It might be unfair to all of the new movies and TV shows that arrive, but if a storyteller tries to do anything with young teenagers on an adventure, they are going to automatically draw comparisons to The Goonies. That’s how large of a shadow Richard Donner’s treasure-hunt comedy casts over Hollywood. So it’s not that much of a surprise to learn that the upcoming Star Wars series Skeleton Crew, available beginning December 3 to anyone with a Disney+ subscription, if being described in shorthand as The Goonies In Space, given that it follows four young students who are whisked away on a galaxy-hopping adventure.
What I didn’t know is that Skeleton Crew co-creator Jon Watts actually spoke to Dick Donner before the director died, and picked up some very valuable advice.
Watts spoke with SFX Magazine for the latest issue, and previewed the new show Skeleton Crew. Unlike Andor, which immerses itself in Star Wars politics, Skeleton Crew is unapologetically light and fun, a fast-paced romp with four kids and a delightful Jude Law. The show works well because we like the kids at the heart of the story. And when speaking with SFX Magazine, Jon Watts opened up about that casting, saying:
I got really great advice from Dick Donner. I got to hang out with him like a couple of weeks before he died [in 2021], and we talked about The Goonies. He said that you don’t cast kids to play a role, you cast kids to just be who they are. He told the story about how they had a Goonies reunion, and said everyone was exactly the same as they were then – they formed into the same groups, they were telling versions of the same jokes and had the same dynamic as they did when they were kids. I kept that in mind when we were casting. You’re looking for the person as much as you are for the actor to play the role. It just involved seeing hundreds of kids until someone walked in that felt like they embodied the role. Then we were able to write to their personalities and shift storylines a little bit, to allow them to put more of themselves into the roles. It was a really, really fun and rewarding process – but definitely time consuming.
When we got the opportunity to interview the Skeleton Crew cast about their time spent in the Star Wars universe, it was entertaining to hear Ravi Cabot-Conyers compare his character Wim to a young Luke Skywalker in A New Hope, with his co-star Ryan Kiera Armstrong calling her own character, Fern, the Han Solo of their makeshift group. The best Star Wars stories need those personality dynamics, and you can see it in the young cast as they talk about the show.
We’ve been prepping ourselves for Skeleton Crew, and raving about how it feels like the perfect show for families to stream for the holidays. It has a lot of heart, a lot of comedy, and stripped-down action that appeals to everyone. It also has more droids and creatures in any Star Wars movie and show than I have seen in quite some time.
Maybe I didn’t get Jude Law to reveal his favorite John Williams score of all time – he did get it down to his Top 3. But I did manage to get very excited for Skeleton Crew, which arrives with two new episodes on December 3, then one a week after that.
