Star Wars: Skeleton Crew Creators Want Show to Follow Harry Potter in a Big Way

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is taking the bold swing of brining young adult-focused content to the Star Wars Universe. Like any piece of Star Wars content, Skeleton Crew is telling its own focused story while at the same time opening the door to a longer arc across the franchise. When it comes to plotting out the literal and narrative growth of young-adult characters into the adult world, no franchise has done it better than Harry Potter – and that’s excatly the blueprint Skeleton Crew creators Jon Watts and Christopher Ford (Marvel’s Spider-Man Home Trilogy) want to follow.

Watts and Ford sat down with ComicBook’s Chris Killian for the Star Wars: Skeleton Crew press day, and addressed where the series could go after this first season.

“We wanted to make sure that this first season feels like its own self-contained arc,” Watts explained. “But we definitely have an idea of where the story could continue to go.”

“It’s funny because you kind of get a storyline for free because the kids are growing up,” Ford added. “So whatever we do, part of the story is going to be about growing up in Star Wars. Which is something we haven’t exactly seen; like we saw Anakin jump to being a lot older in one big jump, but…”

Ford hit on a very valid point there: outside of Ahsoka Tano, Star Wars has never really shown audiences much progression in terms of characters aging in any significant way onscreen. Skeleton Crew could surprise a lot of fans by eventually revealing that these young characters we start following in the series (which is set in the New Republic era of The Mandalorian) eventually end up in some key places, later on in the franchise timeline (during the First Order-Resistance war). In that sense, the journey of watching them grow could be key:

“I’m more interested in sort of the Harry Potter porgression of like growing up with the kids and seeing how they adapt to the galaxy as they get older,” Watts said.

What Is Star Wars: Skeleton Crew About?

Synopsis: When four kids make a mysterious discovery on their seemingly safe home planet, they get lost in a strange and dangerous galaxy. Finding their way home, and meeting unlikely allies and enemies will be a greater adventure than they ever imagined.

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew stars Jude Law (Captain Marvel, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore) as the human Force-user Jod Na Nawood, the adult leader of a motley crew of galaxy-faring kids that includes Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers), KB (Kyriana Kratter), Neel (Robert Timothy Smith), and Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong). In addition, Jaleel White (Family Matters), will play a space pirate named Gunter, while The Mandalorian’s pirate character Vane (Marti Matulis) will also appear in the show, as will other pirate characters like  Brutus (Frank Tatasciore, performance artist: Stephan Oyoung), Pax (performance artist: Mike Estes), and Chaelt (Dale Soules).

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew debuts Tuesday, December 3rd on Disney+.