Channel72 said:
I haven’t watched this show, and it’s encouraging to read all the positive reactions. But it seems this show barely registered on this forum’s radar, judging by the extremely limited engagement in this thread. In contrast, the thread for The Acolyte (which had a mostly luke-warm or negative reception on this forum) generated like 15 pages of posts, and the Andor and Kenobi threads generated even more than that. It seems this forum is just not particularly interested in Skeleton Crew. I wonder if this is a more universal phenomenon that extends beyond this forum. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the case, because this show does not use widely-known pre-existing characters and has a very unique or niche premise for a Star Wars show.
This reminds me of a larger conversation about awareness and advertising for streaming shows. I mean, 20 years ago whenever a Hollywood film or network TV show (especially something as culturally impactful as Star Wars) was released, the marketing would be pretty much unavoidable. You would become aware of the show fairly quickly, and then be constantly reminded of its existence via an unrelenting bombardment of television commercials, movie trailers, billboards, etc. But nowadays, fewer and fewer people (particularly younger people with Disney+ subscriptions) watch cable television or go to the movie theatre, choosing instead to watch things on YouTube or other online platforms. Of course, these streaming video platforms do embed video advertisements in their content, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen an ad for Skeleton Crew. Perhaps there are fewer vectors available to advertisers nowadays to cost-effectively spread awareness among target audiences than there was in the past. Or perhaps the target audiences are scattered across too many different online platforms, making it difficult to cost-effectively reach them, unlike 20 years ago when everyone was watching the same television networks and seeing the same movies in theaters. This problem is probably further exacerbated by the niche premise of Skeleton Crew and the fact that its title lacks any connection to the Star Wars IP. Of course, if you already subscribe to Disney+ you’ll see new shows advertised on the home screen, but if you don’t already have Disney+ you might never become aware of new shows.
Personally, I was aware of Skeleton Crew and its Goonies-inspired premise months ago, and I subscribe to Disney+. But I still haven’t watched any episodes. I’m not even sure why. The limited promotional material and positive reviews I’ve seen simply haven’t sufficiently motivated me to actually go watch it, even though I (perhaps hypocritically) really do want to encourage the production of original shows like this that take creative risks with the Star Wars IP. That’s how you get really outstanding stuff like Andor.
Negativity always generates more discussion than positivity. There’s only so many ways you can say you liked something, but there’s certainly plenty of ways to express how much you hate something…