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Fifty years after George Lucas introduced audiences to a galaxy far, far away, Lucasfilm is preparing to hand the Star Wars franchise its most significant creative reset since Disney acquired the studio.
The plan centers on Star Wars: Starfighter, the upcoming feature announced at Star Wars Celebration 2025 in Tokyo, where Lucasfilm confirmed director Shawn Levy and star Ryan Gosling would lead a project unlike anything the modern era of the franchise has attempted. Set to premiere on May 28, 2027, Starfighter will land in theaters the same year Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977) turns 50 — and that timing is no coincidence for a studio looking to prove the saga can thrive without its founding family at the center.
For nearly five decades, Star Wars storytelling has orbited the Skywalkers. Lucas built the original and prequel trilogies around that bloodline, and Disney extended it through the sequel films. Even the franchise’s return to theaters this year kept that tradition largely intact: Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian and Grogu, which opened on May 22, 2026, brought back Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and Grogu in a story built directly on three seasons of the Disney+ series. That film’s lukewarm global box office has only sharpened questions about where Lucasfilm goes next theatrically — and Starfighter is shaping up to be the answer.
A Deliberate Break From Familiar Faces
According to StarWars.com, Starfighter takes place roughly five years after the events of The Rise of Skywalker (2019), but it does not continue that story in any traditional sense. Gosling plays an entirely original character, and Lucasfilm has described the project as “an entirely original story set in a period of time never before explored,” calling it “an all-new standalone adventure.”
That framing sets Starfighter apart from every other live-action Star Wars film released under Disney’s ownership. Rogue One (2016) fed directly into A New Hope. Solo (2018) filled in backstory for one of the saga’s most iconic heroes. The sequel trilogy carried the Skywalker Saga to its conclusion. Starfighter breaks that pattern entirely, introducing new characters in a new corner of the timeline with no dependence on what came before.
The cast reflects that ambition. Joining Gosling are Mia Goth, Matt Smith, Aaron Pierre, Simon Bird, Jamael Westman, Daniel Ings, and Amy Adams, along with Flynn Gray in a co-lead role opposite Gosling. Lucasfilm has also confirmed that Starfighter is just one piece of a broader theatrical slate that includes films from Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, James Mangold, Taika Waititi, and a new trilogy from Simon Kinberg.
No Prior Knowledge Required
That “no dependence on what came before” philosophy extends beyond plot mechanics, according to screenwriter Jonathan Tropper, who reinforced the film’s standalone positioning in a recent appearance on the Bingeworthy podcast.
“The goal from the beginning, when Shawn and I first started talking about it, was to create the feeling in theaters that we had as kids seeing Star Wars back in 1977,” Tropper said (via The Playlist). “That sense of a swashbuckling adventure into new worlds. For us, that was really important. There are no barriers to entry. You don’t have to have seen other Star Wars movies to step into this one.”
Tropper’s reference point is deliberate. 1977 is the year Lucas released the film that started it all, and Starfighter arrives exactly 50 years later — a gap Lucasfilm appears to be treating as an opportunity rather than a burden. The comparison also lands at a moment when A New Hope itself is getting fresh attention: a new Welsh-language dub of the film is in the works, featuring an entirely new voice cast and introducing the original 1977 story to audiences in a way it has never been presented before.
Between the Welsh dub revisiting the beginning of the saga and Starfighter attempting to recreate that same “swashbuckling adventure into new worlds” feeling for a new generation, 2027 is shaping up as a year built around returning Star Wars to first principles — just without the Skywalkers.
What the Unofficial Reports Claim
Little has been confirmed beyond Lucasfilm’s official statements, but a series of posts from MakingStarWars.net claim to add texture to the story. According to those reports, Gosling plays a Han Solo-style rogue named Cade rather than a Jedi. Cade is said to share a close bond with the father of Flynn Gray’s character — a name reportedly close to “Rone” or “Ronin” — and is tasked with escorting the boy to a hidden Jedi refuge on the planet Adaria.
The same reports describe Adaria as a green, East Asian-inspired world filled with fountains, dense vegetation, and tiki-style structures held up by large mechanical struts, with resident Padawans wearing beige robes reminiscent of Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and young Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd) in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999).
MakingStarWars.net also claims Aaron Pierre’s character has ties to the Jedi sanctuary and engages in a lightsaber duel with Mia Goth’s character on the planet, while Eva Mendes is said to play Belle, a 650-year-old cantina owner. None of these details have been verified by Lucasfilm, and earlier rumors suggesting Amy Adams’ character might connect the story to Daisy Ridley’s Rey Skywalker (from The Rise of Skywalker) and the New Jedi Order have largely been dismissed.
“There’s No Pressure To Be Derivative”
Levy has been consistent in describing Starfighter as a clean break from the expectations that came with previous Star Wars films. Speaking with Collider, he explained the project’s identity directly: “Well, for one thing, it is different in that it is an all-new non-sequel, non-prequel adventure. It’s new characters, it’s a new timeline. It inherits legacy themes, but it’s really trying to give Star Wars [fans]—and just movie audiences—something fresh, something new.”
He continued: “And with a spirit of play and big-hearted adventure with moments of real levity that, frankly, A New Hope had in a revolutionary way.”
In a separate interview with The Playlist, Levy revealed that Lucasfilm actively pushed him away from nostalgia-driven callbacks. “Every time I’ve asked, ‘Should I use this character that was maybe in that movie?’ Every time it’s, ‘You know what? People have seen that. Do something new,'” he said. “There is no mandate or interference other than the constant encouragement, ‘Make this new.’ And that’s the truth.”
Levy also drew a direct line between Starfighter and the franchise’s more tethered entries: “Unlike Solo… unlike Rise of Skywalker, which was a sequel to two other movies and ultimately a ninth film in the Skywalker saga, Starfighter is all new characters based on new ideas that Jonathan and I cooked up alone and together.”
He’s spoken warmly about the collaborators helping him build that vision, telling Collider: “My crew, my DP, Claudio Miranda, Gosling is my kind of central collaborator in the lead role. It’s certainly been a dream come true. My 10-year-old self is on set with me every day,” adding that Lucasfilm’s support has made the project “a huge, invigorating opportunity” and that “there’s no pressure to be derivative or limited by an obligation to what came before… there’s just a love of what came before.”
Standalone Now, Foundation Later?
Lucasfilm continues to describe Starfighter as self-contained, but speculation about its long-term place in the franchise hasn’t fully gone away. Some fans have floated the idea of a brief appearance from Rey Skywalker (Daisy Ridley) to bridge the film with the long-rumored New Jedi Order project, though nothing has materialized to support that theory, and Lucasfilm’s messaging has consistently pointed away from it.
Whether or not Starfighter ends up seeding future stories, its release date carries symbolic weight that Lucasfilm doesn’t appear interested in downplaying. Fifty years after Lucas opened the saga with A New Hope, and in the same year a new Welsh dub reintroduces that original film to audiences with a completely new voice cast, Disney is betting that a completely new set of characters can capture the same “sense of a swashbuckling adventure into new worlds” that hooked audiences in 1977.
If you’ve been holding off on catching up with decades of Skywalker-focused Star Wars lore before Starfighter arrives in May 2027, you can stop worrying. Both Levy and Tropper have been explicit that the film is built to welcome newcomers, with “no barriers to entry” for anyone who hasn’t seen a single previous Star Wars movie.
For longtime fans, the film’s release lining up with the 50th anniversary of A New Hope — alongside a new Welsh-language dub of that original film — signals that 2027 is likely to be a year of reflection and reinvention for the franchise in equal measure. Expect more casting news, unofficial leaks, and marketing tied to that anniversary framing as the release date approaches.
How do you feel about this new chapter for the Star Wars franchise next year? Let us know in the comments down below!
