Lee Isaac Chung. Ford and Watts wrote all but two episodes that were written by Myung Joh Wesner. Ford and Watts executive produce with Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, Kathleen Kennedy, and Colin Wilson, along with co-executive producers Chris Buongiorno, Karen Gilchrist, Carrie Beck and producers Susan McNamara and John Bartnicki. "At its core it's a story about wanting to explore a world that's bigger than your own," Watts said. "I think that's something that people can relate to, no matter how old you are." Ford added "Setting a new group of characters off on their first adventure is fascinating, especially getting to see how they will grow over time."
In September, Entertainment Weekly unveiled photos and formally introduced the pirates. The series takes place after the fall of the second Death Star, and before the rise of the First Order, just as The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and Ahsoka do, and the first character that solidifies such is Vane, played by Marti Matulis, who gave Din Djarin and Greef Karga such a hard time. Joining them is vaguely cyborg-esque Gunter, played by Jaleel White, so do that fast. There is also Brutus, voiced by Fred Tatasciore and played by Stephen Oyoung, Pax, played by Mike Estes, and Chaelt, played by Orange is the New Black's Dale Soules). “Pirates are talked about so much in Star Wars,” Ford notes. “People would call Han Solo a pirate and he'd be like, ‘How dare you?’” He also remarked how Filoni, who steered The Clone Wars and Rebels, and Favreau who steered The Mandalorian, were excited by the additional pirate play that they got to do with their shows. The series’s pirates and space exploration Watts has described as hitting the sweet spot between Star Wars and his beloved Monkey Island video game franchise published by LucasArts.
The pair also talked about how Filoni kept them in check as he became a big part of the franchise’s streaming footprint, ascending to Lucasfilm CCO and becoming their “goalkeeper”, Watts elaborating “He actually is a great hockey player, but he's also a figurative goalkeeper. We will come up with ideas of things that we like, and then he'll be like, ‘Actually, maybe it's this.’ Or, ‘Oh, we already did something like that somewhere else.’ And you always end up with a bunch of other episodes of Star Wars to go watch and things to go read, and it's good. You feel like you can safely explore things creatively without making some huge canonical mistake.”
Ford would add “And he gets both sides of that because he did that [mentoring under] George Lucas. So he gets that thing of, ‘I want to make a whole new kind of a Jedi,’ and then someone being like, ‘Okay, hold on. A lot of people have thought about this. Let's do this the right way.’ And it's so helpful.”
The second trailer, set to “Major Tom (Coming Home)” by Peter Schilling, emphasizes the curiosity, the troublemaking, the getting lost and the alliance with Nawood, but also that there’s going to be significant time spent back home as the worried parents figure out a way to get them back safely. After all, they’re not runaways. Law has also talked about his role as Nawood, having only said yes after several long conversations with Watts. “I don’t think I would have dived in willy-nilly,” Law says. “I wanted it to be right. I didn’t want to be the guy that dropped the ball on Star Wars.” Like many of us, Law grew up with this 45+-year old franchise and was excited by seeing how it all gets made. “It was a really interesting process,” Law says. “It’s technically complicated to get those things right — you’re dealing with animatronics and puppets and machines and huge, complicated worlds. I’m the guy that wants to see how the wizard does it.”
Eagerness comes through when he starts talking about the intricacies. “It all has to go through the Star Wars filter,” he says. “Like, there are no buttons in Star Wars — only ties. Buckles? Yes. Velcro? Yes. Although, I don’t think you ever see the Velcro.” Dissecting the cinematography, he remarks “There are certain shots they don’t allow you to do if you’re the director. You can’t pass through the glass of the spaceship; you have to stay on the outside or inside. I love that. You see the shot and go, ‘Oh, I’m in Star Wars.’”
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew premieres with two episodes on Disney+ on December 3, likely in the 9 PM timeslot these (American) prestige series have typically been getting since the primetime premiere practice began.
Sources: Deadline, Entertainment Weekly, Variety