This Could Be A Real Adventure / Way, Way Out Past The Barrier (Skeleton Crew - S01E01 & E02) - Live Action Series

Discuss the latest Chapter! (Discussion)

There Is No Spoon! SPOILERS.

Meet the guy who wants to be the boss instead of the boss!

To say it has been a pretty bad year for Star Wars is an understatement. The three previous shows in 2024 either flopped, were mostly ignored or outright angered many fans. The blockbuster video game fell flat on its face and is a commercial flop. But last impressions always count the most. So a lot hinges on Skeleton Crew, as it will be the last Star Wars we see in 2024 and the very first Star Wars in 2025, before Andor comes to Disney+ later in 2025.

Meet totally not Jude Law, the boss who will soon no longer be the boss!

So before I even continue I will answer the most important question first. Is Skeleton Crew worth watching? The answer is "yes" but - as usual - entirely depends on your own preferences and ability to switch off your brain. Skeleton Crew is indeed Goonies in Space with (apparently) a good helping of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. And they go all in with that. And, in my opinion, the show doesn't really feel like Star Wars, at least in the first episode. But here's the thing: it's good fun, in a very traditional brainless and somewhat dumb way, you could call it "cheesy" if you like, but in this case it's a good cheesy, as in, it's never really boring, even if some parts of the first episode could have been cut without losing anything, but you can tell the show has its heart in the right place, it wants to be fun, it wants to be entertaining, and it mostly achieves all of this. The trade off is that you have to switch off your brain and be prepared for something that, at least for much of the first episode, does not feel like Star Wars. At all. But let me elaborate!

I didn't know Fallout Season 2 with a pre war flashback is already out!

The premise is easily explained. Four kids on some planet with a mystery (more about that later) find an old and buried space ship, as usual something goes wrong and off they go into space. And for reasons I will explain soon there's no easy way back. The kids are now officially lost in space!

The new season of Fallout spared no expenses!

The thing with Skeleton Crew is that the production design feels entirely removed from Star Wars. While it is, in theory, interesting to see a normal planet in Star Wars with a normal civilization and people just leading normal lives (more or less) instead of the usual desert, jungle, snow or city planets I consider it a very bad idea to base your idea of "normal Star Wars planet" entirely on US suburbia, with school buses, neatly manicured lawns and single houses, people walking their dogs, lamp posts and (hover) cars that look nothing like the speeders we are used to see in Star Wars. When George Lucas created his wild west town on Tatooine he made the wise decision not to copy paste the American Wild West, instead he borrowed from architectural styles (well, his production designer) not really all that well known to his target audience, so he borrowed from Northern African architecture, based on the fact parts of the movie were filmed in Tunisia and real world buildings were used for some of the exterior shots. Had Lucas instead created a copy of the typical frontier town of the Wild West it would have failed to create that otherworldniness. And this is one of my big gripes here... everything here screams 1980s American small town, even the high school looks very much like an American high school, with some SciFi paint. Couldn't they have at least tried to borrow from some other culture?

Meet the timid and somewhat clumsy comic relief!

The other thing I do not care about one bit is the inclusion of the Ortolan kid. Now the character is alright, he's your typical somewhat overweight, somewhat timid, somewhat clumsy archetype. That's perfectly fine. No, it's the character design that just screams "Dumbo" and it looks silly.

These are Wim (the host), Wum (the dog) and Wendelin (the elephant)....

It does not help at all that "Neel", aka Dumbo, also looks like a pretty well known cartoon elephant from German TV, the two animated animals were part of a very popular quiz show in the 1970s and 1980s and a very famous German comedian had come up with the designs and also voiced them. It does not help either that the male lead in this show is also called "Wim" like the talkshow host.... But this is of course something no American viewer will ever know about. But you have Dumbo, which is worse enough. My point is I wish they had used some other alien for Neel, anything but a talking elephant. It's just silly. But who knows, maybe kids will love it.   

Meet the sassy pre teen girl and her tech wiz sidekick!

Continuing with the characters: Jon Watts and Christopher Ford try no experiments here and stick to the proven formula. You have the overweight comic relief (at one point Neel gets stuck in a hatch, ha ha), the sassy and smart girl, the geeky tech wiz and then the adventurous boy who dreams of being a Jedi. And while I do not like Neel's character design the characters themselves work well. They are exactly what you expect in a show (or movie) like this! And the acting is pretty competent. These are kids, so remember that, but their performances are all much better than whatever we have seen before in Star Wars. I have to applaud the showrunner here for finally making kid characters that feel bevievable, even if they are stereotypes. One thing I liked a lot was the mock lightsaber battle between Neel and Wim, this is what kids would do, and this is in fact what we all have done when we were kids... but now imagine in your world Jedi are real!

Meet the mystery box!

Another thing I like is the mystery box. Yes, ever since JJ Abrams people are wise to be wary of them, but I feel here mystery is pretty well done. Nothing is overtly explained or pointed out to you, you are, mostly, required to deduce certain things for yourself. As we find out the planet the kids are on is surrounded by a mysterious barrier! Its purpose? Unknown. But it blocks (or blurs) any and all light from the outside universe, to the point the night sky is just some swirly aura borealis like phenomenon with faint red dots. In fact, no one has ever seen a single star in the night sky ever. So when the kids eventually end up in space they see stars for the first time. They do know about stars though. Since nothing much more is explained it remains a mystery why this barrier exists. Was it a way to hide away from the Empire? Is it some kind of cloaking screen? Or is it more nefarious and meant to keep people on the planet? One other thing we learn is that all spaceships are banned on the planet. Which means no one can leave.

They even take the G.O.A.T. from Fallout in this show!

This of course hints at the seemingly peaceful suburban paraide to harbor some terrible secret. This is compounded by the fact that there are restricted zones on the planet the droid police will prevent you from entering. Now the droid police is nice, they are not (as of now) murderbots, but everything has a certain "The Village" vibe here. And I like that. I do like mystery boxes when they are well implemented and not lazy and stupid like the ones JJ Abrams has often given us. Another things that strikes as odd and potentially dystopian is the fact that young kids, maybe 10-12 years old take an aptitude test in school that determines their future vocational career and life. Your test results will determine what job you are given by the government. Free choice does not exist here. The fact they do this to little kids further hints at some dark secret in suburbia.

Meet the male lead who dreams about being a Jedi and reads tales of the Jedi on his tablet all the time!

But while the starter planet has an intriguing mystery I feel the show spends entirely too much time on it. In fact, another criticism I have is that the entire first 65 odd minutes or so is nothing but setup for a show that only has 8 episodes to begin with. We are a quarter of the way through the season already and the adventure really just begins now, at the very end of the second episode. Some bits and pieces on the home planet feel unneeded, like Wim trying to rush to school because he overslept, sure, his bike ride ends up with him finding a mysterious hatch (I get LOST flashbacks), but there could have been another and faster way to get to this. The thing is, since the entire atmosphere is so jarringly un-starwarsy I wished we spent as little time as possible on the home planet.

Meet the space ship hidden below the ground!

But once the kids find the hatch and decide to try and open it things pick up considerably. Fern, the sassy girl, is sassy and has the (stupid) boys work for her who excavate more of the hatch. Neel, the comic relief, gets stuck in a hatch on the ship, because he's too large. Tech wiz girl does her thing and uses her tech skills to open the hatch. But the way she restarts the generator inside is just silly... she literally hits it hard and bangs on it with a tool. Yes, this has been fixing generators since time immemorial! And Wim, the adventurous leader, does the stupid thing. Because he sees a button....

Meet the button

Imagine you are in some scary old structure... someone manages to restart the generator and lights and switches activate all over the place.,, revealed to be a spaceship... the smart gal in your group shouts from below not to touch ANYTHING! So what do you do when you see a friendly button, all lit up? The above image shall give you a hint....

In case you forgot this is about space pirates the show hands out subtle hints to you!

So yes, the kids all end up in space because Wim deemed it wise to push a mysterious button after being told not to touch anything. If Fern (the sassy girl) was even smarter she would have known to use reverse psychology and to dare Wim to touch anything he sees... anyway... this is what I mean when I say the show is dumb. It's fun, while I have criticized things here I really have to point out that if you can switch off your brain that the show is perfectly entertaning, good natured, well intentioned and, well, "fun" in the classic sense. And since we've had pretend smart, obnoxious, mean-spirited Star Wars only a few months ago I take big dumb fun over it any day! So let me reiterate: Skeleton Crew is just fun! They really didn't lie when they said it's Space Goonies. And while the homage and pirate theme are layed on pretty thick it's still well executed.

Welcome to Space Nassau!

As it turns out the ship is on autopilot and goes into hyperspace once it is in orbit. And thus the kids are lost. We soon find out exactly why. Because the first mate of the ship, the droid, is reactivated. After Fern once more proves to be the smart and sassy one the droid accepts her as the new captain and he explains to them that their planet is just something out of a legend, a fabled "treasure planet" but no one knows where it is and it is on no star chart. So the kids can't go home. No coordinates are stored in the computer, the droid was deactivated and has no recollection. The best thing he can offer is to take them to a nearby space port. The kids hope to find some help there.

Oh look! Sex workers (or sexy ladies) and that weird four breasted race still exist in Disney Star Wars after all, and to get them in a show for kids of all things.... funny!

As it turns out the space port is a pirate hideout and refuge, home to lots of unsavoury folks. Indeed, the droid explains to the kids that they are on a pirate ship! As expected things do not go well on the station. As it turns out Wim possesses near mint Old Republic credits, something highly sought after and the pirates want more! Wim using Old Republic credits further points to the theory that the planet erected a (cloaking) barrier around their planet to protect themselves from either outside threats (the Empire) or they did it even long before that to create some weird utopian society, free of outside influences. Of course it's a bit puzzling then why Wim would have tales of the Jedi (and some seem to be of Luke, but it's not 100% confirmed, it could also be generic Jedi tales) on his tablet.

Meet the droid, and yes he has some kind of eye patch (in fact a space gerbil lives inside the droid's head and uses the missing eye as his hidey hole) and a peg leg, in case you were not sure about the pirate theme of the show!

Things escalate pretty quickly on the station. I forgot to mention that the show opens with a prologue where space pirates attack and board a ship. The pirates are after gold, but there is no gold. Wolfman is unhappy with totally not Jude Law, who is the leader still, and of course that means mutiny... and those same space pirates use the station as their hideout as well... one of the pirates is the space pirate we last saw in The Mandalorian season 3, but he's still just second fiddle, Wolfman is in charge now. And he wants the gold or info where it's from from the kids... but since the writers love their tropes (Star Wars loves tropes in general) the droid, who previously told the kids he'll stay on the ship to look after it, arrives on scene just in the nick of time (the droid is voiced by Nick Frost) to prove he's a formidable fighter. But when he gets taken out by an ion blast it's game over. And the kids are captured. Thrown "in the brig" as the show calls it, because "pirates", you know...

Meet Jude Law, totally not the former space pirate boss!

And since the writers also seem to love The Last Jedi they also resort to the same plot device: the kids get thrown into what seems to be the only prison cell on the entire station, literally behind rusty old bars (because pirates)... and none other than Jude Law is in the cell as well! The kids try to get the space gerbil (who lives insde the droid's head, as mentioned) to get the key, which dangles on a post not too far away from the cell (why the jailer does not keep it on person is another mystery). But the gerbil is a bit too stupid after all and doesn't get it... but then Jude Law has his entrance, by appearing in the shadows, mysterious voice and all... and he uses his Jedi powers to get the key, because "distance is an illusion" or as we all know "There is no spoon!". And that's it. We get maybe 20 seconds of Jude Law... and we fade to black. Almost 5 minutes of interminably long credits follow.

This scene is in the series too!

So what is my verdict? As I said in the beginning Skeleton Crew is pretty dumb in a certain way, but it has charm, it is fun, and it's perfectly entertaining. I can see how kids could potentially love it all. This is geared towards families and younger audiences, not grumpy adults exclusively (so unlike Andor), and this you have to keep in mind! And as family entertainment I feel Skeleton Crew succeeds!

Adult Star Wars fans may be somewhat taken aback by the decidedly un-starwarsy atmosphere in the first episode. To recreate American suburbia and give it a Fallout coat of paint was not the best idea. The planet should have felt more like Star Wars. Also, the nods and references to "this is a pirate show about space pirates" are bit too obvious here and there... I mean, when Wim literally finds an old timey pirate hat on the ship and a spyglass it's a bit eyeroll inducing. What would you even need a spyglass for in space? And if it's just some trinket and collectible? Why would they have Earth spyglasses in the Star Wars galaxy? It doesn't even look remotely alien or somewhat strange, it's just... a spyglass.

The Holiday Special holo circus act is officially canon now!

Despite of being a bit on the nose about this being a show about space pirates, there is nothing annoying about this show. The kids are charming, the plot, so far, has set up some nice mysteries, since the kids are from some fabled "treasure planet" believed to be the stuff of legends, and the ship itself is a mystery too. So how did the old pirate ship end up on it, buried under a hill? Who erected the barrier and why? Are things really benevolent on the planet or does some evil supercomputer rule over the humans? Sadly, another central "mystery" is so weak that - unless it's all misdirection - you have to be braindead not to realize 3 minutes into the show that Jude Law, the kind of Jedi, is the space pirate captain who was removed from his post by his crew and then thrown into the brig. Now why they did not just kill him is another mystery... Things can be a bit too convenient here and there. At times I wish Star Wars was a bit smarter, while still being fun. As it is we have "smart but not really fun" with Andor, we have dumb and fun with most other things Star Wars on Disney+ and lastly we have pretend smart, evil and mean-spirited aka The Acolyte. In light of this, as mentioned earlier in this review, I will take dumb fun any day! As I said, it's all very entertaining.

So can you watch this with your kids? Absolutely. Can you watch it as a grumpy adult who has no kids or whose kids do not want to watch it? That depends on your tolerance level for "dumb" things that are fun and you also need to accept that Skeleton Crew has a look and feel that is completely removed from anything seen in Star Wars before. It only gets better once the kids leave the planet after roughly 45 minutes. I would suspect that future episodes will feel a lot more like Star Wars. And we also have someone who, even if not a proper Jedi, can use the Force, which is always fun. I am calling it now... the former pirate captain who is out for gold, glory and sweet revenge will ultimately (re)discover his heart of gold and choose to help the kids over revenge and untold riches....

One major criticism I have, and this can be said about almost all shows on Disney+, is that there was literally no need at all to arbitrarily cut the first 65 minutes or so into two episodes. The first episode "This Could Be A Real Adventure" is, excluding all the fluff, maybe 42 minutes long. And ends on a cliffhanger when the ship goes into hyperspace. Episode 2 "Way, way out past the barrier" is a shockingly short 23 minutes long (excluding the previously on and credits). Why even bother with a 23 minute episode? This should have been one 65 minute episode, especially when they release both episodes at once. I sincerely hope future episodes are not as short as the second one, because that would be infuriating.

So all in all Skeleton Crew is better than expected. I had feared for the worst, but Skeleton Crew is perfectly fine entertainment for the whole family and especially kids. It's fun. It's an adventure. As an adult I just wished Star Wars these days would not be so derivative and lazy with its tropes, convenient plot devices and a bit smarter, without losing focus of the fun factor. So dumb and fun it is! But to make it clear, it's dumb in "a good way". Not painfully dumb like Obi-Wan Kenobi, a show that insulted you. Skeleton Crew respects your time at least. I had a good 65 minutes overall, I never checked the time, the kids are all perfectly charming (they are your typical kid movie archetypes, you can't go wrong here) and they spared no expenses here. I do wonder now what the budget was. They went all in with both Suburbia as well as the space pirate port. And the showrunners do think of the adults too, as is expected of good family entertainment. I mean, did anyone ever expect to see the whimsical holo circus act from the Holiday Special ever again? It's not on the nose... you either know what it is and giggle...or you don't, then it's just the Dumbo twins watching kid's entertainment on their holo table. So... if you have time... go check out Skeleton Crew. At best you will have a fun time with it... at worst you may say it neither looks nor feels like Star Wars, but it will not offend or insult you. In a way I feel Skeleton Crew is exactly what we needed after the obnoxious The Acolyte. Andor is too serious and not "fun" enough to wash away that bitter taste The Acolyte left behind. I will say this: Skeleton Crew captures the essense and spirit of Star Wars. And this is more worth now than ever, in light of recent atrocities.

And it may surprise you... but all things considered, despite my criticisms, I rank Skeleton Crew pretty highly on the Disney+ Star Wars series list. Fun factor is (was) merely higher in The Mandalorian. The Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi, as well as Ahsoka, were all dumb as well.... but in a way that insults your intelligence. Skeleton Crew is "dumb fun" but not to the point it will insult you or waste your time. Yes, the show has all the kid movie clichés you can think of, is not very original and really wants to be the 1980s in space, but despite all that it's just fun. And for once the central mystery seems to be at least interesting. Andor is in many ways the best thing since forever, but is seriously lacking in the fun adventure department. And Star Wars should always be fun as well. And the less said about the trainwreck from earlier this year, the better. So for me, right now, after two episodes Skeleton Crew is the third best thing on Disney+ behind Andor and The Mandalorian seasons 1 and 2.