Skeleton Crew’s Finale Finally Breaks A Bad Star Wars Habit
There’s something good about seeing something so bad.
Star Wars has always been about the struggle between good and evil. It’s one of the mythological tenets George Lucas used to build out his vision, and in every iteration thereafter, watching the push and pull between the Jedi and the Sith has formed the core of the epic space opera.
This, however, has led to Star Wars repeating one trope over and over, to rapidly diminishing returns. Thankfully, Skeleton Crew’s finale gave this storytelling habit a hard reset.
In Skeleton Crew Episode 8, “The Real Good Guys,” Jod Na Nawood, the Force user who’s had an uneasy relationship with the At Attin kids, finally showed his true colors. He’s not a Jedi, but a pirate looking to conquer At Attin and plunder its mint. Jude Law’s performance completely pivots from “a secretive stranger who seems helpful” to “a mustache-twirling villain,” and it’s a joy to watch.
Jod Na Nawood wields a blue saber, a color associated with the Jedi, but he’s no peacekeeper.
This is actually a notable change for Star Wars. So many of its villains have enjoyed some redemption or revealed a sympathetic side: Darth Vader and Kylo Ren both had last-minute changes of heart, Maul turned over a new leaf in Rebels, and even Boba Fett went from a bounty hunter hell-bent on stopping our heroes to a good-hearted ruler of Tatooine. There’s nothing wrong with someone seeing the light, but when it happens to every baddie of note, it becomes predictable and boring.
The big exceptions to this rule are Palpatine, who’s rotten to the core, and some of his cronies, like Moff Gideon and Grand Admiral Thrawn. But the latter are following Palpatine’s orders, while Jod isn’t under the thumb of someone bigger and evil-er. He’s just a captain with a big, sleazy dream. Skeleton Crew teased him as being a Jedi, and we learn that he was trained by the Jedi for a while until Order 66 happened, but the man’s a pirate at heart.
Jod learned the wrong lesson from his past, and in Skeleton Crew, we see what happens when you lose all hope and just try to seize what you can from life. Hope in the face of darkness has always been one of Star Wars’ main themes, but Jod was hopeless, and that led him straight into a life of good old-fashioned villainy that Star Wars fans could root against.
