“I can’t say I remember no At Attin…”
Taking place about five years post-Return of the Jedi, Jon Watts and Christopher Ford’s Skeleton Crew is an overall nice, pleasant little Star Wars children’s show. It contains everything you might imagine for a show like this, plus some impressive graphics/puppet work, and all sorts of echoes of classic ‘80s and ‘90s kids adventure movies like The Goonies, Gremlins, and Flight of the Navigator and so on, with plenty of nods to the past Star Wars movies. After many of the recent Disney-Lucasfilm productions, I was understandably suspicious, but watched it with an open mind and found myself pleasantly surprised with this charming children’s adventure mini-series.
The show opens with a dramatic heist. A pirate vessel helmed by the mysterious Captain Silvo boards a New Republic ship and attempts to rob it. But when nothing of value is found in the ship’s vault, the second in command (a pirate appropriately named Brutus) institutes a mutiny against Captain Silvo. A group of kids all live on a relatively ordinary, earth-like planet of At Attin (pronounced exactly as it sounds, perhaps a reference to the fan debate over “AT-AT” pronunciation). They are Wim (played by Ravi Cabot-Conyers), and his friend Neel, an elephant-like Mykkian creature (played by Robert Timothy Smith), a girl named Fern (played by Ryan Kiera Armstrong) and her friend KB (played by Kyriana Kratter). They are not supposed to travel beyond the “Barrier” in order to complete the “Great Work.” all stumble upon a strange relic lying in the forest. Kim thinks it’s a Jedi Temple, but it turns out to be a starship. Once activated, the ship takes the four kids deep into space on autopilot. They are joined by the ship’s droid SM-33 (voiced by Nick Frost), and also aboard the ship they find a group of human skeletons who appear to have died in a duel.
The adventure takes them to the dangerous pirate-heavy Borgo spaceport to ask for directions where they learn At Attin is the mythical “lost planet of eternal treasure” for which there is no map. The children are thrown in the brig after causing a disturbance where they meet a shadowy Jedi who offers to help them named Jod Na Nawood (played by Jude Law). They all dramatically escape after salvaging their droid SM-33. There was a pretty hilarious scene in which Jude Law’s character is rescuing the droid SM-33; it features all manner of nods to past droids featured in the original trilogy as well as the sequels.
Jod takes the kids to an owl-like friend named Kh’ymm (voiced by Alia Shawkat, the actress who portrayed Maeby Funke on Arrested Development) on a remote moon who helps them find the alleged coordinates to At Attin. However, she has reported him to the authorities, hence why a pair X-Wings arrives just as the “Skeleton Crew” escapes. As they escape, Jod reveals he is not really a Jedi (just merely Force-sensitive), and they arrive on a planet that closely resembles At Attin, but it actually turns out to be a burned-out copy called At Achrann. Here, they meet a band of rebel soldiers called Troiks who are fighting with the dominant Hattans. They are taken to the Troiks hideout and befriend a girl named Hayna and they learn of a “Fallen Sanctum” which might have some charts about At Attin. However, the children are taken in by the Troiks until Jod rescues them by saving the Troiks stolen “Eopie” creatures. But when they arrive at the “Fallen Sanctum,” SM-33’s memory bank is triggered and he suddenly remembers destroying the records leading to At Attin, and he remembers that his old captain instructed him to rip anybody “limb from limb” if they ever asked about At Attin and the secret treasure hidden there. His old captain was the legendary Captain Tak Rennod and this ship is the Onyx Cinder, the coordinates to At Attin were apparently buried by Rennod beneath a remote mountain called Skull Ridge Mountain on the neutral luxury planet of Lanupa –filled with “pleasure yachts” and mud baths. Currently, the banking is on the planet for an economic summit, hence why there is such a high security force.
But Jod runs into an old acquaintance/bounty hunter who knows him only as “Dash Zentin” (one of his many names), she later calls in his bounty. As they flee from the planetary authorities as well as the pirates, they find the coordinates to At Attin inside Captain Reddon’s lair, but when it is revealed that the treasure on At Attin is a huge mint, Jod turns on the children and they barely escape using a trap door. They recover their ship, the Onyx Storm, while Jod is recaptured by the pirates where he wrangles his way out of certain death by killing Brutus and reclaiming his role as captain. They all converge on the location of At Attin, but the key to get past the “barrier” is the Onyx Storm, which Jod takes again by force. He poses as a New Republic emissary and gains access to the At Attin vaults, while all the At Attin droids respect all of his commands, believing he an emissary. They take him down to meet the “Supervisor” –a panopticon-esque computer reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey. But Jod destroys the Supervisor and the power shuts off all across At Attin. A. grand battle ensues in which the New Republic comes to rescue the planet. At the end, Jod is left alive as he watches his ship come crashing down on At Attin.
All things considered, Skeleton Crew is a nice little self-contained 8-episode show. I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed this amusing romp through the Star Wars galaxy. There are a variety of celebrity cameos in the show, including Jaleel White (known for his role as Steve Urkel on Family Matters), Alfred Molina, and even Stephen Fry! Additionally, Mick Giacchino’s score is great, and several of the solid Star Wars show directors return to helm episodes of this show. All things considered I thought this was a fairly safe but nevertheless charming Star Wars adventure.