‘Skeleton Crew’ Review: Jude Law Buoys a ‘Star Wars’ Pirate Story That’s Dubiously Unremarrrrkable
A long time ago, back when Lucasfilm first shared plans to expand the “Star Wars” universe via live-action streaming television, the most exciting part was its limitless potential. While each movie traveled to new worlds, utilizing new doodads and revealing new creatures, there’s still a cap to how much of the galaxy you can see in a two-hour film. And that time limit only grew tighter when so much screentime was taken up by nostalgia: revisiting old worlds, reintroducing old creatures, and wielding old doodads. But unlike the big-screen franchise, not everything on the small-screen had to bend back to the Skywalker trilogy — or so it seemed, before “The Mandalorian” reintroduced Luke himself and set plans to become a movie of its own.
“Star Wars: Skeleton Crew” is the closest the Disney+ era has come to revisiting the franchise’s galaxy-sized creative potential. Working from a story about a rag-tag crew of makeshift pirates bouncing between solar systems, searching for home and adventure at once, Jon Watts and Christopher Ford’s fantasy series can seemingly go anywhere and do anything. It’s not a prequel fleshing out established characters while building up to previously depicted events. It’s not a sequel beholden to its prior entries’ planets, people, or parts. It’s a “Star Wars” show about pirates — explorers tied to nothing and reporting to no one, their ship not even restricted by gravity. Its proverbial mainsail should be untethered, and this “Skeleton Crew” should be free to explore unseen, unheard of, and unimaginable new worlds.
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Eh, not so much — or, at least, not yet. “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew” gets off to a depressingly familiar start, while bungling the introduction of its primary protagonists and generally plodding along until Jude Law pops up in Episode 2. The suave scamp buoys a ship taking on water, and the second and third episodes (of the eight-episode first season) pick up speed as their imagination balloons (thanks, in part, to director David Lowery). But even if the wind stays at their backs, “Skeleton Crew” appears to be stuck in an all-too-familiar pond, which is a frustrating life for anyone drawn to the open ocean — or, at it were, the open skies.
Meet Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers), a middle-school-aged boy who dreams of growing up to be a Jedi. He plays with Jedi action figures. He reads Jedi history books (via an electronic tablet). He finds a big, buried piece of metal in the woods and assumes it’s a lost Jedi temple. In other words, Wim is a dreamer, and he’s surrounded by pragmatists. Raised by an always-working single dad, Wim is told to do his homework and stay out of trouble — two common commands that few kids are able to consistently follow, and Wim isn’t one of them. Instead of preparing for the Career Assessment Test that has the whole school worried, Wim lets his curiosity get the best of him and heads back out to the woods.
By Wim’s side through thick and thin is his best friend, Neel (Robert Timothy Smith), a blue elephant boy with a stubby trunk, wispy hair that looks like raspberry cotton candy, and ears that droop down over his shoulders. Neel is the panicky but supportive sidekick, one of the first blaring signs that “Skeleton Crew” doubles as an homage to “The Goonies” (Neel = Chuck), and what fondness you have for Richard Donner’s 1985 kids’ classic, dear readers, may dictate your tolerance for “Skeleton Crew’s” conventional scripts. Are they a sweet throwback or predictable and trite? One could argue that it’s all new to audiences of a certain age group, except I can think of at least one children’s show released in the last six months that treads very similar ground.
But I digress: Waiting in the woods for Wim and Neel are a pair of rivals destined to become buddies, Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) and KB (Kyriana Kratter) — two girls who are also best friends, also students at Wim’s school, and also denizens of the bland bourgeois neighborhood Wim calls home. All we really know about Fern and KB are that they like racing hover bikes, they’re pretty handy with tools, and Fern’s mom is a senior government official who worries about keeping her daughter’s “top” social status (probably because Fern is doing her best James Dean impression, albeit a more openly hostile interpretation of the rebellious Jim Stark).
More importantly, we know none of these kids fit neatly within the dull domestic landscape of “Star Wars” suburbia. KB wears a La Forge visor and keeps to herself; Fern has an attitude that screams, “I don’t play by the rules”; Neel is blue, and Wim zigs whenever he’s asked to zag. Only Neel is shown to have an idyllic home life, which further unites the quartet in an Amblin-era quest to fix their families by tearing them apart. By the end, parents will better understand their kids, kids will better understand each other, and everyone will better understand themselves.
But again, I digress: As the kids’ get swept up (quite literally) into an outer-space adventure, Wim edges closer to the life he so desperately wants instead of the one he has: a Jedi’s. When he finally meets Jude Law’s mysterious Jod Na Nawood, the older man’s discerning demeanor, hooded appearance, and command of the Force leave no doubt in Wim’s mind: Jod is a Jedi. He has to be. Not only is there ample evidence, but this is a “Star Wars” story — doesn’t it have to have a Jedi?
Evoking “Andor” and its lightsaber-less story is perhaps the most promising aspect of “Skeleton Crew,” and I can only hope it keeps moving in that direction, toward its own distinct voice. Episodes 2 and 3 throw a lot at the audience, side-stepping its child stars’ capital-A acting (which Law helps wrangle with his attuned, assured performance) by amping up the action and unveiling a slew of distinct species and rich settings. Environments are colorful and alive. Events transpire at a jaunty, enjoyable pace. There’s a lot to see and not a lot of time to see it (as it should be).
But the series doesn’t fully commit to the tactile pleasures of “Andor’s” production design or the light-show pyrotechnics of past digital battles. Smashed together, the CGI and practical effects feel more disaffecting than immersive, even if the idea to overwhelm viewers with unfamiliar ambiance is the right one. These kids have never seen anything like this on their sheltered homeworld, and attempting to mimic their awestruck reaction for the audience is admirable. Perhaps it could even work if the mise en scene was more cogently blended together, but as-is, there’s an uncanny disconnect that leaves the series adrift between having and realizing its own imagination. The excitement I felt when first spotting an owl-like alien character fly into frame is slowly, steadily hollowed out as her CGI design and practical surroundings prove clunkily incongruous.
That being said, if the creators have their hearts in the right place — trying to break new ground in each new episode — then “Skeleton Crew” still has a shot to bridge the gap. Lowery’s skillset is a perfect fit, and the “Pete’s Dragon” director crafts a rousing escape sequence from a lively interstellar pit stop. Future directors shouldn’t be short on creative inspiration, either — not with The Daniels (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) helming Episode 4 and Episode 6 overseen by Lee Issac Chung (who directed an episode of “The Mandalorian” between his feature films, “Minari” and “Twisters”).
When it comes to any new “Star Wars” project, experience has taught us the key question isn’t one of talent, but whether true ingenuity can thrive under Disney’s heavy hand. The more “Star Wars” expands, the more “Star Wars” stays the same, and the structural cliches guiding “Skeleton Crew” imply a similarly rigid course ahead. We can only hope for a genuine rebellion — one befitting an original pirate’s ideals, and the original idea of “Star Wars.”
Grade: C+
“Star Wars: Skeleton Crew” premieres Monday, December 2 at 9 p.m. ET on Disney+. New episodes will be released weekly on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET.
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