Review: “Skeleton Crew” on Disney+: A Meaningful and Family-Friendly Star Wars Series

by Haley January 17, 2025

George Lucas always asserted that Star Wars was meant for children. While there have been many kid-oriented Star Wars series, Disney+’s Skeleton Crew stands out. This family-friendly show about growing up in suburbia may be more crucial to the future of Star Wars than other highly acclaimed series. It uses the influence of Star Wars to deliver meaningful messages and seems to echo Lucas’s belief in children as an important audience for the Star Wars universe.

Review: “Skeleton Crew” on Disney+: A Meaningful and Family-Friendly Star Wars Series

– Star Wars: The Phantom Menace reinforced George Lucas’ belief that children are a significant segment of the Star Wars audience, a concept that Disney’s Skeleton Crew series emphasizes and caters to effectively.
– Skeleton Crew goes a step further than traditionally kid-oriented Star Wars content by embedding relevant themes for its younger audience, such as the trials of growing up and navigating friendships, into its central storyline.
– Keeping its target audience in mind, the series maintains a high degree of faith in its viewers and effectively balances childlike behavior and emotions with story complexity, making it an important series for future Star Wars viewership.

Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace was met with strong criticism upon its release, predominantly for its juvenile humor and child protagonist. This criticism however, compelled George Lucas to assert that Star Wars was primarily – if not exclusively – aimed at a younger audience. He never discounted the value of good storytelling, acknowledging that children constituted an essential part of the Star Wars audience. That assertion is now exemplified best in Disney+’s Skeleton Crew. This family-friendly series gleans insight from the terror of suburban adolescence and could be a driving force in Star Wars’ future, possibly providing more to the franchise than the critically acclaimed first season of Andor.

Star Wars has always had child-oriented content, and Disney has capitalised on marketing Star Wars products to children. However, Skeleton Crew stands out as one of Disney’s exceptional and fruitful attempts to impart words of wisdom to its young viewers. Consider the finale’s end credits that mimic Wim’s (Ravi Cabot-Conyers) Jedi adventure book, which underscores the show’s potential to captivate a child’s imagination.

Moreover, Skeleton Crew’s narrative is closely aligned with its young audience’s interests. For instance, when KB (Kyriana Kratter) discusses how her relationship with Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) evolved after she began to use a prosthesis. Furthermore, the series cleverly integrates themes of self-discovery and relationship dynamics into its ‘80s sci-fi backdrop. These themes are made astoundingly clear when Wim, KB, Fern, and Neel (Robert Timothy Smith) agree that the risks and horrors of their adventure ultimately aided their personal and interpersonal growth.

From the start, Skeleton Crew displayed remarkable faith in its young audience and this could potentially cultivate a generation of thoughtful, media-literate Star Wars fans. It encourages viewers to question the peculiar aspects of the children’s homeworld of At Attin with its always-absent adults and omnipresent security droids. A noteworthy reveal that the children are unaware of the Galactic Civil War adds a new layer of intrigue.

The performances of Smith, Kratter, Armstrong, and Cabot-Conyers truly shine with their ability to capture the innocence yet profound worldviews of their young characters. Jude Law successfully conjures charm whilst radiating his villainous role.