“Skeleton Crew” is the newest show to hit the massive Star Wars franchise. With one season of eight incredible episodes, it has gained the favor of a group of fans that the Star Wars community hasn’t seen in a long time. Most new shows are good, but not great, and the community has been torn apart with arguments. However, this show seems to be the perfect fit. Anyone can watch it, fan or not, and still understand. “Skeleton Crew” seems like exactly what all of us Star Wars enthusiasts (and new fans) needed.
The main character is Wim, (played by Ravi Cabot-Conyers), a boy who dreams of being a Jedi Knight. His best friend Neel, (played by Robert Timothy Smith), is a small, elephant-looking alien, who just wants to do good in school and follow the rules. For kid actors, they were fantastic. The two other kids adventuring with them were Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) and KB (Kyriana Kratter), two daredevil best friends who race their hoverbike all over town. Most kid actors in the Star Wars franchise have been good, but these four (especially Fern, in my opinion) were incredible. As I know from watching way too many documentaries, it is especially difficult to make a solid Star Wars show with kids and make the show not just good, but great. Considering the response from the fans, I think the directors did a fantastic job.
As for the fully grown actors, they were even more impressive. Jude Law as Jod was a great pick. Somehow he managed to be terrifying and slightly comforting toward the kids at the same time, keeping me questioning whether he was the bad guy or not. I must say, from the second he walked out of that cave, I said that he was the villain. However, he had me doubting my original guesstimate throughout the series. Some other important side characters included Nick Frost as SM-33, Tunde Adebimpe as Wim’s father (Wendle), Hala Finley as Hayna, and Alia Shawkat as Kh’ymn.
The average rating for this show (from Google) is 3.9 stars, but most of the comments were anything but average. It seems that anyone who wrote a review felt one of these two things: that Star Wars is quickly digging its own grave, or it has reached new heights. Some complaints were about the shallow acting and poor CGI. However, I disagree with these reviews. As I have already said, I found the acting to be great, better than most (for children at least). Also, one of the main points of the show was that there was not much CGI at all. Phil Tippett, the legend, master of monsters, and American film director was recruited to replace most of what should have been CGI with stop motion. As the man behind most of the goings on in the creature shop at ILM (Industrial Light and Magic), Tippett has had a lot of experience with stop motion. He did almost all the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park (except the T-Rex and velociraptors, of course, see next paragraph) all of Star Wars, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, and the Robocop series.
For those who don’t know, the T-Rex in the first Jurassic Park Movie was a groundbreaking scene. Though several CG images had been used in movies before, (see Terminator 2: Judgment Day, or the water creature in Abyss) It was the very first extremely realistic CGI living and breathing creature used in a movie. ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) had to create this with homemade technology completely from scratch because nothing like it had existed before George Lucas put together the crew for the first Star Wars. The scene with the dinosaur stomping across the ground, chasing the jeep, shocked the world. After achieving that shot, they moved on to the other T-Rex scenes, and then to the velociraptors, which turned out magnificent. Thus began a golden era of filmmaking. Many incredible blockbuster movies came out during this time, including many Star Wars movies, the Indiana Jones trilogy, Poltergeist, several Marvel Movies, Star Trek, ET, The Goonies, Back to the Future, Abyss, Terminator 1 and 2, and many more classics. Every piece of CGI in any of these movies was made by the technology that brought that first dinosaur to life. Thanks to that T-Rex (and the digital effects team at ILM), many of people’s childhood favorites came to be.
Coming away from the CGI part of the film, one big plus about the “Skeleton Crew” series is its watchability. Anyone can watch this show and feel like they get it. Often, “Star Wars” shows sink so far back in the legacy that most casual fans can not understand what is happening, which leads to bad reviews. This is because they complain about what they see as plot holes, or mistakes, when in fact, they just don’t know the world (or galaxy) that well. In my personal experience, my mom watched the show and loved it. For reference, she does not like Star Wars at all, for reasons like the gunfights, and she can never understand or follow the story if someone doesn’t explain it to her. If my mom can watch a “Star Wars” show, and like it, anyone can. Huge props to the directors for that.
I highly recommend “Skeleton Crew”. It has good reviews, and most of the bad ones are just from people who don’t understand “Star Wars”. Anyway, this is a must-watch for fans of all ages. Hardcore or casual, this show is for you. I give this a six out of five stars for outstanding everything.