This article contains spoilers for "Star Wars: Skeleton Crew" episode 6, "Zero Friends Again."
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is a fantastic addition to the franchise. It's an all-ages show with a fantastic cast, as well as an exciting pirate space adventure that's part Treasure Island and part Goonies. The show follows a group of children lost in space who try to return home - except their home is no ordinary world, but a legendary planet of eternal riches. Along the way, the kids meet a rogue pirate who can use the Force, a droid whose name sounds like Smee from "Peter Pan," and lots of adorable little guys.
In the latest episode of the series, "Zero Friends Again," the kids—having just been abandoned by their pirate "buddy" Jod (Jude Law)—must work together in hopes of escaping the pirate bay turned into a fancy vacation spot where they are stuck. Meanwhile, Jod is captured by his old private crew and forced to stand trial. As he tries to defend himself by evoking the old pirate tradition of bickering, Jod lets out a blast, convincingly promising his old band of pirates that he'll give them more than they ever wanted if they let him live. Specifically, he will gift them with "The entire kriffing galaxy" in the form of the children's legendary home planet, Atin.
Now, you don't need to be familiar with every Star Wars comic book or video game ever made to realize that "criffing" is a clear stand for "s***ing." That Skeleton Crew should be the first Star Wars movie or TV show to use that word only makes its inclusion here that much funnier. However, as random or improvised as the word may sound, it actually has a long history in a galaxy far, far away.
Dunk farik! History of Oaths in Star Wars.
The word "kriffing" first appeared in 1997 The Star Wars Expanded Universe (or, as it is now officially known, Legends) the novel Vision of the Future by author Timothy Zahn, itself the second book in Zahn's Star Wars: The Hand of the Outcast duology (a follow-up to the author's original Thrawn novel trilogy, aka the Heir to an Empire trilogy) . Technically, this is actually the second time we hear the word in "Skeleton Crew" as well, as we also heard it in the second episode when two of the show's young heroes, Neil (Robert Timothy Smith) and Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers), order food in the pirate haven of Port Borgo and the tame chef uses the expression when the children don't immediately think to pay him.
Now, Star Wars has had its use of swear words since the first movie, especially "damn" and "hell". However, it is the EU that has introduced many naughty words and phrases that sound more sci-fi - except for alien languages using words like 'bantha poodoo' - like 'sculag' or 'farkled'. Live, it was with The Mandalorian that Star Wars introduced a new live-action catchphrase with "dunk farrick," a term often used on the show and inspired by the very potty mouth of Samuel L. Jackson. With Star Wars Rebels already introducing the kryph and now the Skeleton Crew bringing kryph back into the mix, what kind of explosion should Star Wars use next? My money is on either "kark" or "crink".
New episodes of Star Wars: The Skeleton Crew air Tuesdays at 6pm PST on Disney+.
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