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S02E03: Speedily Wrapping Up Skeleton Crew
34 Plays2 months ago
We wrap up our conversation on Skeleton Crew with retired school teacher Julie Curry, then Bob gives some closing thoughts on Skeleton Crew. Spoiler: We liked it!
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Transcript
Introduction and Potential New Audience
00:00:00
Speaker
A little short for Stormtrooper. We're wrapping up our thoughts on Skeleton Crew, and we're doing it quick. Stay tuned.
00:00:10
Speaker
You've got mindless chores to do. Podcasts help you see them through. Star Wars is your favorite in
00:00:29
Speaker
Welcome back to Short for a Stormtrooper and special welcome to anybody who may have joined us recently. I just had the opportunity to be on the Coffee with Kenobi podcast with Dan Zair and a couple of new friends. Had a great time over there and I'm hoping that some of you who are here for the first time today were directed there from Dan's podcast. So thanks of course to Dan for having me on.
Discussion on 'Skeleton Crew' Begins
00:00:54
Speaker
Anyway, we are actually jumping in. If it's your first time, we're kind of jumping in at the end of a series. It's our Look at Skeleton Crew. And this is my conversation with my sister, Julie, who is a retired school teacher of many, many years. And we are recapping our thoughts on Skeleton Crew. So we'll talk with Julie for a little bit. And then I have some final thoughts on Skeleton Crew. So let's take a listen.
00:01:18
Speaker
Okay, so a couple other characters I want to talk about. So so Kim, yeah the owl woman. Yes. What was your reaction to Kim? ah You know what? I didn't feel that she was super necessary for the story. Okay.
00:01:35
Speaker
Um, I, you know, again, introducing a whole new species is probably where that comes in that. And so in, as an adventure story, uh, it was like each episode, they had to encounter a new situation, a new situation that they had to solve, and then they could move on to the next one. That's kind of almost a hero's quest type thing.
00:02:03
Speaker
But I think um I liked the idea of Kim. i I don't think I liked the way they developed the character, like like I said, the owl chick.
00:02:16
Speaker
I was excited when I was looking at the credits ah ah beforehand, because I really like Alia Shawkat. Yeah. And so I was kind of disappointed that it was just her voice. i I just yeah, she just seemed kind of extraneous to me that they could have done that with that didn't have to be a whole episode of them going to Kim and finding Kim and, and getting that information they could have I think maybe done something an established character or an established species or something like that. Yeah, I can see that point. I I just thought she was fun. I thought she was a delightful character and very fun. I know it was just kind of a little bit of candy there. So it's just not not super not not a super big part of the story that information move the story forward. But
00:03:13
Speaker
the character I didn't think was very vital. That's fair. Except in the last episode, you know, she's right. Exactly. Yeah. yeah Um,
Character Analysis and Actor Performances
00:03:22
Speaker
yeah. Aaliyah Shaw cat, by the way, is also in severance this season on the day we're recording this episode two just came out. So, okay. We haven't seen a ton of her, but yeah, I i love her. She's always great as maybe, um, great show. Yeah. The last person I want, actually the last thing I want to talk about is Urkel. Yeah. What did you think about Urkel?
00:03:43
Speaker
Jaleel White being one of the pirates. I know. So, okay. Okay, so when you have developed a character like Urkel that is so strong, you cannot escape that. ah I mean, we still call him Urkel. I just did, right? Yeah.
00:04:10
Speaker
And so um it's really hard to watch him and not think of him as Urkel. yeah um I think he's, yeah I'd seen him in a few other things here and there, bit little bit things. I think he's really working hard to break that um that casting, that type casting.
00:04:34
Speaker
So I was very happy for him. Yeah, you know, he's, um I don't know if you know, he's got a game show now. Oh, no network. Yeah. And um he does okay. On that. I, I don't think they used him enough to allow him to break out of his stereotype. Yep. He was it was very, I think he was underused.
00:04:58
Speaker
as far as being a an actor that is very recognizable. And ah so I, again, if they do a follow-up, will he be in more episodes? So I think it was it was a good move for him. But again, it was just hard sometimes, you know, when he's speaking and and he's trying to use a tough voice and be tough and gruff and piratey. And it was still Urkel.
00:05:28
Speaker
Yeah, i think you're I think you're absolutely right. I think he was fine. He was fine, right? yeah And that part was was somewhere between an expert and a minor an extra and a minor character. yes So, you know, so he was fine.
Future Speculations and Jude Law's Role
00:05:42
Speaker
So, okay, so we we we've ah we we we got to wrap this up, but we've talked to we've talked about um kind of what we see in the future we agree like if it ends here that's fine if it goes on for another season that's fine right what i'm seeing more as a likelihood right now given some of the ratings that apparently the show got is that we might not get a second season but we might see at least one of the characters in the
00:06:09
Speaker
kind of Dave Filoni's big man reverse wrap up movie that hopefully we'll hear more about when we're in Japan. Okay, so you know, I think that's kind of what's going to happen. And yeah I'm okay with whatever they do. Yes. Yeah, um I also want to say I think you know Jude law is such a great actor. He was great. in So he brought that ah ah pirate 33. Yeah.
00:06:32
Speaker
SM-33? SM-33 is me. yeah i couldn't i i It was kind of anachronistic having a ah robot who was in existence a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away talking with an 18th century pirate accent.
00:06:49
Speaker
But that's me. But on the whole, oh, I oh when I was reading some things, they were talking about the different, you you know, who is the target audience? They were saying, you know, middle schoolers. And I'm like, no, your target audience is the age of the kids. So the target audience is not middle schoolers.
00:07:10
Speaker
But um it it's that fourth and fifth and sixth grade. And I also want to mention that one of my main criticism about ah things that are made for kids that are written by people who do not know kids, that a lot of times they fall short. And I don't think that this fell short. you know When you're you're watching a movie and it's full of barf and puke and fart jokes, something that's well-written for children will be entertaining for adults. And i think this I think this fits that bill. So I was pleased in that aspect that I felt that it was it was good, but I think it was for Star Wars fans. I was talking to our sister-in-law,
00:07:56
Speaker
Um, and she said, Oh, she, she had a hard time with it, but she's not a Star Wars fan. So, right. Yeah. But I, so I thought it fit that bill pretty well. They did a good job with it. Yeah. They didn't punch down. They didn't. put yeah add That's, that's absolutely right. That's absolutely right.
00:08:15
Speaker
Okay, thank you to my sister Julie Curry for joining us on these last two and a half episodes. It was great having her on and you will hear more from Julie and my nephew, well, our nephew, Pete Girard, when we are all down at Star Wars Celebration in Tokyo coming up really soon. Very excited for that.
00:08:36
Speaker
ah that's coming in April.
Star Wars Veteran Actors' Impact
00:08:38
Speaker
So I just wanted to close this podcast out with a few additional thoughts on Skeleton Crew. One, you know at the end we were talking about Jude Law and his performance and how much we liked it. We talked about that too on Coffee with Kenobi. Jude Law I thought was just amazing. Love his character, whatever his character's real name is. And I'm hoping to see him again.
00:09:02
Speaker
But you know I have seen some diatribe, some of the the few complaints on Skeleton Crew about the idea of having an established actor with such a major part in a Star Wars story. And as if somehow that is a wrong or a bad thing to do or something that has never happened before. A lot of that conversation is coming because there's a rumor coming out about a very high profile popular actor right now.
00:09:31
Speaker
potentially having a lead role in one of the new Star Wars movies. We'll talk more about that if that gets confirmed. I imagine if it does get confirmed, it will probably happen in Tokyo. So it will probably be a lot of news from there. So we'll talk more about that particular actor if that comes to fruition. And if I've now just made you wonder, you know, Google it. But anyway, here's my point.
00:09:54
Speaker
there Since the very first Star Wars movie, we've had established actors in big roles. So you look at A New Hope, which was Star Wars when it first came out. Yes, the the main characters were relatively unknown. Mark Hamill, you knew him from soap operas. Carrie Fisher, daughter of Eddie and Debbie, and she had been in a couple of movies. Harrison Ford had kind of just done a little bit of a star turn in American Graffiti, but mostly they were unknown. But then they were bolstered up with Alec Guinness, a well-established character actor, and Peter Cushing, same way, you know mostly known from his
00:10:37
Speaker
his hammer horror films but these were were guys that we knew in those roles and they rounded out the cast and then that continued on so we got to Empire Strikes Back and we had Billy Dee Williams who was very popular in the late 70s and you could even argue Frank Oz that was at the height of Muppetsdom if you remember back then and he came in to be Yoda so you know, it it goes on. Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman. um then Then we get to to the sequels, and or yes, the sequels, Last Jedi, Laura Dern. We've got Carrie Russell in The Rise of Skywalker. And now we have Jude Law, and now we have a few others. And there there are more others to name. I really don't think it's a question of whether somebody should be
00:11:25
Speaker
established or should be new to be in Star Wars. It should be the right person for the right part at the right time and hopefully that's something that we all agree on. Another thought about skeleton crew is the use of the volume.
Special Effects and Technology in Skeleton Crew
00:11:41
Speaker
So I thought that the special effects in skeleton crew in general were a little hit or miss in the first episode. I think I might've mentioned this earlier in the, in the first episode, I thought some of the effects with the speed or bikes didn't really ring true for me.
00:11:58
Speaker
And you know a couple other of the the ship special effects were were not really as realistic as I would have liked, but I think that picked up over time. I was really impressed though with how well they were able to use the volume, that stagecraft technology that ILM invented. And you know if you remember when the Mandalorian first came out,
00:12:19
Speaker
The first couple times I saw the first episode, I thought that was all shot on location. That just seemed so realistic. And then we learned about this volume technology and then you could start to see it, right? And I think that that really, really came out in Obi-Wan Kenobi. In Obi-Wan Kenobi, it was very obvious when they were using the volume and it didn't really work well.
00:12:43
Speaker
I think for skeleton crew that the volume worked very well. Like I said, I think that they have learned to use it better and better as time has gone on. But there were still some times, and it was especially when they were in big epic spaces that I didn't feel it worked as well. So when they were in the vault,
00:13:03
Speaker
um underneath the pirate planet. And then finally at the end when they were up in the administrator's facilities, there it just felt a little bit fake, but it's something that's gonna continually improve. And I'll tell you what, I am all for the volume because I know it lets us get better looking Star Wars at a fraction of the cost. So if I get more Star Wars with that, I'm good.
Community Feedback and Closing Thoughts
00:13:29
Speaker
My final thought on Skeleton Crew is this. One of my favorite things about the show was how much the entire community seemed to like it. I don't know about you all but I just kind of get so tired with the debates and the back and forth. You know, I mean the the fun debates are okay but some of the ones that are just very vitriolic Uh, it just gets under my skin. It kind of makes me want to retreat from the fandom, but it seemed like for the most part, almost everybody enjoyed skeleton crew. And it was just so nice to kind of feel like we were all together as one family. That's the type of feeling that you get when you go to Star Wars celebration, that you're just there with your, with your people. And I loved that. I felt that was skeleton crew. And I'm looking forward to that again in April.
00:14:20
Speaker
All right, that wraps up this episode of Short for a Stormtrooper. Next time, we will be back with Ben and Phil to continue our Andor rewatch. In the meantime, click like, click subscribe and be surprised. Tell all your friends, may the force be with you. We'll see you next time. Bye bye.
00:14:49
Speaker
Aren't you a middle star for a smile?