We’re a number of months away from the Jon Watts and Christopher Ford created live-action Star Wars series, Skeleton Crew, debuting on Disney+, but today Entertainment Weekly have released an interview conducted at Star Wars Celebration back in April with one of the series creators along with one of its stars, who share new details on the upcoming series.
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We’ve known since the series was first announced last year that Jon Watts and Christopher Ford wanted to create a Star Wars series in Skeleton Crew inspired by classic eighties Amblin movies such as The Goonies. The series focuses on a group of kids seeking adventure and take off on one without their parents knowledge, but unfortunately the group manage to get lost, with the series focusing primarily on the children’s quest to find their way back home. Series co-creator, Christopher Ford, shared that despite the series being led by a group of children, the series itself is intended for people of all ages, adding that the show isn’t for kids – it just got kids in it. Ford explained that though their aiming for a series with fun and adventure, the downside of that for their characters is that adventure comes with danger, which our heroes will most certainly face when lost in a galaxy far, far away.
“Skeleton Crew’s tone is an adventure and a lot of fun. But with adventure comes the downside of it which is danger, and when the kids are in danger it’s extra fraught, so you know we play with that. But overall we wanted it to be just a fun adventure. Hopefully it can be a for all ages type of thing. When we told Kathleen Kennedy that we wanted to go for that kind of Amblin tone, which she perfected, they never thought of those movies for kids – they just happened to be about kids. A story of a kid going on an adventure can be for anyone.” – Christopher Ford
Though the series itself focuses on a group of kids going on an adventure, the biggest name attached to the series is that of Jude Law. The kids encounter Law’s mysterious character on their journey, with a teaser trailer from Star Wars Celebration showing Law’s character seemingly first meeting the group when they’re locked behind bars and using the force to free them, before joining them on their quest. As you’d expect, Jude Law couldn’t provide many details on his character, but did label him contradictory and that he mirrors the world in which the kids are lost in, adding that at times his character can be nurturing to the children and at others threatening.
“I can’t tell you very much about my character. He is someone the children meet on their journey, on their way to get home. He, like the world they experience, is contradictory – at times a place of nurture and other times a place of threat. What I love is because it’s through their eyes, you know there’s a kind of goofy relationship between the kids and the adults, and other times it’s really quite dark and quite scary, which I guess is what the world looks like to an awful lot of eleven year olds.” – Jude Law
The series takes place in the period between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, specifically around the time of The Mandalorian and it’s sister series such as Ahsoka and The Book of Boba Fett, a time of lawlessness with the New Republic attempting to take order of the galaxy, whilst pirates thrive and remnants of the Empire still exist. Christopher Ford explains to EW that the joy of setting Skeleton Crew in this time period is that they don’t have to deal with the Empire as if the Empire was around, the adventure the children go on would likely come to an end pretty swiftly.
“For us it was a great era because as much as the New Republic are trying to bring things back [to peace], it’s kind of a lawless wild time, so there’s a lot of danger. If we had set it earlier the kids might’ve just met the Empire and got shut down. This is more of the galaxy to get lost in.” – Christopher Ford
One thing that was revealed during Star Wars Celebration back in April was the talented list of directors attached to Skeleton Crew which included the series co-creator Jon Watts (Spider-Man: No Way Home), Jake Schreier (Beef), David Lowery (The Green Knight) and Academy award winning directing duo, The Daniels (Everything, Everywhere, All at Once). Christopher Ford spoke glowingly of the Academy award winners, revealing that they brought fun to the set and were really able to run the production well for their episode, with Jude Law adding that each director was able to bring their own personality to their individual episodes, including The Daniels.
“They were fun. They were really fun. They being a great dynamic to the set. In the morning they’d always do a special warm up exercise and they really know how to run a set well and make it fun.” – Christopher Ford
“This series has the right amount of elbow room should we call it? Manoeuvrability that each director coming on really bring their own perspective and there definitely is a kind of flavour of The Daniels as there are of everyone else.” – Jude Law
Skeleton Crew does not yet have a confirmed release date, but is due to release on Disney+ in the window of November or December this year.
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