Tripwire Reviews Disney’s Plus’ Star Wars: Skeleton Crew Episodes One And Two

Goonies In Space?

Tripwire’s contributing writer Paul Neal casts a critical eye over the first couple of episodes of the latest Star Wars series Skeleton Crew currently available on Disney Plus…

Set after the events of Return Of The Jedi, who ever considered suburban life in the New Republic? The answer to that question is director and screenwriter Jon Watts, and for anyone that has been following his career this should come as no surprise. As many movie buffs may be well aware, Watts excels at storylines that involve getting the very best from young actors. His depiction of normal day to day life after the fall of The Empire is a great deal of fun. After the death of Darth Vader, who thought about the bus schedule?

Watts proved his credentials with his (almost) debut movie Cop Car in 2015. This bold film featured two young stars and veteran actor Kevin Bacon in an enjoyable chase movie akin to Spielberg’s debut film, Duel.

He went on to branch out in Spectacular and Amazing ways for the MCU with Spiderman. After directing a trilogy of movies featuring Peter Parker and his friends, that all featured young teenaged characters and actors, should we be amazed that his next project could be summed up so simply as The Goonies In Space?

Watts is clearly a fan of Spielberg’s early catalogue. In these first two episodes of Skeleton Crew, subtle touchstones from ET and Indiana Jones are clearly on display here.

All of Disney’s promotional material for the series highlighted the involvement of Jude Law’s enigmatic character who may or may not have some Jedi-related powers or background. His character makes one (or perhaps two) appearances in these episodes: as yet, we know very little about the character who could be vital to this series.

Here we have a huge and unrelenting measure of nostalgia, so the question is simple: Is it too blatant?

Directed by the late Richard Donner in 1985, The Goonies was a wonderful film that inspired a generation of kids to hunt for pirate treasure. Does The Skeleton Crew push this obvious homage a bit too far? Yes, absolutely it really does. Everything is entirely charming but that level of old-school 1980s vibes cannot sustain an entire Star Wars series.

Everything about these first two offerings boasts a ton of wit, so much so that it borders on being almost too much of a 1980’s throwback. Never has a Star Wars series worn its influences so clearly upon its sleeve.

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew will have to develop an actual storyline or an identity of its own very soon before it is consigned to the Disney Plus rubbish dump of “seemed like a good idea at the time” series.

Further Tripwire reviews of the series will be published each fortnight. For our review of episodes 3 and 4 we may get into the merits of the stellar (pun intended) young cast involved.