Star Wars Fans Beg For Change In Shawn Levy And Ryan Gosling's Starfighter
Two years out from release, Star Wars diehards already have opinions on Shawn Levy and Ryan Gosling's upcoming Starfighter movie. Fans online are pushing for the film to finally step away from the Skywalker storyline, with comments like "Tell new stories about new characters" picking up steam.
New Star Wars movie on the way, new round of fan hopes and fears. Lucasfilm finally put a name and a face on the next big-screen outing, and unsurprisingly, the internet has thoughts about what to do (and very much what not to do) this time.
What Lucasfilm just revealed
Announced at Star Wars Celebration 2025, the next film is officially titled 'Star Wars: Starfighter'. Shawn Levy, fresh off 'Deadpool & Wolverine', is directing, with Ryan Gosling set to star. It is a standalone story set about five or six years after 'The Rise of Skywalker' and is meant to kick off a new era for the franchise. Cameras are expected to roll soon. The release date is locked for May 28, 2027.
What fans want (and really do not want)
A recent Reddit thread basically turned into a wishlist for how to shake off the Skywalker hangover. The most upvoted vibe: move on already. To quote one fan who summed up the mood:
"I am absolutely down for writers exploring past the Skywalker Saga in any direction. I don't even care if the bad guys still wear white armor and fly big triangle ships. Just please PLEASE no more Empire. No more Palpatine. No more Skywalkers."
Others chimed in with specific guardrails. Inside baseball alert: a few people also begged Lucasfilm to map this new era before handing the baton to different directors and letting visions clash again, a not-so-subtle nod to the JJ Abrams vs. Rian Johnson tug-of-war during the last trilogy.
- No rehashing the classic 'Empire vs. Rebellion' setup
- No Jedi vs. Sith as the central hook
- No Death Stars (or Death Star-adjacent superweapons)
- No Palpatine, no Skywalkers, and ideally no cameos from previously named characters at all
- No nostalgia bait by pulling in 'Clone Wars' favorites just to juice applause and alienate everyone else
- Big-picture planning for this era, not a director-by-director tug-of-war
- And if not now, then someday: go way back. Fans specifically called out the thousands of years of lore the films have ignored so far — Darth Bane, Zannah, the original Jedi vs. Sith wars, the whole Old Republic well
So what is 'Starfighter' actually doing?
Not a time-jump into ancient history, for starters. 'Starfighter' sits just five or six years after 'The Rise of Skywalker', and it is being pitched as a standalone that opens a fresh chapter rather than another Skywalker-adjacent sequel. That does not guarantee it dodges every fan pet peeve above, but the setup at least points away from the same old beats.
We will see how far it really strays when production gets underway. For now: new title, new lead, new era — and a very loud chorus asking Lucasfilm to fly somewhere genuinely new.
'Star Wars: Starfighter' hits theaters May 28, 2027.