Star Wars: Skeleton Crew creator and showrunner Jon Watts has revealed that the upcoming Disney+ series will combine the latest cinematic technology with the old-school matte painting style of the original trilogy.
“I got to use all the cool stuff on my most recent Star Wars show,” Watts said to Collider during CCXP Mexico City. “We had pre-viz, MOCAP, we shot on the volume, we did everything. But the most fun part was we also used all the old school techniques as well.”
Watts continued by announcing the surprise return of past ILM artists from the original trilogy, including Phil Tippett, the legendary ILM stop-motion designer for 1977’s Star Wars: A New Hope and 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back.
“We got Phil Tippett to do stop-motion,” Watts said. “We did matte paintings, like real old-fashioned matte paintings. We got an ILM painter out of retirement to come out and do that. So to me, all that stuff is fun, but it’s just another tool, and it depends on how you use it.”
What is Star Wars: Skeleton Crew about?
According to Watts, the premise of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is “about a group of kids that find a mysterious secret on their planet and accidentally get lost out in the galaxy, and it’s the story about them trying to find their way back home.”
Created by Watts and Christopher Ford, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew stars Jude Law, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Robert Timothy Smith, Ravi Cabot-Conyers, Kyriana Kratter, Tunde Adebimpe, and Jaleel White. Kathleen Kennedy, Dave Filoni, and Jon Favreau serve as executive producers alongside Watts and Ford.
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew does not have an official release date on Disney+.
