By George & Josh Bate
Star Wars intersects with Amblin classics of the 1980s like The Goonies and E.T. The Extra Terrestrial for an exciting new series premiering this December on Disney+. From creators Jon Watts and Christopher Ford (Spider-Man: Homecoming), Skeleton Crew follows a group of kids on a peaceful planet who get lost in the scary depths of a galaxy far, far away. As they try to make it back home, the kids face off against pirates, meet a mysterious figure played by Jude Law, and take on an adventure with perils far beyond their years.
The HoloFiles and Star Wars Holocron recently participated in an exclusive roundtable interview with executive producers and writers Jon Watts and Christopher Ford. Alongside Skywalking Through Neverland, Ion Cannon: A Star Wars Podcast, and Fangirls Gone Rogue, the creative minds behind Skeleton Crew discussed how the story fits into the Star Wars timeline, the Earth-like homeworld of the main characters, an Easter Egg to The Star Wars Holiday Special, and more.
Unlike select other Star Wars projects that build upon previous stories, Skeleton Crew is unique in that it can be a fresh entry point for those who have never seen Star Wars. Co-creator Chris Ford spoke about how he and Watts wanted the show to appeal to both new viewers and hardcore Star Wars fans. “Our aim is we want it to be for people who don’t know anything about Star Wars and just want to watch a good show, because it’s a great entry show,” Ford remarked. “But we also want it to be for super fans like us, and we try to make it work on both levels.”
Despite Skeleton Crew focusing on an adventure of four children, the series is not exclusively a children’s show and will appeal to adults. “When we came up with the idea for the show, the main characters were kids, but we were just wanting to tell a story and the story was full of danger and adventure, because they were lost in the Star Wars galaxy,” Ford explained. “So, you know, if someone else had been making it and I heard about it, I would definitely want to watch it as a grown adult man, but I also knew that it would be something I’d be excited to watch with my kids.”
Skeleton Crew takes place between the events of Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, situated amongst the series The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, and The Book of Boba Fett from executive producers Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni. Watts and Ford reflected on why they chose to set Skeleton Crew during this particular point of the time. “We liked the idea that that time in the galaxy is a little bit less settled,” Watts said. “Things are a little more up in the air and, if you’re going to pick a time to have a group of kids get lost in the galaxy and there’s not really going to be anyone there that can rescue them and bring them home, this felt like the right time.”
Skeleton Crew taking place around The Mandalorian also came about due to Watts and Ford’s collaboration with executive producers Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni on the show. “Just practically, we were working closely with Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau, and they had been delving into that time period and fleshing it out,” Ford discussed. “This could’ve been in lots of different time periods, but we felt like putting it there would be really interesting and exciting,” Watts continued.
The lead character of Skeleton Crew is Wim, played by Ravi Cabot-Conyers. Wim is a unique Star Wars character in that he is actually a Star Wars fan himself. That is, Wim is well-versed in the legends of Jedi and Sith and looks up to Jedi as heroes. “We wanted to include the idea that these kids had heard of Jedi and tales of good versus evil in the kind of way in our planet we have fairy tales or King Arthur stories of the Knights of the Round Table,” co-creator Chris Ford detailed. “We wanted to make sure we did it in a careful way where it didn’t feel like a weird meta thing. So, Wim and his friends, they know about Jedi, they’ve read Jedi stories, they even do a pretend lightsaber fight, but we were very clear we didn’t want to cross certain lines. Like when they pretend to do the lightsaber [fight], they make the wrong noise, because they haven’t seen the movies. They’ve never seen a lightsaber in real life. So, it was like finding ways to make it be authentic to the Star Wars galaxy…Like their toys aren’t from Kenner, they’re more like tin toys, like a little more old fashioned pre-commercialization kind of a toy.”
The home planet of Wim and the other kids in Skeleton Crew looks more like American suburbia than anything seen in a galaxy far, far away to date. Influenced by the aesthetic of Amblin classics like The Goonies and E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, Watts and Ford spoke about the thought process behind having an Earth-like planet in Star Wars. “To us, it started with a story perspective,” co-creator Jon Watts explained. “We wanted to create an environment that feels safe and protected and sort of evoked that feeling that you’re a kid and that you don’t want to do your homework and you want to run away and have an adventure.”
Wim and his friends board a ship that takes them on an adventure in the Star Wars galaxy. Jon Watts went into how they approached the main ship in Skeleton Crew – the Onyx Cinder. “We said we wanted it to feel like a ghost pirate ship,” said Watts. “It’s a very brutal design. Then, you put four kids in the cockpit…Like putting four kids into a tank or a semi-truck. Like where should they not be.” Ford elaborated, “We wanted it to to be big enough to be like a haunted house they could get lost in.”
Skeleton Crew features plenty of fun Easter Eggs and hidden details for eagle-eyed Star Wars fans to spot, but one of the best and most surprising references is to the notorious The Star Wars Holiday Special. Without spoiling what the reference entails, Watts and Ford discussed the immense amount of work that went into bringing this Star Wars Holiday Special tribute to life. “We thought we would be may be able to use some preexisting footage, but no. It was way too low resolution and it was the wrong angles,” Watts said. “We had to create this moment from multiple angles, because you see it in various parts of the scene. So we rebuilt the whole thing from scratch. We had to dig up the original designs of the costumes, which were in the Lucasfilm archive…Get all the original specs. We had to redo the music from scratch, because there was no copy of the actual score anywhere, so we had to rebuild that…It ended up being 20x more work than we anticipated, and our stunt coordinator is the main performer in it and he was able to re-choreograph the routine too, because it’s a very acrobatic routine…I will say, without saying what it is, which it is pretty obvious now, it was so much work and it was so worth it. My favorite part. ”
In addition to referencing The Star Wars Holiday Special, Skeleton Crew also incorporates other aspects from Star Wars Legends. Jon Watts provided some behind-the-scenes insight into how references to Legends end up in new Star Wars projects like Skeleton Crew. “It was both [using bringing Legends references into the story and Lucasfilm encouraging us to include them],” Watts said. “You’re working with the incredible Lucasfilm design team with Doug Chiang and everyone over there, and it was always just a conversation…As soon as they knew that we were comfortable with more obscure, deep cut references, that really opened up the floodgates for the [question], ‘You know what character you might be able to put in?’”
It is not just Lucasfilm Star Wars projects that Skeleton Crew draws upon, as Watts revealed they also drew inspiration from Captain EO, the Disney Parks short film from the 1980s starring Michael Jackson, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and co-written by George Lucas. Watts explained, “I remember talking about Captain EO, and they were like, ‘Well, you know, technically, that’s George Lucas too. So, you know, is there anything you want to steal from Captain EO?’”
Check out the full roundtable interview with Skeleton Crew creators Jon Watts and Chris Ford below….
The two-episode premiere of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew debuts December 3 on Disney+!
Stay tuned to The HoloFiles and Star Wars Holocron for continued coverage of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, including weekly reviews, analyses, Easter Egg breakdowns, and more!