Star Wars: Skeleton Crew: Season 1: Episode 1: This Could Be A Real Adventure
What is it ? : We get text telling us that the New Republic has maintained order since the fall of the Empire, but Pirates still raid trade lanes.
We see a transport vessel boarded by pirates, they tear into the hull while spacesuit wearing pirates disable turrets. The ship is overrun, but the captain is defiant, or at least until he's thrown out of an airlock. The leader of the Pirates promises his men the riches in the vaults, but when they cut their way in, there is only a single credit piece sitting there, so the pirates space him too.
On the world of At Attin a human boy named Wim plays with Sith and Jedi action figures, his dad tells him he's busy at work this week, so gives him money to buy lunch. Wim leaves his home to get the school hover bus, and as it rushes him to school he notices another student on a speeder bike taking a shortcut through the woods.
As School, Wim spends time with his friend, Neel, and they discover that the tests to find out the rest of their careers are due tomorrow.
The next day, Wim is late for the bus so misses it, he rushes home and grabs his speeder bike, and takes the shortcut he saw the girl take the day before, but he ends up crashing down a ravine, where he discovers a buried door just before he is found by a droid from the school.
At the school he is taken to the principals office, and his dad summoned. He tries to explain, saying he found the entrance to a Jedi Temple. The girl with the speeder bike, Fern, who is also waiting to see the principal overhears, but his dad isn't interested, and has arranged for his to resit the test the next day, but at a -50 point penalty.
Wim sneaks out of his home that night, tells Neel all about it and they head to the ravine to try to open the door, outside they find Fern and her friend KB, who have claimed the door. They agree to work together to open it, and when they do, they find corridors inside, Wim dislikes being ordered around by Fern, so wanders off on his own, and he finds a cockpit, pressing a button the ship activates around them and begins taking off, they try to escape but are too high already, and Wim's father witnesses them roaring off into space.
The ship penetrates the barrier around the planet, and the kids see stars for the first time, but only as the ship accelerates into hyperspace. . . .
High Points : Wow, this was pretty darn good. From the trailers I'd kind of expected The Goonies in Space, and that's what I got. But more than that, they've totally got the tone right, while much of it is predictable, it's fun and very watchable.
I also really loved the different call backs, Wim playing with what basically is Star Wars Figures, the use of "wizard" was fun, reminding me of the Robot Chicken episode where Vader's taking it back. And I adored that Neel's family were watching a Holographic circus, exactly the same as Lumpy did in the Star Wars Holiday Special, and so many others I've forgotten about already.
The look of At Attin is totally Spielberg, looking like a comfortable estate, where kids play in the streets, and there is wilderness right next to it for adventure. So much so that you could really see this as a sequel to ET, if they just changed the location to rural america with kids finding a hidden spaceship in the woods.
Low Points : It is a bit predictable as I mentioned, when Fern roars past the school bus on her speeder bike I knew exactly what her character was going to be like, the sassy, know it all, but good at heart rebellious girl. But playing into clichΓ©s isn't a terrible thing, it lets the story get going without us spending ages getting to know the characters. It's just dependent on whether it remains predictable, or they just use that as a starting point.
So what do you really think ? : I really enjoyed it, and am looking forward to the next episode, and seeing how the beginning scene connects to the rest of the story as these 4 kids go on a galactic adventure, with their inept parents following behind searching for them.
Final Words : They released the first 2 episodes together, but I'm reviewing this one without having watched the second, so that comes tomorrow, hopefully it'll keep up the pace, fun and watchable nature of this episode.
Score : 9/10
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