This coming May sees the release of The Mandalorian and Grogu, the first theatrically released Star Wars film in over six years but a year further on comes the next one straight out of the gate with the release of Shawn Levy’s Star Wars: Starfighter on May 28th 2027.
Star Wars and Lucasfilm have been back in the news this past week with the announcement of the changing of the guard, but we still know next to nothing about Starfighter. That was until, a week or so ago, an interesting few pieces started doing the rounds. Namely, the fact that Tom Cruise had directed a lightsaber dual set piece in water.
It wasn’t until this revelation that I started thinking that perhaps I’d gotten this film all wrong. So, let’s take a look.
I was lucky enough to be in the room at the panel last year at Celebration Japan when, during The Mandalorian and Grogu panel, the team brought out Shawn Levy and Ryan Gosling to announce this new film to the world. And we were given a title to boot. Star Wars: Starfighter. At the time, and for all subsequent time since, I’ve assumed that the title meant what it is was. An actual starfighter. A ship. Perhaps the ship in question would play a pivotal role in the film? Was said starfighter to be the plot’s MacGuffin?
All this changed, however, when I heard about a lightsaber fight that had been filmed. I, for whatever reason, assumed there might not be any lightsabers in this film. Lucasfilm seem quite intent on moving away from the main ‘Skywalker Saga’ so my logic deduced that this would be a film without them.
But what if it’s a great misdirection? What we know, so far, is that Gosling will be looking after a child and travelling across the galaxy. That’s pretty much it.
Which leads me to my next trail of thought. What, or who, exactly is Starfighter?
1) Starfighter is a name
My thinking here is that Starfighter is a surname, much like Skywalker. So, Gosling could be playing a character with that surname or even the young actor playing the role of the child – Flynn Gray. Perhaps Nigel Starfigher is about to make is debut in the Star Wars universe. (I suspect they may have a better name than Nigel, but we did just have a Syril in Andor, so anything’s a possibility these days)
2) Starfigher is a collective
My other trail of thought here was massively stoked by the notion of a lightsaber dual. What if, perhaps, that there are now a band of warriors/people/tribes that are known as the Starfighters? This concept was introduced in the Timothy Zahn novel; Thrawn: Alliances. In that novel, there are a sect of Force sensitive Chiss Children known as ‘ozyly-esehembo’ in Chiss, which translated to Galatic Basic became ‘sky-walkers’. So, could there be a band of Jedi-like characters, Gosling has been seen wielding a lightsabre after all, who are known as the Starfighters? Thid film is set five years after The Rise of Skywalker. Has Rey abandoned the Jedi altogether and trained a new generation of warriors that have become known as The Starfighters or could there be a new sect of Force Sensitives altogether from the Unknown Regions who have long held that name.
Could I be completely wrong? Probably. In fact, most definitely. The fun thing with this new film by Levy is that we know absolutely nothing about it.
I hope it stays that way for a long time.