Skeleton Crew Series References The Holiday Special

Skeleton Crew Series References The Holiday Special



Key Takeaways

  • Star Wars: Skeleton Crew will feature a reference to the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special.
  • The series will also include elements from Star Wars Legends, encouraged by Lucasfilm.
  • The team put significant effort into recreating the Holiday Special reference for fans’ enjoyment.



Star Wars: Skeleton Crew debuts in just over one week, and the much-anticipated Disney Plus series will feature a reference to a project Lucasfilm has largely buried.

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew tells the story of four children who get lost in the galaxy and must find their way home after making a discovery on their home planet. The series is sandwiched between the events of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, meaning fans will spot Easter eggs and nods to the past. Placing Skeleton Crew during this period of the Star Wars timeline allowed the creative time to pay tribute to one of the franchise’s most infamous entries: The Star Wars Holiday Special.

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During an interview with The HoloFiles, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew co-creator and co-writer of 6 episodes Jon Watts detailed how much work went into bringing the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special reference to life. While details on the reference weren’t provided, Watts did explain that they initially thought they could use some preexisting footage from the Star Wars Holiday Special. However, the footage was “too low resolution” and didn’t have the right angles, forcing the Star Wars: Skeleton Crew team to get creative:


We had to create this moment from multiple angles, because you see it in various parts of the scene. So we rebuilt the whole thing from scratch. We had to dig up the original designs of the costumes, which were in the Lucasfilm archive…Get all the original specs. We had to redo the music from scratch, because there was no copy of the actual score anywhere, so we had to rebuild that…It ended up being 20x more work than we anticipated, and our stunt coordinator is the main performer in it and he was able to re-choreograph the routine too, because it’s a very acrobatic routine…I will say, without saying what it is, which it is pretty obvious now, it was so much work and it was so worth it. My favorite part.

star wars holiday special book of boba fett

Skeleton Crew will also feature elements from Star Wars Legends, the name given to the franchise’s books, video games, and other media that Disney designated non-canon after it acquired Lucasfilm. These were included because the Star Wars: Skeleton Crew team wanted to bring Legends references into the story and Lucasfilm encouraged them to include such nods. Watts explained how the process worked:

You’re working with the incredible Lucasfilm design team with Doug Chiang and everyone over there, and it was always just a conversation…As soon as they knew that we were comfortable with more obscure, deep cut references, that really opened up the floodgates for the [question], ‘You know what character you might be able to put in.’


Fans will likely be happy to hear Star Wars Legends references will be included in Skeleton Crew. Many Star Wars Legends books and video games were well-received upon release and fans were disappointed when Disney de-canonized them. However, the Star Wars Holiday Special was so poorly received that Lucasfilm never rebroadcast it or released it on home video. Disney Plus added the Star Wars Holiday Special‘s Boba Fett segment in 2021, but fans must turn to bootleg copies or unofficial sources on the internet to watch the whole thing.

Watts and the creative team must have thought fans would get a kick out of the nod considering how much work went into bringing the Star Wars Holiday Special reference to life in Skeleton Crew. It’s unlikely to change the Star Wars Holiday Special‘s reputation, but at least the franchise’s most notorious entry isn’t being relegated to the dustbin of history entirely.

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew premieres on December 3, 2023, on Disney Plus.

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Source: The HoloFiles

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