In Skeleton Crew, the young boy Wim longs for adventure and chafes against his sheltered life on the suburban planet At Attin. He gets more adventure than he bargained for when he accidentally activates a defunct pirate spaceship, sending himself and three of his classmates adrift in the far reaches of the galaxy with no way of returning home. Wim's name suggests the word "whim," which befits his flighty temperament: he continually struggles to fulfill his responsibilities and gets himself into trouble because he is always following his whims.
Wim's relationship with his father Wendle is strained because of his mother's absence. Given his role as a strict, work-oriented father who squelches his son's dreams of faraway adventures, Wendle's name is probably meant to evoke "Owen," the name of Luke Skywalker's curmudgeonly father figure in A New Hope.
Taken together, father and son's names – "Wim Wendle" – suggest a winking reference to the German film director Wim Wenders. It makes sense that the names of this father-and-son pair would pay homage to Wim Wenders, whose 1984 film Paris, Texas centers around a father-son relationship strained by the absence of the son's mother, and contains multiple references to Star Wars. In one scene, after seeing his absent mother in a home video, the son says, "That's only her in a movie – a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away."
In another scene from Paris, Texas, the young boy Hunter plays with a pair of Star Wars action figures in his bedroom, which is full of Star Wars memorabilia (most visibly, a set of Return of the Jedi-themed bedsheets). In "This Could Be A Real Adventure" (Skeleton Crew 1.1), Wim is introduced playing with a pair of figures in his bedroom – and while, strictly speaking, Star Wars merchandise could hardly exist within the Star Wars universe, it is clear from the lightsabers of Wim’s toys and the décor of his room that he takes great enjoyment in imagining Jedi adventures in a galaxy far, far away.
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Shows: Skeleton Crew
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Influences: Paris, Texas
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