One last thing: Wim. Sure, it’s funny to see him mean-mug Jod with a lightsaber in hand as if this is his moment of destiny, then promptly switch it on upside-down and drive it into the ground, knocking himself ass over teakettle. But “I wanted to have an adventure, and now I regret it because adventures are scary” is a movie motivation, not a real-person motivation. Luke Skywalker was a bored teenager wanted to see the universe, not have adventures in it. Indiana Jones wanted fortune, glory, and presumably tenure. The Goonies wanted to save their parents’ homes from foreclosure, for crying out loud. None of them was like “Oh boy, I hope I get into all kinds of danger so I can show how kickass I am!” It’s both unrealistic as a motivator and unlikeable as a personality trait. 

I reviewed this week’s Skeleton Crew for Decider.

I guess some points about the kids’ comfortable lifestyle’s pros and cons are made in the back-and-forth between Hayna and Neel over the course of the episode, for what it’s worth. It makes you soft, but that softness is your strength, or something. They tried. I dunno, it’s little tough to take a lesson in heroism from a company selling out trans kids as we speak.

To me, the pleasures of this episode are a lot simpler to appreciate. SM-33’s creepy heel turn, Ryan Kiera Armstrong’s fine performance as Fern, Neel and Hayna’s charming friendship, some pleasantly Star Warsian armor and weapons designs, and a sense of forward motion almost entirely lacking from several of the franchise’s other small-screen efforts — that’s time I don’t regret spending long, long ago.

I reviewed this week’s Skeleton Crew for Decider.

Without Law’s star power and talent, carefully honed over decades, the kid characters just don’t hold up by comparison. Wim remains simultaneously defiant and credulous, two annoying traits that make him hard to take under almost any conditions. Fern, whose ability to take charge of the situation made her the hero of episode 2, comes across as boringly one-note in her opposition to Jod’s very clearly necessary involvement in their escape. Neel is cute, obviously, but cloying, and the lack of nuance in his voice acting can’t be made up for by physical performance since it’s just someone in big blue elephant mask or whatever.

I reviewed this week’s Skeleton Crew

Aliens, droids, starships, a dangerous spaceport, a Jedi in hiding, and not a lawn in sight. Now that’s more like it! Directed with an eye for both creatures and color by David Lowery, this week’s episode of Skeleton Crew is good harmless Star Wars fun. That’s all I ask! Oh, and it also brings Michael Jackson’s Captain EO firmly into Star Wars continuity, for some reason?

I reviewed the second episode of Skeleton Crew, which is perfectly fine, for Decider.

There’s something disgusting about seeing lawns in Star Wars. Once, outside the living memory of many people who will watch Skeleton Crew, this franchise became a franchise because it showed people things they’d never seen before — or at the very least, remixed its disparate sources into something exciting and novel. Skeleton Crew opts for neatly rectangular patches of freshly mown grass, in front of tasteful two-story family homes with attached garages, lining a sunlit street down which cars drive as their occupants return from their commute to the city…in Star Wars. An entire galaxy to explore, and co-creators/co-writers Christopher Ford and Jon Watts (who also directs this episode) decided to recreate the environmentally ruinous, politically alienating post-war American suburb? My reaction was instant and instinctive: This is sick.

I reviewed the premiere of the new Star Wars show Skeleton Crew for Decider. (The next two episodes are much better, but good lord.)