Skeleton Crew’s Brutus continues a sad Star Wars tradition

Brutus is an impressive feat in character design. As shistavanen, he basically looks like a badass werewolf, as his race originated with a background character from the famous cantina sequence in “A New Hope” (which itself was basically a mask makeup effects legend). Halloween available in the market). Rick Baker used for that scene). Since “Skeleton Crew” only shows the character in small doses and mostly in the dark, it’s the combination of the wolf mask and the many weapons strapped to his chest that does the heavy lifting of Brutus’ design. Far from looking like a ready-made Halloween mask, he appears to be a real alien wolf pirate worthy of the cruelty that inspires the name Brutus.

Still, the character of Brutus doesn’t really do much in “Skeleton Crew” and mostly exists to look cool as the leader of a ruthless band of pirates who pillage, pillage, and sing space pirate shanties. Otherwise, Brutus is not a very good villain; After all, he was outmaneuvered and outwitted on several occasions by a group of children before being mercilessly murdered by their former captain while trapped under a crane.

However, that shouldn’t be a surprise. In fact, the character of Brutus is part of a long-standing “Star Wars” practice where the franchise features a radically twisted and scheming character with a killer design, who is then almost immediately killed off without doing anything. I’m talking about characters like Boba Fett, Darth Maul, Captain Phasma, Grievous and Dexter Jettster (come on, you know he definitely bit the dust). Of course, some of these deaths were later retconned, but the point remains the same: “Star Wars” is as much about the heroes at the center of its stories as it is about one-off characters who appear briefly, look awesome, and then disappear. .

In fact, in the same episode in which Brutus is killed, his successor seems to have appeared. I’m talking about Neel’s father, Nol, one of the most popular new “Star Wars” characters in years (Qimir notwithstanding), with those huge fangs and his loving family. If they kill him, we will riot.

The season 1 finale of “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew” will be released on January 14, 2025 at 6 pm PST on Disney+.