Warning: this text accommodates spoilers for the primary two episodes of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew! You can take a look at IGN’s assessment of the primary two episodes.
We could also be nearing the top of 2024, however Disney has one ultimate new Star Wars collection to shut out the yr. Though Skeleton Crew takes place in the identical normal time interval as reveals like The Mandalorian and Ahsoka, it tells a really totally different type of Star Wars story. This isn’t a present a couple of wandering gunfighter or a veteran Jedi combating for the destiny of the galaxy. It’s a couple of group of strange children from the suburbs misplaced and in over their heads.
Since when does the Star Wars universe even have suburbs? What is it like dwelling in a single? And how does Skeleton Crew go about attempting to flesh out this extra down-to-earth nook of the galaxy? To study extra, IGN spoke with collection creators Jon Watts and Chris Ford. Read on to find out how the collection makes the strange really feel extraordinary.
What Does a Star Wars Suburb Look Like?
Historically, the Star Wars franchise has solely ever proven us how sure kinds of residents stay and work in a galaxy far, far-off. Our heroes are inclined to fall into one of some particular molds. Some are farmers or slaves eking out a dwelling on far-flung worlds like Tatooine. Some are smugglers or bounty hunters who journey wherever the following job takes them. And some are residents in fantastical area metropolises like Coruscant.
Andor was the primary Star Wars undertaking to actually create the sense that there’s one other, extra strange type of existence within the Star Wars universe. Skeleton Crew takes that concept and runs with it. The world of Atatten is wholly in contrast to something we’ve seen earlier than. It’s a peaceable world the place residents dwell in suburbs and drive to work day-after-day. It’s a spot the place our heroes trip the bus, attend college, and dream of adventures within the stars.
“We needed the story to start out with a gaggle of youngsters coming from someplace that feels a little bit bit calmer, a little bit bit extra protected,” Watts tells IGN. “And we thought there must be a center class someplace within the galaxy. It’s an enormous galaxy. And Andor had already kind of explored a few of these different components of the galaxy that you simply by no means actually see earlier than. So we thought it made sense to indicate children that stay in a neighborhood.”
Naturally, it’s no straightforward activity to design a suburb that feels each instantly acquainted and evokes the structure and normal really feel of the Star Wars universe. Watts admits, “It’s onerous to make issues appear boring typically in Star Wars as a result of it is mechanically enjoyable and funky and thrilling as a result of it is Star Wars.”
Watts continues, “For us, it was coming at it from a narrative perspective, how can we create a world that seems like one thing you’d need to get away from to go on an journey, that is not simply the recognizable issues from Star Wars that you’ve got already seen earlier than being out in a desert and issues like that.”
“And we had, clearly, this superb crew behind it. So once we have been beginning to design, how does a suburb look? What do the homes appear like?” Ford provides. “These homes that have been each mundane, however appeared so cool, I needed to stay in a single.
Watts notes that Lucasfilm’s Senior Vice President and Executive Design Director Doug Chiang was particularly instrumental in nailing the appear and feel of a Star Wars suburb.
“Yeah, Lucasfilm, you talked to Doug Chiang,” Watts says. “How do you are taking this concept that we’ve and this kind of story that we have to inform and the way do you visualize that? And then they arrive again with these sensible ideas.”
As a lot because the objective with Atatten is to ascertain a extra suburban and strange nook of the Star Wars universe, it’s additionally clear from the primary two episodes that there’s greater than meets the attention to Atatten. Take, for instance, the planet’s excessive isolationism, to the purpose the place even the evening sky is drowned out by the glow of a planetary protect. And what about the truth that nobody our wayward heroes meet in Episode 2 appears to know the place Atatten is positioned and even believes it’s an actual place?
“There’s positively extra to Atatten than meets the attention,” Watts teases. “That’s one of many huge mysteries of the present that is kind of enjoyable to tease out over all of the eight episodes.”
The Amblin Effect
Much has been made about how Skeleton Crew homages basic Amblin Entertainment films from the ‘80s. In some methods, the present is principally the Star Wars model of The Goonies, with a gaggle of strange children from the suburbs embarking on a larger-than-life journey collectively. But as Watts explains, the objective with the collection is much less about referencing particular Amblin films than it’s drawing on that normal tone and thirst for journey.
“We by no means sat down and particularly stated, ‘Oh, we need to reference these types of films,’” Watts says. “To us, these films have been simply how we grew up. Those have been the films that we noticed as a child, and so they’re simply kind of ingrained in you. They’re like part of your DNA.”
Watts continues, “So to me, it was much less about particularly referencing Amblin, and it was extra concerning the feeling that I had once I was 10 rising up not within the suburbs, on type of a farm in the midst of nowhere in Colorado, and simply you would be 10 and also you and your buddy would simply go stroll in a area in a straight line hoping that you will kind of stumble throughout some type of journey. You’re hoping you are going to get kidnapped by aliens or discover a buried pirate ship or one thing like that. And it by no means would occur. The solar would simply begin to go down and also you’d have to show round and go residence. But it is extra attempting to get to that feeling and that seek for an journey that kind of, I feel is type of common amongst children. And that these Amblin films actually have been capable of dramatize so successfully.”
Alongside filtering a conventional suburb by means of a Star Wars lens, the collection’ largest problem might be balancing the truth that it’s targeted on a gaggle of preteen heroes with the necessity to create a battle with actual stakes and drama. How onerous is it to craft a narrative the place a gaggle of misplaced youngsters go up in opposition to hardened area pirates? Here, as a lot as wherever else, is the place the collection actually leans on its Amblin roots.
“One of the issues that they are saying about Amblin movies is that they by no means considered them as children’ films,” Watts says. “They all the time considered them as grown-up films that simply occurred to star children. And in order that was all the time a tonal stability that we had to bear in mind. We by no means needed to really feel prefer it was a children’ present. We needed the hazard to be actual. We needed to verify individuals really feel afraid that unhealthy issues might occur to those children in order that it does not really feel too juvenile. And yeah, that was a tonal factor that we have been contemplating the entire time.”
“The pirates are harmful, however they are not, say, an organized army just like the Empire,” Ford says. “So we attempt to present that from the very get-go from the opening scene that they’re a menace, however they’re a little bit extra chaotic. So possibly a child has an opportunity to slide by means of their fingers.
Skeleton Crew is a really conventional Star Wars undertaking in at the very least one sense. Ravi Cabot-Conyers’ Wim is a hero lower from the identical material as Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker. He’s a boy chafing at his strange environment and craving for journey within the stars. But as a lot as Wym falls into that heroic archetype, the collection can also be about displaying the darkish aspect of that exact dream.
“The factor is that it is type of Wim’s fault that they are on the market the best way they’re,” Ford notes. “He simply had that additional piece of being a dreamer. Maybe there is a darkish aspect to that of being a little bit bit too irresponsible. And I feel we type of acquired a kick out of the thought of taking that type of beloved dreamer character. And we’ll type of put Wim by means of the ringer and say, ‘Maybe you do have to develop up a little bit bit.’”
Skeleton Crew’s Time Period
It might not share many obvious connections to reveals like The Mandalorian and Ahsoka, however Skeleton Crew is about in the identical normal time interval. This is an period the place the remnants of the Empire have retreated to the far fringes of the galaxy, leaving the New Republic free to start increasing and restoring legislation and order to the galaxy. Though because the present’s opening crawl makes clear, there are nonetheless many locations the place the New Republic’s restricted attain can’t contact. That’s allowed piracy to flourish, as our younger heroes are rapidly discovering.
Why set Skeleton Crew on this interval particularly? How totally different would the collection have been if it came about in the course of the top of the Empire or the Clone Wars? As Ford explains, it was primarily about selecting a degree within the Star Wars timeline when Wim and pals can be least prone to discover assist from the authorities.
“When we began with the idea of the youngsters getting misplaced within the galaxy and being type of on their very own, [we found] that if we set it in a special time interval, it simply wasn’t fairly as optimized for that drawback,” Ford says. “If you are 50 or one thing years up to now or the longer term, who is aware of? Maybe they might get helped by somebody. So that we felt like on this post-Empire New Republic is increase, however not super-powerful but time, it was a bit extra lawless. It was a bit extra room for the piracy to flourish.”
Watts provides, “And it was principally type of the worst doable time in case you’re 10 years previous to get misplaced within the galaxy as a result of there’s not essentially lots of people on the market that you are going to have the ability to prevent.”
Of course, it didn’t damage that The Mandalorian creators Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni have been so busy fleshing out this explicit Star Wars period. Skeleton Crew might not be a direct spinoff of The Mandalorian, however it does construct on the notion that piracy is an actual concern on this interval.
Ford says, “And as we have been getting up and working and dealing so carefully with John Favreau and Dave Filoni, that point interval, that they had already figured a lot out about, and it was like this working group of the way it was all going to perform.”
Watts provides, “Yeah, that they had began exploring the pirate aspect of the galaxy in stay motion and we simply have been capable of take that and run with it.”
The first two episodes of Skeleton Crew are streaming on Disney+ now.
For extra on the way forward for the Star Wars franchise, brush up on each Star Wars film and collection in growth and study why Disney must cease saying new films and simply make one.
Jesse is a mild-mannered employees author for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your mental thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.
