Thar be pirates! Yep, Skeleton Crew is heading our way fast (74 days and counting) and Entertainment Weekly bring us a pair of new images that allow us a closer look at Jude Law as Jod Na Nawood (sporting a very 17th century looking musket blaster) and our first close look at the pirates of the series, led by Marti Matulis as Vane and featuring Jaleel White as Gunter, Brutus (voiced by Fred Tatasciore and played by performance artist Stephen Oyoung), Pax (performance artist: Mike Estes) and Chaelt (Dale Soules). Skeleton Crew creators Jon Watts and Christopher Ford elaborated.
“Those are pirates!” confirms Ford of the photo subjects above. “Space pirates.”
And not just any space pirates, but that is none other than Urkel himself, Jaleel White, looking vaguely cyborg-esque as Gunter. To the left of Gunter is a pesky character Star Wars fans may recognize: the unsavory Vane (Marti Matulis), who gave Din Djarin and Greef Karga such a hard time on The Mandalorian. Rounding out this not-so-merry band of pirates to the right of Gunter is Brutus (voiced by Fred Tatasciore and played by performance artist Stephen Oyoung), Pax (performance artist: Mike Estes), and Chaelt (Orange is the New Black’s Dale Soules).
With Skeleton Crew taking place in the same time frame as shows like The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and Ahsoka — after the fall of the second Death Star, and before the rise of the First Order — that means that there is a lack of what one might call Imperial enforcement. Naturally, that allows nefarious forces to thrive. “With the era we’re in, we’re kind of getting to play with that lawless thing,” says Ford. “The Empire is gone, and so we’re playing with a part of the galaxy that has a resurgence of piracy.”
Pirates played a role in season 3 of The Mandalorian, as folks like Gorian Shard and Vane created chaos on Nevarro, and now it appears we will meet more unscrupulous characters of the same ilk. “Pirates are talked about so much in Star Wars,” Ford notes. “People would call Han Solo a pirate and he’d be like, ‘How dare you?’ And we’ve seen some awesome pirates in the animated shows. So this was something where both [executive producers] Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau were really excited to do more pirate stuff.”
Exploring the edges of wild space is something that co-creator Watts is excited to do, not just due to his love of Star Wars, but also because of his love of a certain LucasArts video game series that dates all the way back to 1990. “I’m also a big fan of Monkey Island,” says Watts. “That’s also classic Lucas. So somewhere between Star Wars pirates and Monkey Island pirates. I think we found our sweet spot.”
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On the Star Wars stage at July’s London Film and Comic Con both Mark Newbold and Paul Naylor sat down with Marti to discuss his time as Vane in The Mandalorian and (very briefly) his return in Skeleton Crew.
