Star Wars is Bringing Back the Force Awakens Bad Guys You Forgot About
This isn’t your average blaster.
Recent Star Wars shows have branched out to new time periods and even entirely different galaxies, and now the franchise is trying a new genre: the family-friendly ensemble adventure. But while Skeleton Crew is coming out later this year, we still don’t know much about it.
Thankfully, that’s finally changed. A new sneak peek at the series reveals the grungy underbelly of space that the series will focus on, and if you look carefully, you’ll see hints of the criminal organization that could be at the center of it.
Entertainment Weekly recently released two photos of Skeleton Crew. One shows Jod Na Nawood (Jude Law) in front of the show’s young leads, while the other portrays a group of warriors armed to the teeth led by Gunther (Jaleel White).
“Those are pirates!” Skeleton Crew co-creator Christopher Ford said of the new characters. “Space pirates.” But not all of these pirates are new; the pink-skinned fellow on the left is Vane, a member of the pirate gang led by Gorian Shard that terrorized the planet Navarro back in The Mandalorian Season 3.
While the rest of the pirates seen in the Entertainment Weekly preview are newcomers, a clue to their origins may be hiding in plain sight. The firearm holstered on Jod’s belt and the guns strapped to the wolf-life Brutus’ bandolier don’t look like typical Star Wars blasters. Their long barrels and curved grips instead resemble flintlock pistols, like the kind used in old duels. Within Star Wars, we last saw this obscure blaster style, known as a Donderbus, in The Force Awakens, where they were used by an Outer Ring crime syndicate called the Kanjiklub.
The Kanjiklub’s weapons were unorthodox.
Skeleton Crew is set in the New Republic Era established by The Mandalorian, placing it after Return of the Jedi but before The Force Awakens. Perhaps these space pirates are the predecessor of — or at least an influence on — the Kanjiklub. So while most of the Mandoverse has been busy foreshadowing The Rise of Skywalker’s clone subplot, Skeleton Crew is harkening back to some obscure pirates in The Force Awakens and one Mandalorian episode.
These images therefore imply that Skeleton Crew will follow Jod and his young allies as they face up against pirates. Did Jod take his blaster from a pirate, or did he used to be one? Are Gorian Shard’s pirates operating on their own, or does Vane’s presence imply they have some connection to the larger Kanjiklub?
The Star Wars galaxy, after all, is full of these criminal networks. Two of them, the Hutt clan and the Pike Syndicate, appear in The Book of Boba Fett alone. But the universe is big, and there’s always room for one more; or more than one more. Maybe we’re seeing the rise of the Kanjiklub, or a tense alliance between them and Gorian Shard’s crew. Regardless, expect to see them and Jude Law have some firefights with their wacky-looking weapons.
