There’s one very special moment in modern Star Wars that is unlike anything in any previous entry in the franchise before. It’s a moment that redefines one of the most iconic fictional sci-fi weapons ever and changes the way we look at the basic world-building of the Star Wars galaxy. It is one of the purest, and original moments in recent memory in Star Wars, yet it’s extremely familiar and nostalgic. This near-perfect scene also has minimal visual effects and instead relies on the performances of the actors and the emotions being conveyed.
I am, of course, talking about the part in the very first episode of Skeleton Crew — “This Could Be a Real Adventure” — in which Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers) busts out a DIY, bladeless, perhaps cardboard lightsaber hilt and pretend to have a laser sword duel with Neel (Robert Timothy Smith), who is just cupping his hands like he’s holding a lightsaber that isn’t even there. On some level, his very brief scene is the best lightsaber duel since The Phantom Menace, because it captures the actual, literal feeling of being a child fighting with a lightsaber toy. Yes, there have been actual lightsaber toys for a long while, but for me, this moment was perfect. And that’s because in 1992 when I was just 11 years old, I built a lightsaber hilt very much like Wim’s.
