FOR NEW STAR WARS GALACTIC-PIRATE ADVENTURE SERIES SKELETON CREW, A CRACK DIRECTORIAL CREW OF SKYWALKER STANS GOT TOGETHER. WE SAT DOWN WITH THEM TO DISCUSS THEIR LOVE OF THE SAGA... AND TO ASK SERIOUS QUESTIONS ABOUT PRUNE FACE

WORDS BEN TRAVIS

Director Jake Schreier shoots performance artist Mike Estes as pirate Pax.

IT STARTED WITH The Simpsons. In 1996’s ‘Bart On The Road’ (Season 7), Bart and pals —Milhouse, Martin and Nelson —get fake IDs, abscond from Springfield, and road-trip to the World’s Fair Park. Their alibi? They’re attending the ‘National Grammar Rodeo’. On the way, everything goes wrong.

Decades later, director Jon Watts (flying high from his MCU Spider-Man trilogy) and regular collaborator Christopher Ford devised a Star Wars pitch. Codename: ‘Grammar Rodeo’. The result is Skeleton Crew (set concurrently with The Mandalorian and Ahsoka), in which four suburban space kids —Wim (Ravi CabotConyers), Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), KB (Kyriana Kratter) and elephantine alien Neel (Robert Timothy Smith) —discover something mysterious in the woods, and are blasted far, far away into an Amblin-esque adventure comprising pirates, hyperspace travel, and Jude Law’s mysterious Force-user, Jod Na Nawood.

To pull it all off, Watts and Ford assembled their own skeleton crew —wrangling some of Hollywood’s hottest directors to get ‘Grammar Rodeo’ rolling: Twisters’ Lee Isaac Chung; The Green Knight’s David Lowery; Mando alumnus Bryce Dallas Howard; Thunderbolts*’ Jake Schreier; and Everything Everywhere All At Once’s Oscar-winning Daniels. We sat down with them all (minus Daniels) to discuss their own adventures in the Star Wars galaxy. Punch it!

Jon, how did Skeleton Crew begin?

Jon Watts: Me and Chris Ford had this idea a long time ago of kids that don’t really, truly understand that they’re in the Star Wars universe, getting lost in the Star Wars universe, and having to get home. It wasn’t until after the chaos of Spider-Man was wrapping up that we were able to start working on it.

The Skeleton Crew in silhouette

SM-33 (voiced by Nick Frost)

SM-33 (voiced by Nick Frost)

Chilling out on the planet of Lanupa.

How did you pick your directing team?

Watts: Ford and I sat down like, “Who are our favourite directors, who would be good at this?” We went out to all you guys, and you all said yes. No-one turned it down! “Hey, do you want to do Star Wars? Play around in the Volume? Do pre-vis? Meet some pirates, some puppets, hang out with Jude Law?” “Yeah, sounds great!”