Skeleton Crew Episode 4 Brings Two Oscar-Successful Administrators Into The Star Wars Universe

This text incorporates spoilers for “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew” season 1, episode 4, “Cannot Say I Keep in mind No At Attin.”

Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, who’re alternatively generally known as the directing pair “Daniels,” earned their gold Greatest Image Oscar statuettes for 2022’s critically acclaimed science-fiction masterpiece “The whole lot In all places All At As soon as” (learn /Movie’s assessment for extra on that). Within the realm of function filmmaking, additionally they delivered laughs within the weird, offbeat 2016 movie “Swiss Military Man,” which stars Daniel Radcliffe as a flatulent corpse that Paul Dano is ready to experience to security like a jet ski.

To say that Daniels assume in another way than most administrators is an understatement. When it was introduced they’d be tackling an episode of the “Star Wars” present “Skeleton Crew,” there was a palpable pleasure about what they may carry to the desk. Would they ship their signature, off the wall comedy? Or would the duo restrain themselves and sample their efforts after the foundational work “Skeleton Crew” co-creators Christopher Ford and Jon Watts (together with the remainder of their manufacturing group) laid down within the sequence’ first few episodes? The reply, as evidenced by this week’s Daniels-helmed installment, “Cannot Say I Keep in mind No At Attin,” is a bit little bit of each.

There are undoubtedly some trademark Daniels thrives on this episode. “Cannot Say I Keep in mind No At Attin” brings a stage of absurdist humor to the concept of kid troopers on At Achrann, a planet that appears precisely just like the idyllic, peace loving world the younger heroes of “Skeleton Crew” name house, aka At Attin. It even has all the sensation of a multiversal storyline like “The whole lot In all places All At As soon as,” with units and areas which can be nearly the identical but tweaked in sure methods. It is like we’re seeing a barely completely different model of how issues may have gone, the place Neel (Robert Timothy Smith) may have been completely happy doing laundry and taxes with Hayna Strix (Hala Finley), the kid soldier the heroes meet who leads them by a lot of their journey on this new planet. Certainly, as they arrive within the sanctum of data and discover that the coordinates to At Attin have been stripped, they uncover a multiverse of equally named planets like theirs, e.g. At Achrann and At Attin. Who is aware of what different unlikely “alternate” realities they’d encounter by going to those different planets? 

It is no surprise Daniels had been tapped to direct an episode that raised these kinds of questions, given their historical past helming one of many greatest Oscar-winners in current reminiscence.

The opposite main second the place the administrators’ model actually comes out within the filmmaking is when Captain Fern (Ryan Kiera Armonstrong) takes the block out of SM-33’s (Nick Frost) programming and permits him to regain his reminiscences in regards to the location of At Attin and what his earlier Captain had directed him to do if anybody got here on the lookout for it. His directive was to tear anybody on the lookout for the coordinates limb from limb, so he proceeds to go after Neel in a mildly scary sequence with some SnorriCam model footage of the droid going berserk. This whole flip of occasions has a visible model that stretches what we’re accustomed to from “Star Wars” and feels extra at house in one thing the Daniels would have thought up on their very own.

Whereas Daniels make their involvement recognized in each the episode’s story and visuals, “Cannot Say I Keep in mind No At Attin” in any other case performs very very similar to the opposite episodes of “Skeleton Crew” earlier than it. For many who had been hoping Daniels would have their directorial thumbprint all around the total episode, they could discover this disappointing. Nonetheless, that is not essentially a foul factor. If something, it is a testomony to their competency as administrators that they are often chameleons and are capable of utterly ape the established model of the present whereas deviating simply sufficient to craft moments and themes their replicate their private contact (however with out coloring too far outdoors the traces within the course of). In they finish, they introduced us a wonderfully competent, enjoyable, adventurous episode of “Skeleton Crew” that match wholly in keeping with every thing we have seen earlier than.

Some could be disenchanted by that, but it surely looks like that was additionally precisely the job Daniels had been employed to do. Final yr, Daniel Kwan even spoke out towards claims that the duo had “bought out” for “Star Wars,” confirming the pair had been approached to work on “Skeleton Crew” earlier than “The whole lot In all places All at As soon as” had even opened in theaters. Clearly, they had been employed as a result of they had been competent, to not rock the boat an excessive amount of. That is actually how tv works, although, even within the age of streaming.

“Cannot Say I Keep in mind No At Attin” is totally charming and, like “The whole lot In all places All At As soon as,” even offers us a little bit of an unlikely love story in a spot the place we did not assume we would discover it. The episode, as indicated earlier, largely focuses on Neel – the lovesick alien member of the Skeleton Crew – and Hayna Strix, a member of the Troik Clan on At Acchran. She’s additionally the daughter of a basic, whereas Neel is a reasonably dedicated pacifist. Fortunately, the 2 of them are capable of speak by the competing philosophies of their worldview and the variations between their planets and are available to an understanding, culminating in probably the most chaste and cute kiss in “Star Wars” historical past.

Thoughts you, that does not imply the episode is devoid of journey or laughs; the Daniels are capable of pack “Cannot Say I Keep in mind No At Attin” chock filled with these as nicely. Particularly, the moments with SM-33 not having the ability to bear in mind At Attin tackle an more and more sinister, but in some way laughable, tone because the episode progresses in what proves to be a grasp class in route. Whether or not Daniels ever get one other shot at making a mark on the “Star Wars” universe within the lead place or as a pair of weapons for rent stays to be seen. Both means, this episode actually proves they know how one can nail the sensibilities of a galaxy far, distant within the context of “Skeleton Crew,” and that is an awesome factor to see.

New episodes of “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew” drop Tuesdays at 6 pm PST on Disney+.