Examining the Skeleton Crew Trailer

LucasFilm released the first official trailer for Skeleton Crew, the latest Star Wars Disney+ series, at D23. Some fans described sneak peeks as “Goonies in space”. Now that we have a first look, that description seems accurate.

While the trailer clocks in at a mere one minute and forty-one seconds, we see quite a few tropes never before used in Star Wars. For instance, this is the first time we see a suburban neighborhood in a galaxy far far away. Before, we’ve mainly seen extremely rural environments such as Tatooine and Hoth and extremely urban environments such as Coruscant. We haven’t seen many people who rarely venture out of their comfort zone.

This is also the first live-action Star Wars series to feature children as the main cast. It’s a natural fit. Especially since legendary directors such as Steven Spielberg and John Hughes made many films with child casts.

But enough about cliched observations. Let’s get to the screencaps!

WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN?

This looks like a show made for children, even more so than the Original Trilogy. It somehow is a 1980s family adventure film with the Star Wars universe as the escape zone. It seems like the children wander into what they think might be a Jedi temple, but in reality is a buried spacecraft, which is how they find themselves stranded in space. From there they battle pirates and seek advice from a talking owl to find Jude Law and make their way back home.

Given that Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni are involved, it likely will take place at approximately the same time as the “Mandoverse” shows they’ve produced. The Jedi are still seen as a mystical legend, and we see X-Wings briefly flying over one of the adventurers.

How Jude Law’s apparent Jedi character fits in remains to be seen. Skeleton Crew is created by Jon Watts and Christopher Ford (Spider-Man: Homecoming) and premieres on Disney+ on December 3rd.