Star Wars: Skeleton Crew - Disney +

[Dynaman]

What are old republic credits made of?  Has to be some kind of valuable material since "credits" from a defunct empire (or republic) are worthless.

[Keith]

54 minutes ago, Dynaman said:

What are old republic credits made of?  Has to be some kind of valuable material since "credits" from a defunct empire (or republic) are worthless.

Gold pressed latinum....

[Keith]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

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Yeah, any way you shake it the whole "At Attin is a planet of eternal treasure" thing doesn't really work.

At Attin has apparently not had contact with the greater galaxy in many MANY years, so...

• If the Old Republic Mint on At Attin is minting credits using rare and intrinsically valuable materials, then the treasure isn't the mint and isn't eternal because there has to be a finite quantity of the precious raw material held in whatever reserve is supplying the mint.
• If the Old Republic Mint on At Attin is minting fiat money then the only value the credits have is neumismatic, meaning they will quickly lose all their value once any collector checks into them and realizes they were minted recently or the very limited market becomes saturated.
• If there is still some government or governments out there honoring the fiat money of the long-defunct Old Republic... WHY?  That government fell over a thousand years ago.

The more you think about it, the less it makes sense.

The one possibility I can think of that makes this make sense is that the actual prize is the mint facility itself and...

  Hide contents

... the pirates goal is to use the mint's equipment to mint unlimited quantities of (potentially undetectable) counterfeit New Republic or Imperial credits.

Think about it.

At Attin may well be the only place in the galaxy where Old Republic credits are still in circulation as legal tender.  A finite supply of raw material would run out, and the value of the credit chips as antiques would quickly collapse as supply outstripped demand.  But if the mint facility can be used to make modern currency... well... then the pirates would not only have all the makings of an industrial-scale counterfeiting operation, but a base of operations for it on a planet so far off the grid that almost everyone in the galaxy believes it's a myth not a real place.

That would really make At Attin a Planet of Eternal Treasure... the ability to print unlimited modern money there and spend it elsewhere in the galaxy.

 

 

Spoiler

The New Republic may also have incorporated a higher redemption/conversion rate on "Old a Republic" credits vs "Imperial" credits. This would play into the importance of finding a large suoply of, or means to mint new "authentic" old reoublic credits, if say they were given a 2 to 3 times the value of Imperial credits.

 

[Duke Togo]

Who cares how the mint works? This is Treasure Island meets the Goonies, not To Live and Die in LA.

[Seto Kaiba]

22 minutes ago, Keith said:

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The New Republic may also have incorporated a higher redemption/conversion rate on "Old a Republic" credits vs "Imperial" credits. This would play into the importance of finding a large suoply of, or means to mint new "authentic" old reoublic credits, if say they were given a 2 to 3 times the value of Imperial credits.

Spoiler

Seems unlikely, IMO... mainly because the capital emphasis OLD Republic ended 1,000 years before The Phantom Menace when the Sith were "destroyed" (went underground) and the Republic government was reformed.

We know the New Republic phased out the Empire's credits and instituted their own, and we know the Empire did the same to the Republic's credits.  It's pretty likely that the post-reformation Republic did the same to the pre-reformation Old Republic's credits too.  

It'd be kind of like rolling up to a bank in modern Berlin with a brick of Weimar-era papiermarks trying to exchange them for Euros.  The bank would likely, very politely, inform you that your papiermarks hadn't been legal tender for a century and that the official currency had changed three times since then.

 

 

14 minutes ago, Duke Togo said:

Who cares how the mint works? This is Treasure Island meets the Goonies, not To Live and Die in LA.

It's the macguffin and central mystery driving the entire f***ing story.

It's the entire reason the kids home planet was hidden from the rest of the galaxy and thus the reason they're on this adventure trying to get home.  It's also the reason the Onyx Cinder ended up on their home planet to begin with, Jod's motivation for helping the kids, and now what's motivating Jod's entire former pirate fleet.  You'd think something that central to the entire story would at least make sense in context, no?  

[jvmacross]

1 hour ago, Duke Togo said:

Who cares how the mint works?

preach!

[Duke Togo]

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's the macguffin

By the very definition of the word, that is exactly why it doesn't matter how it works.

[Big s]

51 minutes ago, Duke Togo said:

By the very definition of the word, that is exactly why it doesn't matter how it works.

In this case it kinda does. It could end up the entire downfall of a show centered around it. It could be that thing that totally ruins an overall great show in the grand way that Gundam Unicorn totally flopped when its mcguffin turned out to be pointless piece of crap. A show with it’s decent characters, good music and a great look can easily be destroyed by simply being pointless. I’ve never forgiven Unicorn for letting me down so badly and now instead of seeing what I originally thought looked great, now I only see it for its massive flaws. I don’t want to rewatch it, because I never want to get to the end that let me down 

Edited Friday at 12:32 PM by Big s

[Big s]

On 12/31/2024 at 6:50 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

This episode officially confirms that KB is a cyborg.  That thing on her head is part of her brain.

I thought this had already been confirmed before the show even started. I didn’t realize anyone was still questioning this so long into the series 

[Thom]

12 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

  Hide contents

Yeah, any way you shake it the whole "At Attin is a planet of eternal treasure" thing doesn't really work.

At Attin has apparently not had contact with the greater galaxy in many MANY years, so...

• If the Old Republic Mint on At Attin is minting credits using rare and intrinsically valuable materials, then the treasure isn't the mint and isn't eternal because there has to be a finite quantity of the precious raw material held in whatever reserve is supplying the mint.
• If the Old Republic Mint on At Attin is minting fiat money then the only value the credits have is neumismatic, meaning they will quickly lose all their value once any collector checks into them and realizes they were minted recently or the very limited market becomes saturated.
• If there is still some government or governments out there honoring the fiat money of the long-defunct Old Republic... WHY?  That government fell over a thousand years ago.

The more you think about it, the less it makes sense.

The one possibility I can think of that makes this make sense is that the actual prize is the mint facility itself and...

  Hide contents

... the pirates goal is to use the mint's equipment to mint unlimited quantities of (potentially undetectable) counterfeit New Republic or Imperial credits.

Think about it.

At Attin may well be the only place in the galaxy where Old Republic credits are still in circulation as legal tender.  A finite supply of raw material would run out, and the value of the credit chips as antiques would quickly collapse as supply outstripped demand.  But if the mint facility can be used to make modern currency... well... then the pirates would not only have all the makings of an industrial-scale counterfeiting operation, but a base of operations for it on a planet so far off the grid that almost everyone in the galaxy believes it's a myth not a real place.

That would really make At Attin a Planet of Eternal Treasure... the ability to print unlimited modern money there and spend it elsewhere in the galaxy.

 

 

Spoiler

The 'eternal treasure' thing is pirate slang for 'follow me and I'll give you all your dreams.' It doesn't really work, as it's a pipe dream, but tell that to pirates all throughout history. All that has to be there are the raw materials, the precious metals. Get that and retool the mint to make New Republic credits and you are literally 'printing' your own money. the previous metals will run out, but you could have years, maybe even centuries, before that happens, especially if the mint was build by a mine.

 

[Roy Focker]

11 hours ago, Duke Togo said:

Who cares how the mint works? This is Treasure Island meets the Goonies, not To Live and Die in LA.

Exactly. This time it is a show featuring kids aimed at kids. Only the logic of Saturday morning cartoons apply. If one of these kids get stabbed through the middle of the chest with a light saber and survives I'm not going to question it like I would in some of their other shows.

[jvmacross]

Star Wars "kids".....

[Thom]

1 minute ago, jvmacross said:

Star Wars "kids".....

That is NOT  me on the right!!

[Dynaman]

4 hours ago, Duke Togo said:

By the very definition of the word, that is exactly why it doesn't matter how it works.

Yes it does.  If this were a Bugs Bunny short, sure the entire credits thing would not matter.  This is closer to "We have a plan" or that Fiasco that Lost ended up being.  The sad part being is a modicum of thought or a single line of exposition could handle the whole thing without any change to the rest of the story.

[Duke Togo]

1 hour ago, Dynaman said:

This is closer to "We have a plan" or that Fiasco that Lost ended up being.

This is not the show you're looking for.

I know it's pretty much the same crowd that spends page after page in every Star Wars thread complaining, but man, have you guys missed the mark on this one.

[Thom]

For me, I'm pretty much just enjoying the ride. I would like a comprehensive resolution that isn't just a 'tack-on' to the end, I mean, Goonies gave us a whole freaking pirate ship, but even if it is, as long as the fun is kept coming, I'll be fine. 

[Big s]

The whole mint thing is kinda slim as is, why not just invade a planet that is known to exist with a mint. And if security is the reason not to, they don’t really know what the mystery planet has as far as security. It also brings into question what the other secret planets had that was of value and if the mint even was the real treasure. I guess we’ll hopefully find out soon 

[jvmacross]

That last episode of Pirate's of the Outer Rim even went as far as to ripoff the pirate's code!

I think I even heard Captain Wolfman Jack bark out a derogatory "bilge rat" to his crew at some point...because that's what pirate's say in galaxies far, far away too....lol

 

[Big s]

51 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

That last episode of Pirate's of the Outer Rim even went as far as to ripoff the pirate's code!

I think I even heard Captain Wolfman Jack bark out a derogatory "bilge rat" to his crew at some point...because that's what pirate's say in galaxies far, far away too....lol

 

Maybe all the pirates of our world actually ripped off the ones in this show since it takes place such a long long time ago. I mean, even Captain Jack Sparrow was in a ship advanced enough to have safety rails, even if the construction was sub par.

[Seto Kaiba]

I gotta say, I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Skeleton Crew's writing team has shown us nothing but narrative competence so far, so I'm not sure why y'all are so convinced the writing team didn't care about making sure their plot-critical macguffin had a cogent explanation.  Come to that, Skeleton Crew being a "kids show" doesn't mean the plot is immune to scrutiny.  It's not a cartoon so it's not running solely on Rule of Funny, and its target audience according to Disney is tweens and young teens.  Maybe it's different where you guys live, but around here kids in that age group are no dummies.  They've got critical thinking skills and they know how to use 'em, making them more than capable of spotting when a narrative's plot doesn't make sense.

I'm betting on Skeleton Crew sticking the landing, though.  The writing team have done a great job so far.  This is no Acolyte or Rise of Skywalker where the writers are just BSing their way through the runtime.

[Big s]

5 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I'm betting on Skeleton Crew sticking the landing, though.  The writing team have done a great job so far.  This is no Acolyte or Rise of Skywalker where the writers are just BSing their way through the runtime.

I’m hoping you’re right and I definitely agree about kids these days. They’re not as accepting of total bs like kids from the 80’s. We rode with all the idiocy of those Superman sequels and just let them happen. I don’t know if it’s that kids these days are more intelligent or that they just have more peers voicing their opinions or if it’s a mix of both, but even kids know when a show sticks the landing or flops on the landing deck.

[jvmacross]

56 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I'm betting on Skeleton Crew sticking the landing, though.

 

[Thom]

55 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

...

I'm betting on Skeleton Crew sticking the landing, though.  The writing team have done a great job so far.  This is no Acolyte or Rise of Skywalker where the writers are just BSing their way through the runtime.

I've seen a couple of shows that have been pretty good, IMO, right up until the last episode, where it's like the writing team started dancing in clown shoes. 

Hopefull for Skeleton Crew though. May the Force be with them! 

[Seto Kaiba]

9 minutes ago, Thom said:

I've seen a couple of shows that have been pretty good, IMO, right up until the last episode, where it's like the writing team started dancing in clown shoes. 

YMMV of course, but my impression of the current direct-to-streaming model is that most shows end up being too short for the writers to have the luxury of waiting for the finish line to trip.  When a series is going to end badly, it's usually bad right out of the gate like The Acolyte or Star Trek: Discovery and doesn't really improve.

Disney+ Star Wars titles seem to be particularly committed to telegraphing their quality as early as possible.  Often before the series even airs.  If the series pitch sounds like it's "by fans, for fans" it's almost guaranteed to be a turd.

[Dynaman]

The writing for SC has been decent if not great.  Besides the McGuffin having no intrinsic value to make it worth being sought out the show has done well enough.  The only real time it seemed to go off a bit was the planet at war that was not much at war.  The obvious "this is a kids show so we have to tone it down" bias brought that episode down.

Then again I'm not 11 anymore (when Star Wars came out) so I'm a bit more jaded, but Star Wars only had to keep me entertained for 2 hours of spectacle and this has to do that over a longer run time with a much longer time between all the episodes to have stray thoughts about it.

All that said it is a heck of a lot better then the more "Adult" The Acolyte or The Book of Boba Fett (outside of the Mandolorian season 2.5 bits)

[Big s]

Unfortunately on a ranking scale of worst to best of these shows, most really suck overall. Acolyte was the worst followed closely by the Obi show and then boba show and Ahsoka very closely. Mando gets a middle ground spot because that third season drags the show down pretty hard. Then so far in the overall I’d say this show is better than overall Mando, which would have a higher rank if I was just judging individual seasons and the lead would be Andor even though it had a pretty bad start, it made up for in the rest of the season. 

[Seto Kaiba]

8 minutes ago, Big s said:

Unfortunately on a ranking scale of worst to best of these shows, most really suck overall. [...]

Can't really say I disagree.

A lot of it, IMO, goes back to Disney+ Star Wars and its obsession with fanservice.  The few good shows like Skeleton Crew and the first 2/3 of The Mandalorian are mostly focused on just telling a fun space adventure story in the Star Wars universe.  The ones stinking up the joint are mainly sequels, spinoffs, and side stories tying into Dave Filoni's work to do continuity porn like The Acolyte, Ahsoka, Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Book of Boba Fett, The Mandalorian season three, etc.

My hope is that Skeleton Crew (and possibly The Mandalorian and Grogu) will convince Disney+ to focus its future Star Wars endeavors on new characters and new stories.

[Big s]

45 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Can't really say I disagree.

A lot of it, IMO, goes back to Disney+ Star Wars and its obsession with fanservice.  The few good shows like Skeleton Crew and the first 2/3 of The Mandalorian are mostly focused on just telling a fun space adventure story in the Star Wars universe.  The ones stinking up the joint are mainly sequels, spinoffs, and side stories tying into Dave Filoni's work to do continuity porn like The Acolyte, Ahsoka, Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Book of Boba Fett, The Mandalorian season three, etc.

My hope is that Skeleton Crew (and possibly The Mandalorian and Grogu) will convince Disney+ to focus its future Star Wars endeavors on new characters and new stories.

It’s weird that we’ve gotten to a point where the best stories stay far far away from the Jedi as a main plot or character 

[Dynaman]

1 hour ago, Big s said:

It’s weird that we’ve gotten to a point where the best stories stay far far away from the Jedi as a main plot or character 

Not really.  This has been true ever since Episode 1 came out.  Lucas messed up their pre-downfall culture very badly and nobody has really tried to break that mold since.  Besides making them even worse that is.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Big s said:

It’s weird that we’ve gotten to a point where the best stories stay far far away from the Jedi as a main plot or character 

I don't think there's anything weird about that, honestly.

The Jedi, like the Sith, are an inherently self-limiting concept in the Star Wars universe.  Because the Force exists as a rigidly self-enforcing system of simplistic moral absolutes, the characters who wield it are inevitably far more limited in their potential development than those who don't.  The inevitable polarization into either a selfless hero or a sadistic villain makes them extremely predictable, and not just to the audience.  It's such an overbuilt trope that the Jedi's uncontrollable chronic hero syndrome is the cornerstone of the Empire's strategy for hunting them.

Characters who aren't locked into the Force's binary moral choice system can be written with a good deal more depth and complexity and be more believable and relatable as a result.  Like Din Djarin, or Cassian Andor, or the kids on the Onyx Cinder.  

There's this old saying "only the dose makes the poison".  The Jedi can be cool and interesting in small doses (e.g. Mando season 2), they're just painfully overused most of the time.

[Big s]

13 hours ago, Dynaman said:

Not really.  This has been true ever since Episode 1 came out.  Lucas messed up their pre-downfall culture very badly and nobody has really tried to break that mold since.  Besides making them even worse that is.

I can’t argue with the fact that those prequels were almost just as bad as the sequels. They were pretty trashy and hard to look at.

 

12 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I don't think there's anything weird about that, honestly.

The Jedi, like the Sith, are an inherently self-limiting concept in the Star Wars universe.  Because the Force exists as a rigidly self-enforcing system of simplistic moral absolutes, the characters who wield it are inevitably far more limited in their potential development than those who don't.  The inevitable polarization into either a selfless hero or a sadistic villain makes them extremely predictable, and not just to the audience.  It's such an overbuilt trope that the Jedi's uncontrollable chronic hero syndrome is the cornerstone of the Empire's strategy for hunting them.

Characters who aren't locked into the Force's binary moral choice system can be written with a good deal more depth and complexity and be more believable and relatable as a result.  Like Din Djarin, or Cassian Andor, or the kids on the Onyx Cinder.  

There's this old saying "only the dose makes the poison".  The Jedi can be cool and interesting in small doses (e.g. Mando season 2), they're just painfully overused most of the time.

as far as thinking it’s weird , I grew up with the old stuff. The live action stuff focused mainly on the whole Jedi thing, while live action wise there were those awkward Ewok movies that were the split away from the Jedi thing, and I can’t really call those good. Basically until D+ Rogue One and Solo were kinda the only things somewhat separate from the Jedi thing, although not by too much. The D+ era seems to have tried a few things that mostly deal with the Jedi and those were the worst of their shows. Mando, Andor and Skeleton Crew are the only ones that aren’t trash at this point although I do feel that Mando took a few too many stumbles in season three

[pengbuzz]

21 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I don't think there's anything weird about that, honestly.

The Jedi, like the Sith, are an inherently self-limiting concept in the Star Wars universe.  Because the Force exists as a rigidly self-enforcing system of simplistic moral absolutes, the characters who wield it are inevitably far more limited in their potential development than those who don't.  The inevitable polarization into either a selfless hero or a sadistic villain makes them extremely predictable, and not just to the audience.  It's such an overbuilt trope that the Jedi's uncontrollable chronic hero syndrome is the cornerstone of the Empire's strategy for hunting them.

Characters who aren't locked into the Force's binary moral choice system can be written with a good deal more depth and complexity and be more believable and relatable as a result.  Like Din Djarin, or Cassian Andor, or the kids on the Onyx Cinder.  

There's this old saying "only the dose makes the poison".  The Jedi can be cool and interesting in small doses (e.g. Mando season 2), they're just painfully overused most of the time.

On the note of the Force: strange that an energy generated by life would polarize to either of two opposite spectrums, when life exists in such diversity. I prefer to think of the "Force" as simply energy generated, with the inherent light and darkness magnified in the person using it.

But I know that's probably not Stat Wars'  take on it. Just my musing.

Spoiler

But it would be interesting to see Jedi and Sith "off the hook" on such restrictions...

 

Edited 14 hours ago by pengbuzz

[Duke Togo]

They did some pretty stellar work with that crab creature. 
 

https://www.starwars.com/news/skeleton-crew-tippett-studio-interview

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

On the note of the Force: strange that an energy generated by life would polarize to either of two opposite spectrums, when life exists in such diversity. I prefer to think of the "Force" as simply energy generated, with the inherent light and darkness magnified in the person using it.

But I know that's probably not Stat Wars'  take on it. Just my musing.

Yeah, as I understand it, the official take is actually worse.

Apparently the Force in its natural state is just the light side.  The dark side is a distortion of the Force created by misusing it.  Balance is the absence of darkness...

 

 

12 minutes ago, Duke Togo said:

They did some pretty stellar work with that crab creature. 
 

https://www.starwars.com/news/skeleton-crew-tippett-studio-interview

That they most assuredly did.  The effects work in Skeleton Crew has been pretty impressive throughout, minus a few minor moments of green screen awkwardness.

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Duke Togo said:

They did some pretty stellar work with that crab creature. 
 

https://www.starwars.com/news/skeleton-crew-tippett-studio-interview

Yeah, I totally loved the crabby action