This article contains spoilers for the first two episodes of “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew.”
Back in the day, “Star Wars” used to deal with the fear of the unknown quite a bit. “Episode IV — A New Hope” alone has plenty of scary moments: Darth Vader (David Prowse, voiced by James Earl Jones) is a scary, unstoppable monster. The Empire is a faceless force of oppression. Animalistic, screeching Tusken Raiders stalk the deserts of Tatooine, nearly ending young Luke Skywalker’s (Mark Hamill) journey before it’s even begun. Homesteads and planets are destroyed, countless people die, heroes are trapped in a trash can with a monster … you name it. The other two entries in the original trilogy also have their share of hair-raising moments, from Han Solo’s (Harrison Ford) terrifying carbonite prison to the nightmarish fate that befalls everyone in the Sarlacc Pit.
But all of these moments are now canonized in the annals of pop culture, and what they’ve gained in notoriety they’ve lost in horror. Avid fans can recite the lines of the original trilogy by heart and analyze it from a historical point of view instead of being horrified by its scarier moments. As humans delved ever deeper into the galaxy far, far away, its terror faded. The franchise itself has also largely avoided them since the prequel trilogy, opting for spectacle over the original trilogy’s sheer otherwordliness.
“Star Wars: Skeleton Crew” seems intent on correcting the franchise toward its original, scarier course. Its stars are children of one brand new protected “Star Wars” planet, unfamiliar with the horrors of the galaxy. Their point of view makes the viewer understand and appreciate how terrifying all these droids, pirates and strange places really would be to an unwary visitor – and the show is all the better for it.
Skeleton Crew taps into 1980s nostalgia in more ways than one
The Amblin influences from “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew” says it’s aimed at a new generation of “Star Wars” fans. It’s easy to assume that this takes away from its horror merits, but that’s only if you don’t remember how scary those 1980s Amblin movies could be when you first saw them as a kid. “The Goonies” features plenty of scares, traps and creepy characters, and even “ET the Extra-Terrestrial” briefly introduces ET as a potential threat when Elliott (Henry Thomas) finds him. An Amblin film, “Gremlins” (1984) graces the viewer with a city-wide invasion of murderous monsters – and a tale of chimney death fit for any campfire story. “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” is also an Amblin movie, and the melting cartoon shoe will tell you how family-friendly that movie is. Amblin loved scaring kids in the 1980s, is what I’m saying.
It’s refreshing to see ‘Skeleton Crew’ embrace this side of their influences. Two episodes in, Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers) and the show’s other young heroes have been thrust into a lawless region of the galaxy where space stations are teeming with alien criminals who could serve as horror movie monsters in any other franchise. The show appears to be setting up Brutus (Fred Tatasciore) — a character who, for all intents and purposes, is a gun-toting werewolf — as a big villain. Even the (somewhat) benevolent pirate droid SM-33 (Nick Frost) gets an entrance scene that wouldn’t be out of place in a sci-fi horror movie.
Are such moments enough to make “Star Wars” compete with real horror movies? Of course not. But are they an important and often forgotten part of old-school “Star Wars” that yours truly, at least, warmly welcomes back? Absolutely.
New episodes of “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew” premiere on Tuesdays at 6pm PST on Disney+.
