With the series “Skeleton Crew”, Disney brings a breath of fresh air to the “Star Wars” empire

With a piece for the younger generation, Disney is adding another spin-off to its "Star Wars" empire: "Skeleton Crew" draws a link to the beginnings of the saga, which did not shy away from transporting great narrative art into the vastness of space and a distant future as a space fairy tale. The creators Jon Watts (director of the Marvel "Spider-Man" films) and Christopher Ford were obviously inspired to let their ten-year-old selves take the helm: alien worlds, pirates, secret treasures frame a story that takes its characters pleasingly seriously.

Together with his shy friend Neel (Kacie Borrowman as a blue-skinned elephant boy), the imaginative Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers) thinks he has found a secret Jedi temple in a hidden ravine in the forest. Unfortunately, two girls have also discovered the strange hatch: Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) is a self-confident doer, her friend KB (Kyriana Kratter) has special abilities thanks to a cybernetic skull implant, and while they are still arguing about who was here first, the four suddenly find themselves in a space cruiser on their way to a galaxy far, far away. The ship's "passengers" also include a number of pirate skeletons and the defective droid SM-33 - and soon also the opaque Jedi knight Jod Na Nawood ( Jude Law ), with whom the eponymous Skeleton Crew must endure an adventurous journey.

The creators have fun undermining the solemn seriousness of many other spin-offs in the Star Wars universe. Jod in particular, who goes by a different name wherever he appears, is a real border crosser. Jude Law shines with a sly charm that makes you want to like him - although it seems clear that this guy has a lot of dirt on his hands and dark intentions. SM-33, the one-eyed droid with the creaky pirate voice, also functions as an unreliable navigator in the rarely lengthy search for the way home to At Attin thanks to his damaged circuitry.

But it is the children who carry this story, without any feel-good messages or pedagogical finger-wagging lurking in the background. The far less clearly defined adults in the series get caught up in narrow-minded greed or blind busyness, while the children lost in the vastness of space are just looking for a "real adventure". This, of course, turns out to be bigger and more dangerous than even Wim had hoped. He dreams of becoming a Jedi one day, and he immediately gives his heart to the shady Jod, "because he is a Jedi". The cool Fern, on the other hand, remains skeptical, while Jod intones wannabe wisdom such as "The force flows through us all!" to impress the children. When a lightsaber turns up in a treasure chamber that supposedly contains directions through space, Wim sees it as the greatest treasure imaginable - but it immediately becomes a real threat.

One of the series' charms is that the children of the Skeleton Crew (and perhaps their young viewers) are obsessed with the myths of the Star Wars universe without fully existing in it. For on their home planet, the adults have erected a barrier to obscure certain things for good reasons; this barrier also functions as a beautiful metaphor for a story about seduction, loss and concealment.

In addition, “Skeleton Crew” impresses with a set design that transforms the landscapes, cities and spaceship ports of alien planets into astonishing visual experiences and repeatedly shines with witty ideas - including a cloud of dust that our heroes' ship leaves behind when it jumps into hyperspace and the chaos that Jod causes when escaping from a pirate planet.

The premise of “children alone in space” could easily have been a disaster. But we see an eight-part series that borrows from Steven Spielberg, classics like “The Goonies” and of course the “Star Wars” universe itself – and simply explores how much adventurous fun you can still have with “Star Wars”.