Taking inspiration from Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film The Outsiders, Shawn Levy and Ryan Gosling worked together to help concoct the script and story of Star Wars: Starfighter, and speaking with Gizmodo in his first official interview about the film, Levy describes just how much of an influence Coppola’s film really was to the production.
in what he claims to be his first interview ever for the film, director Shawn Levy told Fandango that the film’s tone and grit were inspired by a story that, at first, is surprising, but also isn’t once you think about it. It’s The Outsiders, the 1967 S. E. Hinton novel everyone reads in high school, which was then adapted by Francis Ford Coppola in one of the most star-studded films of the early 1980s.
The Outsiders focuses on two groups of teenagers—the Socs and the Greasers—who clash over their social and economic differences. It’s a gritty, friendship and loyalty-driven tale that, when you realize Starfighter centers on the relationship of two men, starts to paint a picture.
“The Outsiders, which was both a book and a movie, Gosling and I weirdly connected in and about early on when the script was still evolving,” Levy said. “We spoke about how that movie captured something about characters who are… they’re not the privileged ones. They’re from the wrong side of the tracks. Our characters in Starfighter are from the wrong side of the galaxy. And it’s about these sort of marginalized outsiders who find each other and have a shot at discovering heroism through their connections.”