dmbarnhamart

I enjoyed the first movie. Was it perfect? No. It was flawed and had many strange choices. But looking over that, it was a fun, interesting, likable flick. And I adored Andy.

So I was looking forward to watching the delayed follow-up. And I can't say how bored, annoyed and disappointed I became.

I couldn't even finish it. Reaching about the halfway point I came across the second recton and thought "Do I really want to spend the next 30-40 minutes watching this, knowing full well where it's heading?" ... and the answer was no.

Between the rectoning, and the horrible character motivations/actions, I just decided enough. If I'm gonna kill time I may as well kill it being entertained watching something else.

I'm gonna be a party pooper here. Doubt anyone will like my review, but it's my thoughts.

I still don't know whether to like or dislike this show. 3 episodes in now and part of me is slipping.

On the one hand. It is whimsy-fun aimed at kids. There are legitimately good scenes and moments. I feel most kids will enjoy this show immensely. Some of the young characters' reactions can cause me to cringe and laugh because it's "so kids", am I right?

And as an adult I really appreciate the cinemaphotography and attention to sets and stuff. It's fantastic. I just marvel at how beautiful it looks.

But ... and this is a BIG "but" that keeps coming back to smack me in the face. Story wise it's completely and creatively bankrupt. The writers/creators didn't just say "Let's do space Pirates in Star Wars" and then went on a creative journey to make an interesting, well-thought-through but still uniquely Star Wars, pirate world ... no, they just said "We like the Goonies, and Treasure Island, and Peter Pan and 80s/90s memberries" let's just do that. To the point they literally have Long-John Silver and a pegged-legged android called Smee. It's just ... unfathomable how absolutely, painfully derivative this has been.

And the people defending it. Saying, well Star Wars has this and it has that. Yes, Star Wars had esthetics lifted from Edo Japan and Nazi Germany, and all these other places. But the world was its own thing, an attempt at using all these cultures from Earth to create something uniquely Star Wars. And they did that. Skeleton Crew Literally had a Goonies dead pirate room complete with a pirate hat. And they had ships boarding other ships in space like they were sailboats on the gorram sea. The had the most agonising 80s/90s Suburbia America world that completely pulls you out of any real immersion. It's just ... painfully lazy and bad.

People have argued, "it's for kids", as if that's reason enough to deflect any criticism. The Original Series was for kids too, but they somehow managed to create a story that while lifted from other places, was still its own thing. I just think the "It's for kids" is a poor argument for a poorly, and lazily strung-together story.

I simply feel like I shouldn't give a free pass to quality writing and world-building simply because it's aimed at kids. The show didn't have to be perfect. The original series certainly isn't. But if the writers can't even be bothered to create some actual world-building that genuinely fits into the world, instead of being directly lifted from memberry nostalgia, then why should I care enough to rate it higher?

Is it watchable? - Somewhat. But the bits I really enjoyed are constantly interrupted by stuff that shouldn't be there, and that's taking the joy away. Which is a shame, because I see so much potential here. It is better than some of the rubbish that's been coming out of the Star Wars universe lately. 100%. But just because something is better than what we've been given doesn't make it good. So far all I can say is that the goonie/pan/silver/stranger-things pirate/suburbia stuff is a detraction.

If it didn't look so good and have some decent dialogue I would've given it less then 5 stars simply because of how close it's boarding on outright plagiarism.