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S02E01: Let's Chat About Skeleton Crew with a School Teacher... Quickly
33 Plays2 months ago
In the inaugural episode of the newly-rechristened "Short For A Stormtrooper," Bob chats with his big sister Julie Curry about Skeleton Crew. Join us and hear what a retired school teacher with decades in the classroom thinks about this kid-centered series!
SFAS Theme Song written by Bob Gerard, arranged and performed by Suno.com
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Short for a Stormtrooper'
00:00:00
Speaker
short for Stormtrooper. It's time to dive into Star Wars Skeleton Crew with my sister Julie, and I promise we'll keep it short.
00:00:10
Speaker
You've got mindless chores to do. Podcasts help you see them through. what Star Wars is your favorite in
00:00:28
Speaker
Welcome, I don't know whether to say welcome back or welcome home or just plain welcome. So I'll stick with just plain welcome. This is short for a storm trooper, a 15 minute Star Wars podcast. Now, if I was meant to say welcome back to you,
00:00:46
Speaker
It's because you have been a subscriber of Star Wars Cleaning Crew, which I have been running for the last seven months or so. And I appreciate that you are here and you are sticking with me. That's so great to have you still here. ah But we have a new title.
Podcast Format and Guest Appearances
00:01:01
Speaker
So the new title of this program is short for a stormtrooper.
00:01:06
Speaker
a 15 minute Star Wars podcast. And I'm hoping that many of you who are listening to this are maybe joining us for the first time. If so, you can always go back to the back catalog. It still should be there in your podcast app and you can catch up on some of the conversations that I have. But the general idea is we pick a topic. Sometimes it's just me talking. Sometimes it's me bringing on a friend or a colleague or somebody. And we talk about a Star Wars thing for 15 minutes.
00:01:36
Speaker
Why 15 minutes? Because I love Star Wars podcasts, but a lot of them tend to go too long. And I listen to podcasts when I'm doing chores like cleaning the kitchen. And so I would have to like listen to a podcast over seven or eight days while I clean the kitchen at 15 minutes at a time.
00:01:57
Speaker
So I decided to make this podcast something that was kind of bite-sized that you could listen to in just 15 minutes. So either way, we're glad that you're here.
Initial Reactions to 'Star Wars Skeleton Crew'
00:02:08
Speaker
But we are, for this episode, diving into Star Wars Skeleton Crew, the latest Disney Plus Star Wars show. ah Spoiler alert, my opinion of this was I really enjoyed it. I thought it kept getting better It wasn't something that like, you know, completely captured my heart. And I was like super passionate about it, but I just really, really liked it. I really enjoyed it. And that's where I weighed in.
Plans for In-Depth Discussion with Sister Julie
00:02:36
Speaker
I decided for this episode, I wanted to have a conversation with my sister, Julie Curry.
00:02:43
Speaker
Julie is a retired school teacher, so she spent years and years and years in the classroom. And I thought it would be interesting to get Julie's perspective on this show, since it dealt so heavily with the kids, and really explore how they treated you know kind of that ah the junior high, we would say, in the States, you know that 11, 12, 13-year-old kid.
00:03:08
Speaker
how authentic that was. So we're gonna get to that with Julie. We actually wound up recording for quite a bit. So we won't talk about that on this episode. we talk We'll get into the kids on the next episode, but let's dive in and start talking about our initial reaction to the show. And we'll spend a lot of time talking about the character of Jod, which we all are enamored with. So let's take a listen.
00:03:37
Speaker
Let's talk skeleton crew.
Julie's Mixed Feelings on 'Skeleton Crew'
00:03:40
Speaker
What did you think? I had mixed feelings about it. Okay. I rewatched the final episode this morning and realized that I think in the final episode, they did a good job of tying it all together so that it made a lot more sense. And I liked um I liked overall, I liked it a lot more.
00:04:07
Speaker
I felt that I guess I maybe dozed a little bit the first time I saw it. Not unusual. And so some of the things that I did not like or was concerned about after the ah the first time I kind of watched it were settled. And I thought they had a lot of good points to it that they brought through in the final episode.
00:04:35
Speaker
Yeah, so what were some of those things for you? Because I know like for me, yeah and I mentioned this before, when I was watching the the the commercials and the trailers and everything, right the the the early footage we got before the show started, I felt like the setting, the planet the the kids' home planet felt too much like 1980s United States.
00:05:02
Speaker
It wasn't Star Wars enough. It felt too much in the real world, not enough in the Star Wars world. But then I felt we got a good story explanation for that in that. At Atten was kind of sequestered away and I could buy that things looked different than we're used to in Star Wars. They actually wanted that because they wanted to signify that this is kind of like an ancient planet.
00:05:27
Speaker
you know, that that that is now emerging into the country. So that was one for me that got settled. But what were some of the things for you? The big thing for me was Jod's status as a Jedi. Was he or was he not?
00:05:43
Speaker
And ah that was an interesting point that they brought up, I think rather quickly in the final episode, that ah of why he had some force abilities.
00:05:58
Speaker
but did not have necessarily the ethics of a Jedi. Yeah. Or the mastery of the force. but he right he was ah He was an amateur force user at best. Okay. Right. And I think he yeah he had a lot going, he could do a lot with it. I wasn't ever quite sure if there was a change in his character. um There was some stuff that he did, pardon me, some things that he did, that ah seemed to indicate that he did have a real affection for the
Character Analysis: Jod vs. Han Solo
00:06:36
Speaker
kids. thing But that he did not, ah it wasn't enough for him to put aside his pirating ways.
00:06:46
Speaker
ah In the last episode there was at at one point a look on his face of a kind of affection or admiration after I think KB was flying the ship and or they they turned off the shield or whatever. yeah And so um i think the I think the way they left it at the end with Wim looking up at the stars with the wonder on his face and and the expression on Jod's face that there was enough of a resolution that if it doesn't get another season, I'm okay. But I'll be really interesting to see what happens. Does Wim gom or go and join the rebellion, become a starfighter? um I'm forgetting where it is in the timeline. Does Jod realize he's just a scoundrel like Han Solo? and
00:07:43
Speaker
and decide to become a good guy. ah Does he pursue force training? So I think they left it at a good point. No, I agree with that. They they did not have a cliffhanger. it's fine It's fine if it's done now. It would be fine if it goes on for another season. Right. um Because there have been shows where it feels like it wrapped up, and then they still went ahead for another season. Case in point, Mandalorian. I think if Mandalorian had ended after season two,
00:08:12
Speaker
with ah with Grogu going to Luke. I would have been happy with that as much as I missed it. um But we don't even want to go down that direction. Okay, I will not make the point. i was yeah me Well, I agree with what you were thinking around Jod. I thought that that was i thought it was fascinating about him. And The way that I saw Jod was that he is very similar to Han Solo when we first meet Han Solo in episode four. Right. And he is that scoundrel who is right on the verge. He could tip either way. Mm hmm.
00:08:52
Speaker
And what was interesting to me is Han wound up tipping towards the good side. right He still had some scoundrel-y aspects to it, but he wound up being a good guy. They even made that point at the end of Solo, remember, when when she says, no, you're the hero.
00:09:08
Speaker
Oh, right. Right. Yeah. Yes. That's how Han Solo is wired. Jod flipped the other direction. He leaned in the other way and it was like, yeah, I think he did genuinely like the kids. He genuinely didn't want to hurt anybody. Right. But if push comes to shove, he is going to look after himself and after his own ah pocketbook before he is worried about anything else.
00:09:31
Speaker
Right, right. But I think ultimately, if if there was a problem on at Atten and the kids sent out a signal, I do think Jod would come back to do what he could to help. Yes, I agree. That kind of affection, but that's not his priority. Yeah. OK, so then my question is, what why were you having an issue with that through the show until you got to that level of resolution? Why why did that tension? ah Is he good or is he bad? The character kept flipping.
00:10:01
Speaker
So at one point, he's being really gentle with the kids and very positive. And then he's the scoundrel. And then he's going back and being gentle and and ah kind of ah diluting the kids into thinking. And then, oh, nope, he's a bad guy again. And he's he's doing the pirate stuff. He does do a serious heel turn, like a WWE wrestling heel turn.
00:10:29
Speaker
oh okay right you know like yeah there there is that moment when he realizes and he sees all the money yeah that he he switched he does switch and you're like okay i've been wondering all along and now i know he's he's on the bad side and and then at the end hardly a redemption story he doesn't redeem himself at all but you do see those glimmers like exactly like you said He could have been so much more destructive. He could have done so much worse with those kids than he wound up doing. I think he held back because he did genuinely like them. Absolutely. And I think, especially in the last episode when they were fighting up in the the main control room, that he could have just turned around and sliced everybody to bits. Right. And he did not. And I think ah when he saw
00:11:23
Speaker
The kids with their parents, I mean, he says, oh good, now I know who belongs to who and so I can judge who I want to rub out. I think he saw the affection for the parents and the kids and he did not want to destroy that. I think that's right. And he had something that he did not have and he did not want to destroy that for them. And we never really knew, was he was he bluffing with that? Was he not bluffing? You never you never knew.
00:11:50
Speaker
Very true. That's very true. And we still don't know. All right. Thank you to my creepy sister, Julie. And she's not creepy, but you know, it's a family thing. You got to do it for talking with us about Skeleton Crew. Next week, when we talk to Julie, we will dive into the kids and kind of run through all of the characters of the kids. And it's a fascinating rest of the
Homage to Spielberg and 80s Adventure Style
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Speaker
conversation.
00:12:12
Speaker
A couple things that I didn't bring up in any of my conversation with Julia that I just wanted to point out about Skeleton Crew. Like I said at the beginning, I did really enjoy it. I didn't have the fire about it or the passion that I did about some of the other Star Wars shows, but I rank it really towards the top. I think it's one of my favorite Disney Plus series. Actually, we didn't talk a lot about the Spielberg-y-ness of it. And a lot has been said, a lot has been written about how this was really kind of an homage to the 80s, Amblin movies, things like Goonies, things like Batteries Not Included. i I felt that. I thought it was really great in that regard. And I just loved how you had that action. To a certain extent, it was kind of that adventure of the of the week type thing.
00:13:08
Speaker
And I can get behind that for a Star Wars show. That was good. Another thing that I noticed that I actually thought was a little inconsistent was the quality of the special
Visual Effects and Use of 'Volume' Technology
00:13:18
Speaker
effects. So two different things here. One is, just in terms of like the ships and the models and things like that, I noticed during the first couple of episodes, I felt like the the ships flying or the speeder bike chase, like the speeder bike chase we had in the first episode,
00:13:35
Speaker
I didn't feel like visually it was quite up to snuff of what we we're used to seeing out of ILM. Didn't detract from my enjoyment of the show at all, but I did feel it was a little a little low. But then it got better as it went on. And a lot has been said about some fantastic special effects that we saw later.
00:13:54
Speaker
Another thing was the use of the volume. I feel like the technology behind the volume has gotten better. There were a couple of times, especially at the very end when you were up in the administrator's loft or when you were in the vault, that it was like, OK, this is the volume. It kind of looks a little off. But most of the time it really, really worked for me. So some pluses with the visuals, some negatives again.
00:14:20
Speaker
doesn't impact the story at all. And I still love the show.
Conclusion and Future Podcast Teasers
00:14:24
Speaker
So we'll be back next time to talk more with Julie about Skeleton Crew. In the meantime, please like, please subscribe. Please tell your friends. May the force be with you. We'll see you next week. Bye bye.