Star Wars: Skeleton Crew (Disney+)

Return of PG-rated Star Wars! About darn time! I'd say it's about fucking time, but we're PG now.

It's SO cute. The little blue elephant kid is adorable, and I love that the alien planet could pass for modern day Earth. Kids there play with action figures and pretend light sabers. Just like real kids.

It's the real-world credibility that adds to this project. Andor impressed some people (and polarized others) with its grounded, real-world recognizable approach to the franchise. But while we saw our own world in that show's bureaucracy, I think we see our world in this show's idea of suburbia. It's a very different type of Star Wars for that reason, and so far I am greatly enjoying it.

Excellent premiere. 4 stars.

Oh, my God! Star Wars is fun again! How long has it been? Honestly? I'm guessing the last time Star Wars was legit fun was the Original Trilogy. I'm not even jiving. Even WITH Jar-Jar, it seems to be that from the Prequel Trilogy on, the franchise took itself too seriously. I mean, Jar-Jar wasn't serious. But he sure as hell wasn't fun either.

And it turns out Wim is liability. He's the obnoxious kid who presses the wrong button the second after he's told "Don't press that or we'll all die!" I see much of Shortround in him. I hope that kid's actor grows up awesome to make up for it.

The Pirate Droid SM-33 is pretty great.

And the mystery role for Jaleel White turns out to be a badass pirate! I was gonna guess Urkel-Droid.

Can we enjoy Star Wars again? Like unironically and everything? Are we finally allowed that? 4 1/2 stars.

Wow, Alia Shawkat is unrecognizable as Kh'ymm. Maeby has an old lady voice now.

For the record, I trust her more than Jod at this point. And not just because her owl / cat self is cute. But she seems to have the kids' best interest at heart and he does not.

SM does NOT like Jod. His story of "What he knows" that he'll only say once was great and unhelpful. For his part Jod seems a bigot against Droids. SM pushing the bowl onto the floor says he won't be putting up with it.

Neel is still almost TOO adorable. I really like that kid.

Solid episode. 4 stars.

Never trust a Pirate Droid.

Neel is just the cutest. His reaction to the kiss was adorable. I love that he fainted at the end. The girl was right. He is kind.

First Star Wars project where a main character suggests if there was ever a real conflict, they would just apologize. How amazing is this kid?

I love Jod is all "Just shoot me now." The flag shit is too confusing. Also Jod is useful.

I was guessing time travel was involved at the beginning and I'm glad I was wrong. Time-travel is inappropriate for Star Wars.

Honestly, the premise of child soldiers is not a good fit for the tone of this show, but they bought back everything before it started getting horrific. Besides it was essentially just a high-concept "Planet of the week" Sci-Fi premise that science fiction TV does from week to week. I'll allow it. 3 1/2 stars.

It's like if The Goonies had legit dramatic stakes.

Jod's heel-turn strikes me as ill-advised. Even learning At Addin had a mint didn't actually change his and the kids' deal. And damn, these kids are smoother than he thought. Betraying them is probably the most ill-advised thing he could do.

Look at them befriending the giant squiddy guy by telling them stories. They have value because people actually like them. There are very few people in the Star Wars Universe worth liking. That's more valuable in this Universe than Jod's shaky Force skills.

Man, Wim lighting up the lightsaber backwards was brilliant. They were setting us up for an awesome debut Jedi hero moment, and the series refuses to forget they're kids. Good for the show.

Honestly, even before Jod broke their deal, I think the kids probably didn't trust him after he sicced the acid bath on their followers. Whatever else Jod is that makes him a murderer. And in fact one who they all witnessed murdering a group of people. If these kids are nice, he's on their shit list now.

Prediction: When the kids meet Jod again Fern is going to challenge him for the captaincy again, and this time Jod will be forced to yield for some new reason. Probably involving somebody else he doublecrossed.

This show is so much fun. 4 stars.

Wonderful. Great KB spotlight.

When she went down and Wim was freaking out I said aloud, "Wait for it..." And boom. Yup. That's how it works.

I love when KB says if she and Fern can't make up again she'll have zero friends again. And Wim somewhat unironically says "You'll still have me and Neel." And that's a nearly insensitive opinion about the situation, or least it would be if you were an adult. Because KB is a kid, it comforts her instead.

All of those kids are SO damn cute. You know, not every kid in the world is cute. But they somehow hired the cutest ones and one of them voices this adorable little blue elephant guy Neel to boot. There is just no part of the show you can hate with those kids in it.

The irony? For many sci-fi fans, children are poison to the genre. I've never agreed with that assessment, or at least I've never FULLY agreed with it. But I love this show (and Stranger Things) for proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the idea that "kids ruin everything" is patently untrue. 4 1/2 stars.

I'm going to be talking out of turn here with other fans, but I LOVED Return Of The Jedi. It was and remains my favorite Star Wars movie. Why? Because it's the most crowd-pleasing one. That's probably the very reason purists turn their noses up at it, but the fact that despite how dumb the shit with Ewoks actually is from a storytelling perspective, there is value in a dumb story that legit makes the audience cheer. Just because the thrills are happening for unrealistic, silly reasons doesn't make them less thrilling.

And my major problem with modern Star Wars, and to be truthful, this goes back to the prequel trilogy, is that not enough of it was crowd-pleasing. It was always too serious. The most notable "comical" character since the first three movies was Jar-Jar Binks, and he didn't fail because he was lighthearted and fun. He failed because he actually wasn't. I hope this specific show helps other fans understand WHY I loved Jedi as a kid, and why it feels good to cheer for Star Wars like a hyperactive kid again.

Jod frustrates me. Not just because he's a shitty person and I hate him to death (although both those things are factual). But because he could have had ALL of this anyways if he had protected the kids and gotten them home safely as their savior rather than their captor. Him getting away with ANY treasure is unlikely now simply because he now has no advocates, and At Attin is a planet of bureaucrats who will make things hard because things are never easy on this world when it comes to actually getting shit done. Worse, he's developed a crew of tiny mutineers who have absorbed every betrayal and unkind word and threat against their parents. It would have been TOUGH to be permitted to leave the planet with treasure after returning the kids home as their legit protector. But the parents might have misguidedly helped him get away with it in gratitude. This is dumb instead. They say crime doesn't pay. It's because most criminals are stupid. And he's supposed to be charming! Why isn't he using that specific gift when it would actually do him the most good?

I predict this is a One Season And Done series. Both Jude Law and the producers know that each season this specific show continues, is a little less special than the previous one every year the kids get older and older, and they won't want to violate the sanctity of that. But I just want to say for the record, I loved the brief shining moment when Star Wars was actually fun again. And none of it involves dumbness like Ewoks blowing up the Death Star. Good times. 4 stars.

I wish the ending had been a little more definitive, but I still don't want another season. The kids were the perfect age for this, and it needs to be a one-season-and-done series.

But ambiguous ending aside, I was mostly satisfied. Seeing Neel in the bathtub was a big laugh, and I loved 33's head advising KB. God, this show is SO cute.

Jod is SUCH a bastard, and I loved the kids getting the better of him. The Supervising asking what he was lying about was great. The Supervisor had no way of knowing the Jedi had been vindicated, but either way, it was obvious Jod was NOT one.

Isn't Filoni planning a big film to wrap-up the major Disney+ series? That would be a perfect place for an update of the kids. And they ought to do a flashback set in the era of The Acolyte while we're dreaming big.

I thought it was great, but I hope Disney has enough sense to stop here. 4 1/2 stars.