Finally, some new meat on the old Star Wars bones?

Skeleton Crew brings back the serialization of George Lucas' inspirations, along with some actual different designs this time.

Something Old Something New?

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew begins with a sequence that, while visually stunning and clearly expensive, is utter cringe in the degree that it is, beat-for-beat, a copy of the opening of A New Hope, with pirates in place of the Empire. On the one hand, maybe this is deliberate trolling of the critics, as if to say, “You complain that Star Wars shows always give you the same old shit? Here, we're gonna shove that same old straight down your throat!” On the other, it could be a sarcastic shot at the online rage baiters. “Oh, you don't like women? Or new Black characters? Or different settings? You got it! Here's literally a scene that you already like, restaged, with all male characters, of course.”

I don't honestly know for a fact what genders all the aliens are. But I note with some amusement that the pirate leader, and presumably the big bad of the show, is a wolf-man, of the sort George Lucas hated in the cantina scene because the mask was an off-the-rack model, and promptly deleted in the Special Edition.

Mercifully, that's as far as the cringe goes – the only other major callbacks I noticed in the first three episodes were a cheeky nod to the Holiday Special that only people who've actually watched it will get (it's not Life Day!) and one alien species seen in “Captain Eo,” also by Lucasfilm, making a quick cameo. That is if we don't also count literal elephant boy Neel (Robert Timothy Smith), one of our new leads, as being the same species as Captain Eo's pal Hooter, which he very well could be, and in my headcanon, is until they say otherwise. (Lucasfilm has, however, officially denied he's the same species as Max Rebo.)

A Brief Overview

The rest of the first episode takes place on Planet Suburbia, which has an actual name that I'm not going to try to write down until I see an official spelling (a cursory Internet search as of this writing indicates it's elusive for now – something like At Atin). Our entry into this world is Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers), whom we meet playing with his own version of Star Wars toys, as he imagines himself as a Jedi. Side note: in a culture with space travel and hover bikes, the best they can do for action figures is metal miniatures? And it hasn't occurred to anyone to add plastic colored blades to toy lightsabers? Considering one of the characters is literally named KB, you'd expect their toy game to be on point. Or maybe Disney just wants to sell more metal miniatures at Galaxy's Edge.

Wim and Neel are best friends, but the latter is an obedient kid, while Wim gets regularly distracted from his chores by the typical daydreams of a Star Wars chosen one, involving high adventure and Force powers. During a stint waiting for the principal's office, in time-honored kid-movie tradition, he meets Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), a serial fabulist who fancies herself a badass (hover) biker in the making. KB (Kyriana Kratter) is her best friend, an apparent cyborg with retracting Geordi LaForge-style visor that appears to be part of a neural implant enhancing her rational brain and senses.

In the vein of The Goonies, Explorers, and Star Trek: Prodigy, these four kids discover an abandoned starship, press the wrong (or right) button, and jump through hyperspace to the other side of the galaxy, where they find that their home planet is known only as a mythical place, like El Dorado, not appearing on any maps. But they make a useful ally in a mysterious character played by Jude Law, whose official character name, per the press kit and action figures, is Jod Na Nawood, but he goes by various others as well. And their spaceship also harbors a half-dead Rock 'Em Sock 'Em-ish robot (voiced by Nick Frost) with a rodent living in his eye socket..

Star Wars Episode Many: The Return of the Serial?

That's about enough plot – anything more and I'd probably be in violation of all the digital contracts I had to initial and sign to watch these in the first place. Here's what you need to know most: Skeleton Crew, with a 45-minute pilot and half-hour episodes thereafter, plays like the classic serials that inspired George Lucas, ending on cliffhanger beats that make you want to see more right away (Episodes 1 and 2 drop at the same time, so you can indulge that urge at least once). It also leans into new visuals, inspired by the sort of artwork you see on sci-i novel covers. Unlike the Sequel Trilogy, it actually moves the design aesthetic forward, maintaining just enough to stay Star Wars. It's set during the New Republic era, so yeah, there's a possibility of familiar cameos, but they are not needed and would probably not be welcome. There was a moment in the third episode that I feared Rhea Pearlman's character from The Bad Batch would show up, but happily, no.

As for Law's character, he's what fans have been begging for for quite a while now – another scoundrel in the vein of classic Han Solo, who's cynical about the universe and not fully committed to good or bad. That he's set to become a dubious father figure is even better; unlike the Mandalorian, he appears to live by no code at all. He and the kids do have a shared interest – they want to go home, and he'd like to be the one to find space El Dorado. Left unspoken is the notion that he doesn't need all of them to still be alive to do that. Lest that sound too dark, it's counterbalanced by Wim and Neel's cheerful childlike eyes, with Fern and KB attempting to be the voices of reason, imagining themselves mature beyond their years as so many middle-school girls do.

Mick Giacchino's whimsical score is not at all grandiose in the John Williams style, but rather conjures a spirit of adventure and fun. It's very unlike Star Wars proper, yet somehow perfect for this particular Star Wars. Spider-Man's Jon Watts directs the initial Planet Suburbia episode; the subsequent two are by David Lowery, who worked with a morally gray Jude Law and kids before to great effect in his Peter Pan remake for Disney. Lowery gets to put most of the cool new imagery into practice, but Watts' space suburbs are a low-key nifty twist on familiarity, and the sort of setting that, if one thinks about it, had to exist somewhere in the Star Wars galaxy. What, did we think all kids grow up in desert huts?

Final Thoughts

Reviewing Star Wars live-action shows as a fan can be tough, and I've liked most of them to some degree, though Boba Fett took too long to get going, and Ahsoka kind of petered out at the end, with a tease for what may or may not become a movie and an Easter egg even I didn't understand at first. I enjoyed The Acolyte quite a bit, silly end cameos aside, and find Andor kind of insufferable and joyless, though once they add K-2SO I'm hoping it changes tone for the better. Looking back, though, it often feels like I get excited about Star Wars anew, every time, and maybe give the shows more of a pass than they deserve. Bear in mind, though, that I usually only have 2-3 episodes to base a decision on, and all of them EXCEPT The Book of Boba Fett (which began with a filler/catchup episode merely showing us stuff we already knew) started strong.

Given the strongly serialized feel of Skeleton Crew so far, I assume they do have an endpoint in mind, and this won't just become an ongoing, episodic Lost in Space with Jude Law as Professor Smith. I'm not sure I'd mind that, actually, but there's definitely stuff going on on Planet Suburbia (which we periodically cut back to) that requires further development and closure. Each episode thus far looks super-pricey, even more so than The Acolyte – spaceports need to be fully created, while landscapes don't. The show has begun well, with the kids as nicely uncynical gateway characters, and a galaxy full of alien scum and villainy. My favorite part of A New Hope as a kid was the cantina scene, always, and this show has a nice mix of classic creatures – Weequays, Ishi Tibs, Quarren, Wolfmen – and new ones (check out the greedy monsters Wim meets at a local food stand). We can do without the righteous struggles of Republic and Remnant, or whatever it is now; the fringes of this universe have always held more appeal anyway, which may be why I like Solo a lot more than most.

The Amblin spirit is alive here, but it's not purely kid-perspective either. The best thing about Skeleton Crew is that it adds more new stuff than most of these shows, without being too unrecognizable. That's a tough balance to maintain, though with Watts and regular partner Christopher Ford in charge of most of the writing, I'm optimistic – their Spider-Man trilogy stuck a pretty solid landing in each installment.

If you can read this, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew's first two episodes are now streaming on Disney+.