Star Wars fans were quick to notice a Disney Easter egg in Skeleton Crew, the latest TV show in the Lucasfilm universe – and it’s a direct nod to Jude Law’s live-action Peter Pan villain.
In the new series, Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead) voices a partially malfunctioning droid named SM-33. Fans pointed out that SM-33 is simply a clever way of rewriting the name Smee. Jude Law recently starred as Captain Hook in David Lowery’s Peter Pan and Wendy, which saw comedian Jim Gaffigan play his bumbling righthand man Mr. Smee. Coincidence? I think not.
“His name is literally Smee,” one fan pointed out. “And he has a peg leg.” It doesn’t get more obvious than that.
Another fan pointed out that SM-33, beyond his name, is inspired by Major Domo from the Francis Ford Coppola-directed sci-fi musical movie Captain EO. The film starred Michael Jackson as Captain EO, who leads a rag-tag space crew on a mission to deliver a magical gift to an evil witch known as The Supreme Leader (Anjelica Huston). Captain EO played at various Disney parks from 1986 to 1998 and was restored for a short time after Jackson’s death in 2009. It’s also worth pointing out that Skeleton Crew’s Neel looks a bit like the elephant-like character in Captain EO known as Hooter (and for the sake of my childhood I’m going to pretend that David Lowery and co. designed Neel with Hooter in mind).
Skeleton Crew airs weekly on Disney Plus, and you can keep up to date with our Skeleton Crew release schedule.
For more, check out our Skeleton Crew review for our spoiler-free verdict, or our guide to all the upcoming Star Wars movies and TV shows for everything else the galaxy far, far away has in store.