Star Wars: Skeleton Crew Ep 4 Review
When you’re a kid growing up in a relatively safe part of the world, you wonder if life could be more adventurous. We tend to be like Wim and Fern, feeling trapped by our peaceful lives and wanting to do something exciting instead. What they fail to consider, and what I think is a core theme to Skeleton Crew, is that they’re taking what they have for granted. Many, many kids never have the luxury of living the way they were, something that Neel and KB understand. It makes what they experience in this week’s episode all the more poignant. While some people might complain about the issues with pacing and story structure, it’s meant to put into perspective how good they had it. After all, compared to a planet filled with child soldiers, they were living like royalty.
A Never-Ending, Pointless War
The episode starts off with a rather effective fake-out, as it seems like the kids, Jod, and Smee have already made it to At Attin. However, it quickly becomes obvious that, while similar in appearance, this planet isn’t At Attin. This planet is At Achrann, one of the nine Jewels of the Old Republic mentioned in the previous episode. These were nine worlds the Old Republic kept hidden for reasons unknown, and out of all them, only At Attin remains intact. Meanwhile, At Achrann is locked in a war over meager resources that’s gotten so bad, they have to use child soldiers to fight their battles.
Turning kids into child soldiers is something that, sadly, happens all too often in real life. If one side in a conflict is desperate enough for manpower, they can and will resort to putting weapons in a kid’s hands and using them as cannon fodder. And when the kids of the Onyx Cinder stumble into this conflict, they’re drafted by one side as part of their fighting forces. And how they react to it says a lot about their character. Wim naively treats the whole thing like a game or the adventures he loves reading. Fern first tries to act tough, but when placed into a scenario where she could actually die, starts to crack. At one point, she even admits to Wim that she doesn’t know what she’s doing, and is just a scared little girl who’s in over her head. However, it’s how Neel reacts to At Achrann that proves the most important.
Neel’s Empathy Embodies the Message of Star Wars
Neel is odd one out of the kids. He’s not adventurous like Wim, resourceful like Fern, or smart like KB. He’s the normal guy who just wants to go home and doesn’t want to hurt anyone. As Hayna, the daughter of the faction they wind up with points out, his kindness is alien to child soldiers who have spent their whole lives fighting. As Skeleton Crew points out, though, it’s this natural kindness and empathy that is his greatest strength. As Hayna watches, Neel chooses to offer the meager rations he’s been given to a pair of children even younger than him. He has no idea when he’ll eat again, but he chooses to give it up for the sake of others.
Some might decry this whole episode as pointless, but this one scene serves as a pretty deep call-back to the franchise. When Anakin and his Mother have the others over dinner in The Phantom Menace, and he wants to help them, Shmi is against it, at first. Then Anakin reminds her of something she often tells him: that the biggest problem in the universe is that no one helps each other. Watching this moment echoes Anakin’s words and proves how right they are. Many of the world’s problems happen because not enough people are willing to help each other. More importantly, one of the core themes behind Star Wars is that the best way to fight evil is through love and compassion. And in this scene, Skeleton Crew got that.
As if to validate that talking things out is always an option, Jod manages to save the kid’s from becoming child soldiers by buying back the herd animals they were being sent to steal. He used Wim’s Republic Dataries, but it was the most efficient method available. With that out of the way, and Neel teaching the child soldiers about compassion and empathy, the kids are free to find clues to the coordinates of At Attin.
Unfortunately for them, their one lead was already destroyed some time before…by SM-33.
SMEE Was Hiding Something!
Throughout the episode, SMEE makes it more and more apparent that he does, in fact, know about At Attin, but is lying about it. The fact that he repeats the phrase “Can’t Say I Remember No At Attin” whenever someone asks him about it is a pretty clever way of hiding the reveal. Sure enough, Fern discovers that SMEE does know about At Attin. His previous captain made him destroy the coordinates and kill anyone who asked about it…wait, what?
After serving as their muscle for several episodes, SMEE turning on the kids was a scary moment. These kids could do little to stop the droid when he turned on them, and they knew it. It’s only thanks to Neel distracting SMEE that Jod shuts the droid off.
So, the episode, while not as interesting as the first three, does end with a bit of character and plot development. However, it’s still hampered by the fact that this new world is still locked in a pointless war and now their resident droid wants to kill them. Hopefully, the show will address this in the next episode. Otherwise, Skeleton Crew is going to lose its momentum real quick.
