Star Wars: Skeleton Crew was in part inspired by the point and click Monkey Island games.
The latest Star Wars show stars Jude Law as Force-user Jod Na Nawood. “Skeleton Crew tells the story of four kids searching for their home planet after getting lost in the Star Wars galaxy, and the strange aliens and dangerous places they encounter on their adventure,” reads the official synopsis on Disney Plus.
But, what has all that got to do with Monkey Island, I hear you ask?
Well, it all starts with those kids mentioned above. “There’s a fun thematic parallel between our kids and the pirate crew,” co-showrunner Jon Watts told SFX magazine (via GamesRadar). “In a lot of ways, pirates are grown-up kids who don’t want to follow rules and just want to go on their own way, arguing about who gets to be the captain.”
The Skeleton Crew showrunner went on to state the team watched “old pirate serials as an influence”, highlighting “swashbuckling” films like The Sea Hawk [1940] and Captain Blood [1935] in particular. And, then he got to the video game influence that helped shape Skeleton Crew.
“My other huge Lucasfilm fandom is the Monkey Island games,” Watts said, immediately endearing himself to me. “I loved all of the pirate things in those, and felt like we could bring a little hint of that to Skeleton Crew.”
As a huge Monkey Island fan, this one simple quote has piqued my interest for Skeleton Crew (I won’t lie, I had been starting to feel a bit of Disney Star Wars show fatigue). Think you will be watching as well?
In the meantime, if you just want to play some Monkey Island goodness, a group of fans recently came together to create their own, mini point-and-click adventure game based on the series, known as The Booze of Monkey Island.