Lucasfilm has released the first trailer for Skeleton Crew, This will be the next Star Wars series to hit Disney Plus on December 3rd when it debuts on the streaming service. Footage from the D23 Expo following The Acolyteand complements Lucasfilm and Disney’s experimentation to take Star Wars out of its Skywalker-centric comfort zone.
The series follows a group of young children on an intergalactic adventure and is heavily influenced by the classic Amblin Entertainment films of the 1980s, such as ET, The GooniesAnd Gremlins (just like Netflix’s huge success Stranger ThingsJude Law plays the lead role alongside the young cast and appears in the trailer in full Jedi gear.
The trailer even suggests that the show will go so far as to incorporate a Star Wars version of 1980s suburban America from the Amblin films, with shots showing the kids at school and running around a peaceful residential neighborhood. There’s also some more familiar Star Wars action, as the kids ride speeder bikes, hide in spaceships, and flee from space pirates. Skeleton Crew also indulges the Star Wars franchise’s recent obsession with people slaving away in cubicles in administrative offices. (What’s up with that?)
Skeleton Crew seems to be a largely standalone adventure, although it takes place in a similar time frame as The Mandalorian – the early days of the New Republic – and the trailer suggests a direct connection to that show, in the form of space pirate Vane, played by Marti Matulis.
The series was developed by Jon Watts, the director of the last three Spider-Man films, together with his colleague Christopher Ford. Watts and Ford have assembled a number of outstanding directors for the series, including David Lowery (The Green Knight), the Daniels (Everything everywhere at once) and Lee Isaac Chung (Twisters), while the cast includes The Banshees of InisherinKerry Condon and Ravi Cabot-Conyers, Kyriana Kratter and Robert Timothy Smith as children.
