Skeleton Crew Skeleton Crew 1.04 - Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

The Troik General mentioned that they don't concern themselves with off worlders apart from trading munitions for hides when the kids first talk to him. It stands to reason the Hattan would trade with outsiders too, though that is never mentioned directly.

 

Fun episode and fascinating to see SM-33 be so frightening. It will be interesting to see what happens when they next turn him on. I really like the world building and Jod is clearly a softy at heart, he is very nice to those kids.

 

Well, I think the implication here is that Imperials came at some point and they were wiped out by the tribes, which is why they have that Imperial army gear.

I am pretty sure they’re gonna go back to the ship and there’s gonna be a bunch of dead bodies torn apart by Jod and SM-33 and he lied about the credits for whatever reason. If the twist is that Jod actually *is* a force user, he could’ve made quick work of them

 

At Aspirin (it's a real headache)

The Troik leader says off-worlders do come to trade. So credits would be valuable in that context. However, I'm not sure their enemy would be aware of the enhanced value of the mint condition credits that Jod presented them.

 

At Aldrin (it's a moon)

 

After sleeping on it, I'd say my main criticism of this episode is the trust and friendship between Neel and the Troik girl felt rushed and unearned, but I'll give it a pass since it's a kids show.

What if, rather than killing himself, SM33's captain hid his ship and was able to assimilate into At Attin's populace? Probably not probable but just a thought.

 

Maybe he just played a Jedi mind trick on them…these are not the eopies you are searching for!

 

At Ollon

Bendu is the Undersecretary

 

Basing on the fact that 'Flint' slayed all of the crew at once, seems possible that captain can be a Force-user, thereby a final opponent for Jod.

 

Since SM-33 kept using a double negative "can't say I remember no At-Attin..." was he actually telling us he remembers At-Attin?

 

"At Lantis. The entire planet is one big underwater city." -- Ric Olié

 

At-At. It's where they manufacture Imperial Walkers.

 

Old Captain = Supervisor

 

At Alfin (They eat cats there)

 

Yep that’s what I was saying last week, it’s a perfect way to program a droid to tell a lie without in fact telling a lie: I cannot say I do not remember At Attin, double negation , I cannot say I do not remembee it because, in fact, I DO remember it! But I was forbidden to talk about it. In universe I think we know that ordering a droid to not disclose information is easier than ordering the droid to lie (see in Andor when B2EM0 says he needs to charge because he needs more energy if he has to lie because it is difficult! ) that’s also why Fern overriding the droid’s memory and telling him to lie so easily made me really uneasy: it is not supposed to be so easy (also IRL we want to avoid that, see Asimov)

 

This episode felt weaker than the others, the “war planet” seemed a little too generic to me, like any other post-apocalyptic movie set. It was a bit off tone as well, a little too grim for the spirit I think they’re going for. With some plot progression at the end it ended up feeling like a filler episode. Hopefully they won’t be spending too much time there next week and if they do there better be something more interesting going on.

Still enjoying all the characters though, Neel and Fern seem to be going through an arc. I like how Jod is a reliable presence who can be counted on to save the day. In another show it might be too convenient or contrived but here it works, he’s a hero you can depend on and the kids need that.

As to the mystery of the “treasure planets”, I’m not sure what to expect at this point. I guess I don’t care much either, the journey is fun enough on its own.

 

Another solid episode all around. I think the Daniels have keyed into the kids' dynamic the best so far, and I thought their sense of humor was really well deployed throughout (as opposed to say, Taika Waititi, who's a good director, but lingers too long on his jokes and improvisation). And the focus on Neel gave the episode a nice arc, even if it ended pretty abruptly.

I've kind of had it though with the gray, desolate planets, which have become all too common in these Star Wars series. I understand the intent for this episode's storyline, but it still felt redundant. Most crucially, I was very surprised that the episode leaned so heavily into the child soldier aspects, which is pretty bleak subject matter. I might have been fine if it was a planet full of kids, but the fact that they were led by adults (led by Matthieu Kassovitz of all people!) made the situation almost alarmingly real. It's a very tough needle to thread, and given how light on its feet the series has been to this point, making this hard of a turn never really worked for me. And I understand that you can introduce stakes and danger to a story centered on children, but I thought the previous two episodes did a much better job of that in Starport Borgo.

Lastly, I haven't been a fan of the lengthy episode titles, but jeeze oh man, "Can't Say I Remember No At Attin" is the biggest earworm in recent Star Wars memory. I can't stop saying it. Nick Frost might be the secret MVP of this whole series.

7/10

 

Next episode it will turn out that Max Rebo Jr is the treasure of At Attin

 

To be fair, "can't say I remember no At Attin" is not the same as "I cannot say I do not remember At Attin", nor is it a double negative.

It's a colloquialism, that should be perceived as "I don't remember At Attin". So the droid does lie.

And I don't think there is a rule in Star Wars that says droids cannot lie. I mean, R2D2 did it all the time. Each droid has a different personality, and SM-33 has a pirate personality, which probably makes it very easy for him to lie. The only reason why we would be receiving conflicting information from SM-33 in the first few episodes is because its circuits are all messed up and old. After all, he conflicts himself all the time, and it doesn't seem to be by design. Saying "Can't say I remember no At Attin" is just an easy way for him to avoid the subject altogether.

 

Anyone else think the new girl Hayna looked eerily like a slightly older Fern. Strange cloning vibes? The city homes, building, and tower were all identical. What if the citizens are too? (to a certain extent, where each planet has a different history of how things played out)

 

I’m giving it a 7. Maybe that’s harsh because I still love the show but the world building here - or rather world destroying - was just too heavy for my taste. Ewoksimon laid out my thoughts exactly, in a show that has been whimsical and magical the subject matter here felt out of place. I would have preferred the planet be something like overgrown with weeds and jungle, with nasty alien predators and feral hunter-kids instead of a bleak forever war with child soldiers. Maybe that hard turn was needed for whatever plot is happening regarding the mysterious “Jewels of the Old Republic”, I guess we’ll see.

The characters, writing and acting are still great.

 

yeah was a 7.5 for me for the same reasons,

I'm also not to fussed about the mystery of At Attin and the other At-somewhere's. It's easily the least interesting aspect of the show for me.

Must rather learn about Jod 'Jack' Nobeard and KB's mystery illness
I think the ep should have been called 'gray(grey)' since that is what's only colour palette seemed to be.
Please put some more colour in SW.

 

I am going 6 on this one. The pacing was off for me. Still a fun episode that gave us some information to push the story along.

 

I got the impression that the Daniels struggled slightly at adapting to what this show has been. For the most part it was competent but lacked the Spielberg-like storyboarding of previous episodes and the locked on camera shot when the droid remembered and began attacking felt slightly out of pace at best to me and more like the Daniel’s wanting to remind everyone of their style. I’m trying to reconcile it stylistically as being slightly similar in tone to Lucas’s decision to show the Tusken Raider in ANH from an odd angle though and that helps.

The episode felt the most childish overall and closer almost to like Hook or something along those lines.

Those were my main criticisms. I honestly didn’t mind the story itself despite my gripes with the tone and visual style. This episode was less reliant on familiar Star Wars beats and iconography and revealed more mystery and more layers. It made the mission they’re on feel more like an open world video game and added to the sense of adventure that this show does better than most Star Wars content has outside of the films. This feels like a proper quest. The moment at the top of the tower with the pillars and old codes was like a fun mix of Dark Tower, Myst (the 90s video game) and even maybe a bit of N64 era Zelda or Super Mario world. And I say that all as a positive. That’s the kind of feeling I was having and I liked it.

I’d give this one a 7 for all these reasons. I think the story on paper and visiting a place that seemed exactly like home but destroyed is a great one for a kids show. I like the idea of kids meeting a kid warrior princess type who is different and teaching her a lesson also. I liked how the leader was basically tricking them into being fodder also. The pillar stuff at the end was fun and the droid memory stuff was well foreshadowed due to the language repetition. Very few issues for me on the story there as a story. I do think some of the dialogue was a bit on the nose and preachy but it’s a kids show also and it’s important the themes and life lessons are clearly understood by kids as young as 6 or 7 so I can look past that.

Mostly I didn’t think the directing fully delivered on the potential of what was there as a story conceptually. Not bad though either. Just good. Not great. But good. They did show restraint though and for that I’m thankful because them at their most extreme would have felt out of place.