Spoilers ahead for “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew” episode 1.
The “Star Wars” universe has always been full of mysteries. Even planets have had their share, whether it was a mysterious Jedi temple on the surface, or the location of the planet itself. “Star Wars Rebels” showed us the hidden location of the secondary home world of the Lasat people. “Ahsoka” took us to the planet Peridea in a mythical other galaxy. “The Force Awakens” took us on a journey to Ach-To, a planet no one thought existed, which was home to what was thought to be the site of the first Jedi temple. The planetary oddities aren’t terribly frequent in the “Star Wars” lore, but when you have a show rooted in pirates, you always need that mysterious island with an X marking the spot to a mystical treasure. And what better place to drop that X than the planet that the kids call home, and are desperately trying to get back to?
Skeleton Crew begins on the mysterious planet of At Attin
At Attin is the name of the planet that Wim, Fern, Neel, and KB all call home and the site of the crashed ship they find. It looks like your average suburban “Star Wars” planet, if not a little cleaner. It has trams and speeders hovering over tracks built into tree-lined streets. Everyone seems to be gainfully employed and everyone seems to have been placed there, which seems a little different and much more utopian (or dystopian) than other places we’ve seen in “Star Wars.” It feels much more like Lois Lowry’s “The Giver” than “Star Wars” has previously given us and it gives us a vibe that’s a little off, even though it is a pitch perfect adaptation of ’80s Spielberg.
As the narrative carries on, we learn there’s more to it than we realize. The first clue might be the fistful of Republic Dataries that Wim’s dad gives him as lunch money. Some might remember that Republic Dataries were the same currency Qui-Gon Jinn tried to use to pay Watto for the hyperdrive to replace the Queen’s in “The Phantom Menace,” but they were no good even then. Since we know “Skeleton Crew” takes place decades after the prequels, it stands to reason that those Dataries would be highly unusual. Especially since they had what looked like that old Imperial logo on them that stood in for the Grand Army of the Republic.
That next big tip off was the Great Barrier and the fact that these kids had never seen the stars before. Something very unusual was going on with their planet. But what?
The Jedi aren’t a lost myth on At Attin
One of the other more unusual aspects of At Attin was a reverence and widespread understanding of the Jedi and their lore. After years of Imperial occupation, such knowledge had been run out of the galaxy. Wim’s hero worship of the Jedi and his tablet full of fairy tales about them and knowledge of Jedi Temples and their abilities seemed out of place for a planet living in a post-Empire society — especially when you consider Rey on Jakku, not too long after this, thinking that Luke Skywalker himself was merely a myth. It definitely raises eyebrows as to what is going on with this planet, and why it seems like such a backwater of the suburbs.
The mysteries kept piling up, and by the second episode, when the pirates of Port Borgo start laughing at the kids for claiming their home was a myth, everything seemed all the more mysterious. Add to that the fact that the authorities don’t allow starships to enter or exit the planet at all, and there has to be some incredible reason they’re keeping secrets from everyone else and staying hidden in a way we’ve almost never seen in the “Star Wars” universe. It makes one wonder how long they’ve been keeping this secret and how long the crashed ship the kids find has been on the planet, especially with how long the trees have been growing from its hull.
Will we get answers in Skeleton Crew season 1?
Naturally, the single biggest narrative question “Skeleton Crew” asks in its opening installment is whether or not the kids will get home. If the answer is no, it will likely be a second or third season of the show before we find out. As the show moves forward, whether they make it home or not, we’re sure to learn more about the mysteries of the planet that we don’t yet understand.
At Attin doesn’t appear in the previous “Star Wars” lore, so it’s just as mysterious to us as the audience as it is to everyone inside the universe. We’ll all be learning with them, and I think that’s a good thing, too. There’s got to be a reason this planet is some sort of forgotten myth in the galaxy, hidden from everyone. Whatever that reason is, it’s going to be a big one. As the kids of the “Skeleton Crew” find out, and as we in the audience find out, I suspect it’s going to have some significant ramifications for the broader “Star Wars” mythology.
New episodes of “Skeleton Crew” release Tuesday nights on Disney+.
