By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Skeleton Crew has long since wrapped, but I have been busy nursing some blue milk and asking a big question: just why did I enjoy this show so much? Sure, fans generally dug this show, but it never seemed to generate the buzz of other Disney+ shows, including major disappointments like The Acolyte and The Book of Boba Fett. The answer finally came to me like a vision from the Force: simply put, Skeleton Crew is the best thing to happen to Star Wars since Andor.
Skeleton Crew, Andor, And The Future Of Star Wars
At first glance, comparing Skeleton Crew and Andor may seem like comparing Wookies and Ewoks. Andor is grim and gritty, reveling in its realism; Skeleton Crew is a lighthearted, kid-centric romp that many have dubbed Goonies in space. Nonetheless, both shows share surprisingly similar qualities that the Disney era of the franchise must embrace in order to succeed.
For example, Skeleton Crew, like Andor before it, provides us with a self-contained story that doesn’t really require any homework (like watching other shows or movies) to understand what’s going on. Sure, Andor is an extended prequel to Rogue One, but fans who skipped that film (and first of all, how dare you) can enjoy the show as a self-contained tale of Cassian Andor becoming a ragtag Rebel recruit. Skeleton Crew is even more self-contained, as it has no direct connections to other shows and films and can be enjoyed without any fussy questions about canon.
To understand more about why Skeleton Crew is the best thing to happen to Star Wars since Andor, it’s worth comparing this newer show to another series: The Acolyte. That show was a confusing mess due to multiple flashbacks built around a mystery box, all of which made the story hard to follow, much less understand. By comparison, Skeleton Crew is built around a simple and linear story…in this case, a character-building treasure hunt, just as Andor is the character-building study of one man joining the Rebellion.
Speaking of which: Skeleton Crew, like Andor before it, has characters that are actually compelling in their own right. Much of the Star Wars content on Disney+ relies either directly on legacy characters (like Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Book of Boba Fett) or connections to other major players (The Mandalorian is tied to Luke Skywalker, Ahsoka is tied to Grand Admiral Thrawn, and so on). Skeleton Crew introduces us to some truly new characters that, like Andor’s Luthen Rael and Syril Karn, give this series its own unique flavor.
Finally, Skeleton Crew and Andor have one more admittedly subjective thing in common: they make Star Wars feel original again. For literal decades, the prequels and sequels have tried to bite the Original Trilogy’s style, leaving us with a blockbuster franchise that seems determined to tell the same handful of stories over and over again to diminishing returns. Andor showed us there was “one way out” of this rut–namely, by telling cool side stories about minor characters–and Skeleton Crew has proven that this is the best way to tell new stories set in a galaxy far, far away.
Skeleton Crew may or may not get a second season, but this show has nonetheless revealed what a trailblazer Andor truly was. The latter show focused on the kinds of characters that the movies always ignored, and it quickly became must-see TV for Star Wars fans. Now that Skeleton Crew has shown how versatile the Andor formula really is, here’s hoping we get some more franchise shows and even films that focus on something other than Jedi, Sith, and the extended Skywalker clan.
