Skeleton Crew's directors discuss what to look forward to in the series

With every new Star Wars story comes renewed expectations and pressure for the show to perform, something the directors behind Skeleton Crew already understand.

StarWarsNews.Net shared a great summary of a lengthy Empire Magazine interview with Skeleton Crew's creator, Jon Watts, and a handful of the show's directors, including some familiar names from other live-action shows.

Directors David Lowery, Jake Schreier, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Lee Isaac-Chung revealed how they discovered Star Wars and what it was like to work on a live-action series. When asked about their time on set, each director shared a personal anecdote about the process, including Jon Favreau's influence on it. David Lowery shared the magic of puppeteering, brought to life through the magic of Legacy Effects:

"I was excited about having hand puppets on set. Watching these incredible puppeteers from Legacy Effects operate these droids. It’s the most ancient technology being used with the most cutting-edge technology, simultaneously. That combination was absolutely magical. "

- David Lowery

The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett's Bryce Dallas Howard, who's back to direct an episode of Skeleton Crew, shared Jon Favreau's influence on the workflow. Jon Watts and Christopher Ford tweaked the process put in place by Favreau from The Mandalorian Season 1:

"This is a workflow that Fav[reau] felt very strongly about from the jump on season 1 of The Mandalorian. From season to season, they’ve tweaked that process. Something new that Watts and Ford did is, they recorded all of the voices. When they were handing over the scripts and the concept art to the directors, they were also handing over a radio play of the episode. It was immensely helpful — it set the pace and the tone, and allowed us to have consistency of character."

- Bryce Dallas Howard

Jake Schreier and David Lowery praised Favreau's determination to get the job done, regardless of the budget, but Schreier says he's glad to see Favreau being able to use his creative skills with a far bigger budget:

"It’s very fun to see him be given the tools to do it all at this much fancier level."

- Jake Schreier

On a personal front, when asked how they were introduced to Star Wars, everyone had a completely different story on their first time discovering the galaxy, which would one day become their canvas. Lowery reveals he decided to make movies because of Star Wars and still has the Darth Vader toy he had as a 3-year-old. Interestingly, Schreier says he learned about Star Wars through PBS's series, NOVA, which took fans behind the scenes of the making of the movies.

Bryce Dallas Howard grew up surrounded by Star Wars, with her dad, Ron Howard, working with George Lucas on American Grafitti. Howard spent time at Skywalker Ranch long before she was offered an opportunity to get behind the camera. Chung watched the original trilogy backward, starting with Return of the Jedi, but still found the story intriguing. Jon Watts was introduced to Star Wars through video games, but Watts and every director admit that George Lucas's work inspired their own.

As with several other Star Wars shows and movies, Skeleton Crew is set to feature different creatures. Lee Isaac Chung is a big fan of Ned, one of the new aliens introduced in the show. To no one's surprise, Bryce Dallas Howard revealed that she loved working with Grogu, but her episode involves a "creature situation" that's "very, very, very, very exciting." Howard didn't reveal what the creature is, but now we're intrigued.

As for a tease of what to expect from the show, every director described their episodes with one word:

"Watts: I’ll start: “beginning,” and “end.” I did the first one and the last one.

Howard: Friendship.

Chung: Oh shoot. This is hard! “It gets real." "Things get real.”

Schreier: I guess I’ll say, "Booby-traps.""

- Skeleton Crew Directors.

Skeleton Crew remains slightly mysterious even as more information on the series is being revealed, but the show stands out among all the Star Wars live-action shows. Curiosity about how it fits into the Mandoverse is growing, and Disney has a great opportunity to raise even more interest at D23 in Brazil next month.

Skeleton Crew premieres December 3 on Disney+.