Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is finally on its way, almost a year after production wrapped. Jude Law stars in this series adventure from Disney+ and director Jon Watts, who helmed the Tom Holland Spider-Man films. New Star Wars properties are rife with Easter eggs and references to classic material across the films and TV shows. Are these nuggets of lore inside jokes for the creatives behind the scenes? Or, are they spoonfuls of sugar to help the fanboys take their non-canonical medicine? Por qué no los dos? According to Watts, Skeleton Crew is taking a big swing and recreates a sequence from the infamous 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special - a piece of media seemingly made entirely of cocaine. Without giving too much away, Watts told the Holofiles:

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"We thought we would be may be able to use some preexisting footage, but no. It was way too low resolution and it was the wrong angles. We had to create this moment from multiple angles, because you see it in various parts of the scene. So we rebuilt the whole thing from scratch. We had to dig up the original designs of the costumes, which were in the Lucasfilm archive...Get all the original specs. We had to redo the music from scratch, because there was no copy of the actual score anywhere, so we had to rebuild that...It ended up being 20x more work than we anticipated, and our stunt coordinator is the main performer in it and he was able to re-choreograph the routine too, because it's a very acrobatic routine...I will say, without saying what it is, which it is pretty obvious now, it was so much work and it was so worth it. My favorite part. "

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Skeleton Crew revolves around a group of kids who get lost in the galaxy after discovering something mysterious on their home planet and must make their way back, having adventures along the way. If that sounds a little vague but intriguing, then the details of what is being recreated for a Holiday Special reference are even more so.

'Star Wars: Skeleton Crew' Has a Tough Task to Make 'Holiday Special' Seem Good

The Star Wars Holiday Special, if you haven't seen it, is often chided as the worst piece of media to bear the Star Wars name ever created. A grating, boring, incoherent slog, the special is no doubt terrible, but it's also reflective of the time it was created. Back in the 70s - before every second of media was recorded, cataloged, and uploaded to YouTube - TV was full of innocuous, amphetamine-drenched ephemera that was meant to fill some programming slots, distract you from the energy crisis, and then fade away like yellow scrolling credits. Variety shows were simply part of the TV culture at the time and before Star Wars IP commanded the revenue of some countries' entire GDP, it was just a popular movie that got co-opted for TV content to keep momentum up while George Lucas worked on The Empire Strikes Back.

✕ Remove Ads Related Skeleton Crew Trailer Sets Jude Law & His Group of Kids on a Star Wars Adventure

Star Wars has never felt so close to our galaxy.

How Watts and Skeleton Crew will weave the deep-cut Star Wars mishegas of "Life Day" and Chewbacca's homeworld of Kashyyyk into their own adventure is a mystery. The special has weirdly nestled itself into the so-bad-it's-good category for some die-hard fans, so whether it's a passing nod or a full-blown set piece, there is probably enough love and lore to cradle the reference into the show. Skeleton Crew is scheduled to premiere on Disney+ on December 3, 2024, with an 8-episode season.

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew ActionAdventure Sci-Fi Main Genre Sci-Fi Cast Jude Law , Kerry Condon , Ryan Kiera Armstrong , Tunde Adebimpe , Ravi Cabot-Conyers , Robert Timothy Smith ✕ Remove Ads