Star Wars: Skeleton Crew: You Have a Lot to Learn About Pirates
December 26, 2024 1:01 PM - Season 1, Episode 5 - Subscribe
The crew tries to track down the coordinates of At Attin, following a lead to a legendary pirate's den, while the children's parents slowly realize that the government will not help them.
I loved this episode. Just when you think they might be teasing a redemption arc for Jod, he gives emotionally incompetent advice to Wim, drowns their pursuers in acid and fully takes the mask off by threatening Fern. (Not precluding a redemption arc later, but it sure isn't happening now.)
The attachment talk was an interesting bit of character insight. That plus Wim's lightsaber misfire definitely had me thinking about the wisdom of Jedi choices.
posted by EvaDestruction at 2:42 PM on December 26, 2024 [3 favorites]
The attachment talk was an interesting bit of character insight. That plus Wim's lightsaber misfire definitely had me thinking about the wisdom of Jedi choices.
posted by EvaDestruction at 2:42 PM on December 26, 2024 [3 favorites]
Fun episode. Got to love a plot-driving pit of acid
posted by eustatic at 4:56 PM on December 26, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by eustatic at 4:56 PM on December 26, 2024 [3 favorites]
also, we haven't yet got a lot of star wars' giant creatures in the mix, like with Mando and Bad Batch, but in this series, we got a giant helpful squidotter guy with a Cthulhu name? good choices. thank you, star wars.
probably the creature budget is going into the pirates, Sm33, and neel and AugraOwlCat which, hooray. nice to get a star wars giant creature this ep, too
posted by eustatic at 6:38 PM on December 26, 2024 [4 favorites]
probably the creature budget is going into the pirates, Sm33, and neel and AugraOwlCat which, hooray. nice to get a star wars giant creature this ep, too
posted by eustatic at 6:38 PM on December 26, 2024 [4 favorites]
probably the creature budget is going into the pirates, Sm33 and neel
Sm33 is surprisingly a practical puppet with some cgi to remove the puppeteer and punch-up the effect. There’s more cgi for the space-mouse that lives in his eye socket than for Sm33 himself. Similarly Neel is a performer in a suit but most of the head is animatronic.
posted by nathan_teske at 7:45 PM on December 26, 2024 [2 favorites]
Sm33 is surprisingly a practical puppet with some cgi to remove the puppeteer and punch-up the effect. There’s more cgi for the space-mouse that lives in his eye socket than for Sm33 himself. Similarly Neel is a performer in a suit but most of the head is animatronic.
posted by nathan_teske at 7:45 PM on December 26, 2024 [2 favorites]
With Jod only ever using the same basic push/pull trick with his gloved hand as his one "Jedi power", I'm thinking he's actually just got a cybernetic hand with some sort of repulsor in it and he isn't a Force-user at all. Especially after they went through all the trouble of showing the anti-gravity spike trap as an example of how that would work.
posted by haileris23 at 11:02 PM on December 26, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by haileris23 at 11:02 PM on December 26, 2024 [3 favorites]
With Jod only ever using the same basic push/pull trick with his gloved hand as his one "Jedi power", I'm thinking he's actually just got a cybernetic hand with some sort of repulsor in it and he isn't a Force-user at all.
As seen in Cracken's Rebel Field Guide
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 4:31 AM on December 27, 2024 [4 favorites]
As seen in Cracken's Rebel Field Guide
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 4:31 AM on December 27, 2024 [4 favorites]
SM33. Smee. Oh my god. I just got that.
Jod is in the middle of a Long John Silver arc. Bad, but not all bad. He didn't go ahead and kill Fern, after all, and he's going to rescue the kids, for sure.
posted by surlyben at 3:57 PM on December 27, 2024 [3 favorites]
Jod is in the middle of a Long John Silver arc. Bad, but not all bad. He didn't go ahead and kill Fern, after all, and he's going to rescue the kids, for sure.
posted by surlyben at 3:57 PM on December 27, 2024 [3 favorites]
Jod flipped from bro to sleemo to hero to zero like four times this episode, great stuff, all action, the actor is putting in some good work
posted by eustatic at 7:03 PM on December 27, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by eustatic at 7:03 PM on December 27, 2024 [2 favorites]
I kind of wonder if whoever wrote this thought of the old TNG episode "Captain's Holiday", and thought, let's do that, but more.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:08 PM on December 28, 2024
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:08 PM on December 28, 2024
If Jod isn't some former padawan then the writers are trying really hard to pull the rug out on all of us, especially with this episode. During Jod's heart to heart with Wim, he drops the line, "Your focus determines your reality." This is a direct quote by Qui-Gon Jin to Anakin Skywalker from The Phantom Menace. My wife saw me react to the line and was like, "What's the problem" and I was flailing around, frothing, "It's a jedi thing!"
Jod's challenge for captain was kind of that inevitable betrayal we've been waiting for, but I think in good Long John Silver fashion, he is still going to do things that indicate something of his heart remains to remind him to do good.
I also mentally collapsed when Wim ignited the lightsaber...holding it upside down. I think we're so used to someone stepping up, embracing courage with a lightsaber, that the twist really succeeded in being a surprise.
SM-33's continuing lamentations about what the resort had done to his beloved pirate captain's lair was excellent.
This was also the episode where my six year old finally got too worried when the kids were navigating the boobytraps. He dropped out. I don't know if he'll try to jump back in with tonight's episode or not. We'll see.
posted by Atreides at 12:04 PM on December 31, 2024 [3 favorites]
Jod's challenge for captain was kind of that inevitable betrayal we've been waiting for, but I think in good Long John Silver fashion, he is still going to do things that indicate something of his heart remains to remind him to do good.
I also mentally collapsed when Wim ignited the lightsaber...holding it upside down. I think we're so used to someone stepping up, embracing courage with a lightsaber, that the twist really succeeded in being a surprise.
SM-33's continuing lamentations about what the resort had done to his beloved pirate captain's lair was excellent.
This was also the episode where my six year old finally got too worried when the kids were navigating the boobytraps. He dropped out. I don't know if he'll try to jump back in with tonight's episode or not. We'll see.
posted by Atreides at 12:04 PM on December 31, 2024 [3 favorites]
My son and I caught up on Skeleton Crew after the holidays.
I had one random thought this episode, which was… what if SM-33 is Tak Rennod? I doubt it, but it was odd that his face was hidden, and the main reason to do that was if he was actually some other character on the show. And the only real candidate for that is Ol’ Smee.
posted by Kattullus at 2:48 PM on January 5 [1 favorite]
I had one random thought this episode, which was… what if SM-33 is Tak Rennod? I doubt it, but it was odd that his face was hidden, and the main reason to do that was if he was actually some other character on the show. And the only real candidate for that is Ol’ Smee.
posted by Kattullus at 2:48 PM on January 5 [1 favorite]
I recently heard this theory, too. I feel like there's too much weight of things that we know that would make this so, but definitely, there is a reason for Tak's face to be obscured. Here's why I don't think it's SM-33, and watch me get made a fool in this or next week's episode!
1. Why would Tak self-program himself not to talk about At-Attin, when he could just choose not to talk about it when asked?
2. Why would Tak lock himself or deactivate himself inside the Onyx Cinder after he got to At-Attin?
3. Why continually defer to "a" captain, be it Tak / Fern / Jod?
The only answers I can think of to these questions is that A: SM-33 suffered damage that affected his programming so he doesn't *know* he's Tak (possibly the result of a mutiny); B: He is simply playing a long game because the kids were the only way he was going to get back to At-Attin. A makes a little more sense than B, but both of these are a stretch. There's also the question, if everyone knows about the most legendary pirate captain/admiral EVER, wouldn't they know he was a droid?
posted by Atreides at 6:58 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
1. Why would Tak self-program himself not to talk about At-Attin, when he could just choose not to talk about it when asked?
2. Why would Tak lock himself or deactivate himself inside the Onyx Cinder after he got to At-Attin?
3. Why continually defer to "a" captain, be it Tak / Fern / Jod?
The only answers I can think of to these questions is that A: SM-33 suffered damage that affected his programming so he doesn't *know* he's Tak (possibly the result of a mutiny); B: He is simply playing a long game because the kids were the only way he was going to get back to At-Attin. A makes a little more sense than B, but both of these are a stretch. There's also the question, if everyone knows about the most legendary pirate captain/admiral EVER, wouldn't they know he was a droid?
posted by Atreides at 6:58 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
It's gonna turn out that the little rodent in SM-33's eye is Tak, and now that he knows he can leave and get back to At Attin....
Yeah, it's a stretch.
posted by Kyol at 12:34 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]
Yeah, it's a stretch.
posted by Kyol at 12:34 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]
I joked about that weeks ago and I really don't know if I would find that delightful or the worse thing ever.
posted by Atreides at 5:28 PM on January 6
posted by Atreides at 5:28 PM on January 6
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I kind of loved how Jod spouting the Jedi dogma about attachments and so forth show how entirely hollow it actually is.
And I think it's clear now that he's not some random Force user who didn't get formal training: he either studied with a trained Jedi, or was at the Temple at some point. Maybe he's a washout? According to Legends, young trainees who didn't get picked for knight training by 13 went into the Service Corps to be explorers, agricultural specialists, or medics. Maybe he did that, and that's how he survived the Purge?
Anyway, I did enjoy that!
posted by suelac at 1:05 PM on December 26, 2024 [2 favorites]