Skeleton Crew, Disney+’s latest entry in the Star Wars recently concluded. Set 5 years after the events of Return of the Jedi (like The Mandalorian). The titular crew is four children who discover a crashed starship on the home planet, At Attin.
At Attin looks like middle-class suburban meets the Star Wars aesthetic. Indeed, the show seems to borrow a lot of the retro-futuristic design from Disney’s TomorrowLand theme park. The kids go to school. They live in suburbs. They take school buses – granted, ones that look like space age school buses. All of this is happening while At Attin is isolated from the rest of the galaxy by a protective barrier. The people of At Attin know nothing of the events of the original Star Wars trilogy. Likewise the planet itself has been forgotten by the rest of the galaxy.
Our main characters Wim and Neel are stand-ins for Star Wars fans. They play with their action figures, pretend they are Jedi and dream of adventures in space. They get their chance when l, along with school rivals Fern and KB, when the aforementioned starship takes them past At Attin’s protective barrier
I’ve seen other reviews and synopses summed up Skeleton Crew as “bringing pirates to Star Wars” or “making Star Wars for kids again”. My problem was that aside from a few references to Jedi, a few “blink and you miss them” Easter egg appearances by some familiar aliens, and only a few references to the New Republic, this really did not feel much like the Star Wars franchise at all.
I know the problem that I think skeleton true suffers from is the same trope that plagues many “kids centered“ stories: making the kids seem important by making the adults look like idiots. It’s obvious that Wim, Neel, Fern, and KB are the true stars of this project, but their parents are made to look like fools. Even the other adults, who often get the upper hand on the Crew, end up coming across as incompetent in the end. One could argue that this is how kids view grown-ups to be. But I think that there is a creative middle ground still to be found – one that appeals to both children and grown-ups equally 
Skeleton Crew suffers from the same problem that has played virtually every Star Wars miniseries, save for The Mandalorian. The story feels like it plods along, with the Crew going from one planet to another as they try to make their way back to At Attin. The problem is, like most other Star Wars shows, it feels like all the action comes in the fast paced, whizbang finale.
The Star Wars franchise is still trying to use movie writers to create mini-series. Does anyone else remember when a “miniseries“ was a two or three night TV event? Star wars is stuck in some sort of creative limbo in which they are trying to tell stories that are too long to be movies, too drawn out to be a traditional miniseries, a too short to be considered a full season of a television program.
I know that serialized story telling us all the rage, particularly in the streaming era within which we are all living. this format, lends itself, particularly well to the Disney+ or Netflix binges that we’re all guilty of having. A better course of action for skeleton true would’ve been to go to 10 or even 12 episodes, taking on something of a “episodic format, with a continuing plot thread running throughout the season” approach, a la Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. The show would have benefited from subplots such as Wim and Neel meeting as well as some backstory on KB’s implants. Most of all, some background on Joe (Jude Law) would’ve made the character appear as more than a typical mustache-twirling villain.
FINAL TAKE: Star Wars: Skeleton Crew was a decent time-filler, but hardly essential viewing, even for the most ardent Star Wars fan. It adds nothing noteworthy to the overall Star Wars saga. Star Wars completists want to watch it, just to satisfy their neuroses. It’s not a bad way to kill boredom; but , I wouldn’t waste your time on it otherwise
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is currently streaming on Disney+
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