We just finished watching the finale of Skeleton Crew tonight, and I wanted to share just a couple thoughts on what I enjoyed, and overall where I’m at with the current Star Wars universe.

In an attempt to keep this spoiler-free I’ll summarize my thoughts about Skeleton Crew by saying that if you grew up reading books like Treasure Island, or watching movies like Treasure Planet, then Skeleton Crew is a fun take on these classic pirate adventure paradigms. Although nothing close to a full retelling of the classic Stevenson tale, Skeleton Crew has just enough throwbacks that feel familiar. Many of the story beats are taken right from the pages of this classic tale, and it’s classic for a reason. It works.

The story of four kids who end up having an incredible adventure in space is a great setting upon which to share a morality tale about innocence, trust, and bravery. By the end of the season you’ve seen the kids grow and build their friendships with one another. The bad guys are clear, the good guys are who you expect, and the story wraps up in a heartwarming fashion that feels like a traditional Disney tale of old.

Overall, a really fun show that doesn’t ask too much of its viewers, and rewards them with good story telling, acting, and directing… all set in the amazing world of Star Wars.

To say that this is refreshing is an understatement. Some of the recent Star Wars shows have taken a much different approach, and in the process fallen down hard. The recent Acolyte show was a tremendous disappointment, despite starting out with a premise that held a lot of potential and promise. It was weighed down by terrible story pacing, bad direction (which resulted in bad acting), and a seeming desire to focus on the hook of tantalization instead of simply telling a good story, well.

Ashoka was a fun time, but you really had to have been a fan of Rebels to enjoy it. It felt like a sequel to the cartoon, which was great, but that also weighed it down with trying to explain deep plot points that took too long to explain for a new viewer. I still enjoyed it, but I was also a fan of the cartoon, and so it was easy for me to fall into the story it was trying to tell.

Kenobi was fine, mostly because of how adorable young Princess Leia was. Book of Boba Fett was very mediocre and felt like it never had a point of view to build its story off of. And Mandalorian was a great series, despite feeling like it maybe went on just a bit too long.

That brings us to Andor, which was, by far, some of the best Star Wars storytelling in the history of the franchise. The acting and directing was brilliant, and the setting immersed you into a world that was real and tactile. This wasn’t the sanitized Star Wars of A New Hope. This was rebellion, with all of its ugly facets on clear display. Yet it was put together so well, you couldn’t help to be pulled in. I’m really looking forward to season 2 shortly.

At this point I’m hopeful that the future of Star Wars will give us more Skeleton Crew’s and Mandalorian’s and a few less Acolytes and Boba Fett’s. It’s clear that there is a formula that works, and a quality level than can be achieved within the confines of a streaming TV show. Disney just needs to commit to building those stories with an eye towards story and character, and not get lost in attempting to put Star Wars into a box it doesn’t fit in to.