By 
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew may have just given us another terrifying space creature to haunt our nightmares, but there’s more than meets the eye to the giant crab monster that Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers) and KB (Kyriana Kratter) run into on the outskirts of Lanupa in episode 6 “Zero Friends Again.” It turns out that this giant crab, named Tet’niss according to Art Director and Fabrication Supervisor Mark Dubeau, doesn’t just have a bunch of junk in its trunk – some of the pieces of trash stuffed in its shell are deliberate callbacks to the greater Star Wars universe and the films that came before.
To begin with, this walking pile of tetanus on legs isn’t just some CGI amalgamation, it’s a stop-motion labor of love. In a behind-the-scenes video released by Star Wars, Dubeau says “When we were putting the junk on it, it wasn’t just random stuff. I actually tried to use as many little bits from model kits that were used on the original films [as I could].” As he shows us in the video, Tet’niss is hiding quite a few familiar droid parts in her shell.
There’s an entire R2-D2, the top half of C-3PO, and the torso and leg of K-2SO. Obviously these pieces aren’t necessarily meant to represent the actual droids themselves. We know that R2 and 3PO survive until the era of the First Order and K-2SO died on Scarif before it was obliterated by the Death Star, so it’s not like these are their real mechanical “corpses.” But it’s still a fun way to show how much these stories mean to the people who make them.
They could have just put a bunch of random parts on Tet’niss and called it a day. But instead, the art department decided to have some fun and pay homage to the crafters and shapers of stories before them. Of course, this is the same show that saw Jon Watts and Christopher Ford go back and recreate the holographic circus from the Star Wars Holiday Special for one little scene, so would we really expect anything less?
In an era of CGI monstrosities and forcing visual artists to work long hours with little payoff, it’s refreshing to see practical effects that were able to have some time and care put into them, and that the creators are excited about showing off. Even if the end result is a terrifying trash crab that kind of reminds me of Tamatoa from Moana (anyone else randomly have the song “Shiny” stuck in your head after watching this episode?).
Tet’niss may be a monstrosity, both on and off the screen, but somehow her trash-filled shell is also full of love for Star Wars and the stop-motion characters and creatures that have come before.
New episodes of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew premiere Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on Disney+, culminating with the finale on January 14.
The post Skeleton Crew’s Giant Crab Is Hiding Some Surprising Star Wars Callbacks appeared first on Den of Geek.
