‘Star Wars: Skeleton Crew’ Creators Talk About the Show’s Original Idea and Influences

Star Wars is advancing to its next live-action project, Skeleton Crew, following a good run with Ahsoka and a rather contentious stint with The Acolyte. The first two episodes of the series are slated to launch on December 2, 2024, and will then air weekly after that.

Following the controversy surrounding The Acolyte, Lucasfilm, and Disney are hoping that the Goonies-inspired Star Wars pirate show will be a success. According to a variety of reports that have surfaced in recent weeks and months, though, some have praised the show, while others have labeled it yet another impending issue for the companies.

Tomorrow is the day when we are going to find out just how good or bad the series is, but we are hoping that the series will be a success for the two companies. Not just because of them, but also because of the franchise as a whole and the premise, which really seems to be promising!

In light of the upcoming premiere, TV Line magazine had an exclusive talk with Jon Watts and Chris Ford, the show’s co-creators, who opened up about the show’s original idea – this was, if you remember, supposed to be a movie initially before Disney+ was launched – and some other details about the show. The first question was aimed at unveiling how the series came to be:

TVLINE | What was the catalyst for this idea? Who caught their kids mixing up their Indiana Jones and Star Wars action figures?

JON WATTS | I mean, it started as just a simple pitch, which is a group of kids that don’t really know that they’re in the Star Wars galaxy, get lost in the Star Wars galaxy and try to find their way home.

CHRIS FORD | It started with that, and then unpacking what all of the ramifications of that would be, and all the different worlds and things we’d have to create and who they would meet along the way. But we just started with that and let it kind of lead us into the story.

WATTS | And I pitched it a long time ago. I pitched it right after the first Spider-Man [Homecoming] movie. It was initially pitched to Lucasfilm as a film, and then I had to go make two Spider-Man movies, because the first one did all right.

Over time, [Jon] Favreau made The Mandalorian and Disney+ came into existence, so it evolved, as the Spider-Man movies were being made, into a show, and that gave us more time to explore the galaxy and get into this world of piracy and have a little bit more fun with it. And once I finished the third Spider-Man movie [No Way Home], we could finally get to work making it.

Source: TV Line

If you’ve seen the trailer, you probably know that Skeleton Crew is going to be a very atypical Star Wars show and TV Line decided to explore that aspect as well:

TVLINE | I was skimming the comments on YouTube for the trailer that dropped, and a lot of people are saying, “If you hadn’t told me this was a Star Wars project, I would not have known.” Is that a great thing… or also kind of a not-great thing?

FORD | I think that Star Wars probably has a broader tone than people realize. If you think about just certain key moments or you know, a lightsaber fight, it could be very narrow, but you have to remember that when they walk into the cantina, that’s some people’s favorite moment. There’s an insane jazz combo playing this crazy song, and I think a big part of Star Wars is embracing all of that. It’s a big galaxy to bring them all in.

WATTS | What I like about Star Wars — and Andor did so much with this, which I really loved — is you can take any moment or any character in Star Wars, and because it feels like such a dense, complex, real galaxy, you can follow them home. Like, I’m so curious to know the life of everyone in the cantina band. Where did they come from? How did they meet? Do they play any other gigs? Are they there all the time?

FORD | Are they touring?

TVLINE | Or any random stormtrooper. When he goes home, he’s, what, living in a studio apartment, at best.

WATTS | Yeah, yeah, with, like, those vertical blinds.

TVLINE | He probably has two roommates.

WATTS | Yeah! It’s such a dense, complex world, that I figure you could follow any one of those tangents and come up with an interesting story.

The next topic discussed in the interview was the relation of the show to the canon in general, as it turns out that you do not need to know anything about the Star Wars lore to watch this series:

TVLINE | I saw an interview where you said that people “cannot know anything” about Star Wars and enjoy this show. But besides the Jedi mention that we get a couple of episodes in, will there be other little nods, Easter eggs for us to latch onto?

WATTS | Definitely. The main characters don’t really know anything about the Star Wars universe, either, so as a viewer, you don’t have to know anything about Star Wars to be on the journey with the kids. But if you do know a lot about Star Wars, you’re ahead of the kids.

You know more about the galaxy than they do, and that allows you to enjoy the show in a completely different way than someone who doesn’t know anything about it. Our hope is that the people who don’t know anything and those that know everything are watching the show together and having their own unique conversation.

Finally, the influences behind the show were discussed:

TVLINE | I was saying to your young cast that this series is, obviously, inspired by Goonies, E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark — touchstones that are big for me and you two, but not for them. They haven’t necessarily seen those films. Is that sort of a challenge for you, marketing this to a younger audience that maybe hasn’t seen Goonies?

WATTS | I don’t think so, because when we think about it, we were never really consciously referencing those movies, because we didn’t have to. Because those movies are just a part of our DNA. Like, being 10 is going out on an adventure and hoping you’re going to find some pirate treasure or something like that. I think what all that taps into is the feeling of being a kid and the feeling of wanting to go on an adventure.

FORD | Yeah, because all of those ‘80s movies were tapping into that same thing, too, and we’re just trying to go right to that same source, because, you know, we experienced that in our own childhoods — and I think kids are still the same.

WATTS | Hopefully, there’s something more universal at play than just ‘80s nostalgia.

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