Stuck on a mysterious planet, the idea of Jedi and The Force is but a bedtime story for Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers) until an unpredictable event launches him on a galactic journey…. Described as The Goonies meets Star Wars, Skeleton Crew is designed for those who grew up in the Amblin Entertainment era, whilst being a unique and exciting introduction to the iconic sci-fi franchise. With the first two episodes now available on Disney+, we catch up with show creators Jon Watts (Tom Holland’s Spider-Man trilogy) and Christopher Ford (Spider-Man: Homecoming) to discuss everything you can expect from this pirate-themed adventure in a galaxy, far, far away….
STARBURST: Skeleton Crew is set after Return of the Jedi, in the New Republic Era; why did that feel this was the right time to tell this story within the Star Wars universe? Why does that era work so well?
Christopher Ford: I think because The New Republic isn’t as established as what we’ve seen in the past with The Old Republic or The Empire. So, this story is about kids getting lost and being left on their own in this big empty galaxy. So it was a kind of more lawless time. There are a bunch of pirates that are kind of out of control and running amuck, so it felt like the right time for us.
Jon Watts: It’s a really bad time for kids to get lost, but I feel like it’s a really good time from a story perspective!
In The Force Awakens, there’s a great scene where Han Solo describes how the Force and the Jedi are real. Before that point, it’s treated like a myth or a legend. How did you want the history of the Jedi to sit within Skeleton Crew, especially in those early episodes?
Chris: A big part of the inspiration for the show was our childhoods when we were fascinated by movies, science fiction, Star Wars and things like that. A big part of being a kid was dreaming about these magical adventures you could have. We realised that as much as maybe some people don’t believe in Jedi or the Force because it’s such a mystical, distant thing, people know about them. We realised that, for these kids, Jedis could be their bedtime stories; they would be like King Arthur or fairy tales to them. So we get to include them in this distant way.
Jon: Yeah, they don’t quite know what it is, or how it works either. So it’s fun to see them experience it without really knowing what’s going on.
Chris: But with a dreamy little kid like Wim, he is certain that Jedi are real and wants to be a Jedi someday. As the grown-up, adult version looking at him, you’re thinking, “You’re never going to be a Jedi.”
You’ve said that the show is influenced by The Goonies, and the back and forth between the main group is legendary. What did you want to see from the dynamic between Wim, Neel, Fern, KB and what that was like to work on?
Jon: What’s great in The Goonies is the kids are allowed to be kids, and they talk over each other. It’s really messy and chaotic and real, so to be able to bring a little bit of that spirit to our group was always in the back of our minds.
Chris: So, the whole feeling on set that we were trying to create, was a place where the kids could be comfortable to be themselves, to have fun, and be able to capture that.
Jon: Yeah, I got to meet Richard Donner before he died, and he said that when he was casting for The Goonies, he said “When you cast kids, you don’t cast kids to play roles, you cast kids because of who they are.” So that was something that we were always thinking about when we were casting, just like really looking for actors that embody the spirit of the characters we were imagining.
Another element from Skeleton Crew that’s reminiscent of The Goonies is the pirate theme. How did this part of the idea come together, and why do you think pirate culture translates so well into a Star Wars format?
Jon: Well, pirates have always been in Star Wars, they’ve been mentioned since the very beginning, but we haven’t really seen that much of the pirate world.
Chris: Yeah, and Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni were starting to flesh it out in that last season of The Mandalorian, which was so exciting. And then, when we had this story with these kids, and we knew they would run afoul of nefarious forces in this lawless time, the pirates were the perfect choice.
Jon: Yeah, there’s something very Treasure Island about it, too, where you get swept up in an adventure.
What did you want to see from the special effects, and is there something that you really wanted to bring that Star Wars fans haven’t seen before?
Jon: Selfishly, as fans, we wanted to try to do as many things as practically as possible. It makes for a more immersive environment for the kids, but it’s also just really fun to have people building animatronic props and doing stop-motion animation, which is something that I really wanted to do on the show.
Chris: It’s amazing how immersive it is now. With the animatronic characters like Brutus, he is fully animated in real life. His mouth moves to the dialogue that has been pre-recorded. It’s so real.
Jon: Yeah, to the point where he is an intimidating presence on set! You’re getting nervous to give him any direction because you’re worried he is going to rip your arm off.
Chris: It’s just so great to see those classic techniques because they’ve actually continued to improve. It’s not like that’s how they would have done it in the ’80s; the technology is even better now.
Jon: Yeah, it’s cutting-edge technology bringing all of these things to life now.
The Onyx Cinder set looked incredible. How do you go about creating a unique ship within the Star Wars universe, a place that already holds home to TIE fighters, X-wings, and the iconic Millennium Falcon?
Chris: What helped was that we had very specific story requirements for our ship. We fed those specs as an engineering brief.
Jon: Yeah, like the ship needs to do “this this this, etc. in these episodes”, and then you give that to incredible concept artists. With our production artists like Doug Chiang at Lucasfilm and his whole team, you give them all of these requirements, and then they come back to you with a ship that can meet them.
Chris: And that has that Star Wars feeling. Which was just, really really good design. It has a distinct silhouette. All those things we think of that feel like Star Wars are all about being just very good.
It’s a LEGO set already, which is always a good sign!
Jon: Oh yeah, I’ve put mine together! It’s on my desk, and it took a while! I love it. That’s when it got really real for me.
Chris: It’s such a well-designed set.
You’re using matte paintings, which many fans remember in those early Star Wars movies. It’s amazing! How did that decision come about, and what were those visuals like to see come to life?
Jon: Well, our VFX supervisor is John Knoll, who has been working on Star Wars forever, and he really encouraged us anytime we had an idea of wanting to do something in a more traditional or old-school way. He knew everyone who did that. He has literally worked with all of these people before. So when I said, “Let’s do some real matte paintings”, he said let me call up our matte painter, who has been retired for fifteen years and has become a fine art painter; let’s see if she wants to paint some planets for us.
Chris: A lot of this is a labour of love. The model of the ship we used for motion control technology was made by John Goodson at home in his garage.
Jon: John Knoll had to build a new motion control rig because our ship has multiple rotating engines, and no one has ever made anything with that many moving parts.
Chris: The ship and camera have moving parts, so it all adds up to more channels than you needed, and they created it like a hobby project of the highest level of hyper-level perfection.
Jon: It’s really great to have these people do things because they are so talented.
What was that like to work on with composer Mick Giacchino?
Jon: It was so exciting to work with Mick, because I had worked with his dad, Michael Giacchino, on the three Spider-Man films. I sort of watched Mick grow up and get better and better, and so now, to finally have him to step in and write all of this beautiful music was, it was really great to watch him do that. The fun challenge here was to combine the big orchestral sweep that you want from Star Wars with a little bit of a pirate sensibility as well, and to see what it’s like when those two things got woven together. He did it really seamlessly.
The first two episodes of SKELETON CREW are available to watch via Disney+ right now.
