How ‘Skeleton Crew’ Creators Bring a ‘New and FreshR…

In Lucasfilm's new, original, live-action series Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, four younglings suddenly find themselves lost in a dangerous and unfamiliar galaxy. Set in the era of the New Republic, their adventure begins Monday, December 2, with two episodes on Disney+.

In a Q&A head writers Jon Watts and Christopher Ford - who serve as executive producers alongside Disney Legend Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, Kathleen Kennedy, and Colin Wilson - share their inspirations, their experiences with Lucasfilm, and much more.

What makes Skeleton Crew different than anything fans have seen from Star Wars before - and, on the other side of the coin, what makes this series distinctly Star Wars?

Jon Watts: It's a perspective that we've never really seen before. We've never seen the galaxy through the eyes of four 10-year-old kids; there have been kids in Star Wars, but it's never been told from their perspective. That, to me, automatically makes it new and fresh.

As you mentioned, the series centers on four kids. What are your childhood memories of Star Wars, and how did those touchpoints influence the story you're telling on Disney+?

Christopher Ford: The kids are a reflection of that feeling. People have talked about how the show has an Amblin or a Goonies feeling, because the show captures the feeling we had when we were kids watching those movies. We would go outside to ride our bikes and play and hope that an adventure would happen to us. For these kids, that actually happens.

How did you ensure the series appeals to audiences of all ages?

Jon Watts: There's a whole universe that already exists, and what we were able to do is simply look at it from a new perspective. You don't have to go into it with any preexisting knowledge of Star Wars, because the kids are all learning about it for the first time as well. So, that was a fun way to explore a world that we already know and love from a new angle.

Neel (Robert Timothy Smith) and Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers) with hoverbikes in Lucasfilm's Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, streaming exclusively on Disney+

What were the benefits of working within the Lucasfilm ecosystem?

Christopher Ford: It couldn't have been a better setup for us. Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni had been making Disney+ Star Wars shows already, so they mentored and supervised us. They knew all the challenges and all of the things we were going through… It was like having the best boss you could possibly have. They are also super talented, creative people.

Jon Watts: We were also able to tap into the Lucasfilm design team, like Doug Chiang and everyone on his team. Any idea we had - from a thumbnail sketch on the back of a napkin to a one-sentence description of an idea or a world - they would run with. They've been doing this for so long, and they're so good at it. Everything they pitched back to us was 10 times better than what was in our imagination. The difficult thing about working with Lucasfilm is that everything they're showing you is cool, so you want to put everything in it.

KB (Kyriana Kratter) and Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) on hoverbikes in Lucasfilm's Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, streaming exclusively on Disney+

How did technology - pre-viz, MOCAP, the Volume, etc. - help you tell this story?

Jon Watts: Something we had the luxury of doing was make full animatics of every episode first, with me reading all of the dialogue. We'd watch those and then we'd rewrite [the scripts] based off that. It was similar to how you develop an animated project as opposed to a live-action project. Once we had that dialed in, we'd make a 3D pre-viz version of that… It became this iterative process that was so much more helpful than just churning out draft after draft. You really start to see it. By the time we were on set, we'd already lived in the world for such a long time, so it was a much smoother process to go from script to screen.

You hired stop-motion animator Phil Tippett and brought an ILM painter out of retirement. What inspired you to include traditional artistic elements in this series?

Jon Watts: Part of what makes something feel like Star Wars is going back to these original, practical, analog techniques. Very often, they can be a little bit more expensive or difficult. Sometimes you literally have to get someone out of retirement to do a matte painting, like we had to do. But we were really encouraged to do that by [our executive producers, Disney Legend] Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, who love those old-school techniques. Any time we said, "We want to do that," they would say to us, "Yeah, why not?"

Jude Law and David Lowery on the set of Lucasfilm's Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, streaming exclusively on Disney+

In addition to you, Jon, Skeleton Crew has a murderer's row of directors that includes David Lowery, the Daniels, Jake Schreier, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Lee Isaac Chung. What do they bring to the table, and how did you ensure they were able to put their own stamp on their episode without losing the tone you had established in the pilot?

Jon Watts: We made a list of all of our favorite directors who had experience either with kids or with VFX, or who had some sort of combination of the two. We then walked them through the script, and we'd also made those animatics for them to watch. It was really fun to sit back and let them do their thing. I'd been given that sort of freedom at Marvel Studios when I was making the Spider-Man movies, so we tried to do the same thing and let them bring their voice to [Skeleton Crew] in as many ways as they felt that they could.

Vane (Marti Matulis) in Lucasfilm's Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, streaming exclusively on Disney+

Each young actor brings something unique to their role. What stood out about Ravi Cabot-Conyers, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Kyriana Kratter, and Robert Timothy Smith, and how did you define their characters? Each seems to possess a quality that another lacks.

Christopher Ford: That started really early in the writing process. When you have a foursome, it's almost elemental; you want them to be opposites, but in different combinations. Developing that in a really abstract way is a good place to start. You have to get really specific and find people who embody those archetypes, who make them feel real.

Jon Watts: We did a lot of casting, and a lot of really talented kids came through that door. But it's a different thing when you have this idea of a character in your head; you just kind of have to wait for that character to walk in the room. We rewrote a lot of the dialogue to match the kids that we later cast, so that they could bring a lot of themselves into the roles.

Lastly, what can you tease about Jude Law's character, Jod Na Nawood?

Christopher Ford: We were looking for the character to feel complex - and Jude was able to dive into that. We talked about his backstory and how we wanted it to feel lived in - like he had come from another Star Wars movie you hadn't seen yet. And he was able to create that feeling somehow. We really kept feeling like he had already been in Star Wars.

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew poster

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