By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 2 hours ago
Since The Rise of Skywalker brought the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy to a crash landing in 2019, there have been no additional films set in a galaxy far, far away. Now, there are growing rumors that the upcoming Starfighter movie featuring Ryan Gosling will secretly kick off a new cinematic trilogy. While details on this new film are still scarce, my gut (I’ve got a good feeling about this) tells me this new movie featuring entirely different characters may be what it takes to save the Star Wars franchise.
Starfighter: Everything We Know
So far, we know very little about Starfighter: in terms of casting, it has some major names attached, including Ryan Gosling, Mia Goth, Amy Adams, and Matt Smith. Additionally, it will be directed by Shawn Levy, who is best known for directing Deadpool & Wolverine. Finally, the movie will be set about half a decade after The Rise of Skywalker and may feature cameos from Star Wars Sequel Trilogy characters.
The only other detail is that Starfighter is supposed to be a standalone film, but a growing number of fans are convinced that it is secretly setting up a new Star Wars trilogy. This is related to a rumor that Ryan Gosling’s character will be a Han Solo-type of guy who is hired to escort a young man (the nephew of Amy Adams’ character) to someone who can train him to use the Force. The rumor mill claims that this character is Rey and that we will see her New Jedi Order story play out in a new trilogy of films.
Star Wars Episode O: A Newer Hope
If true, that would make Starfighter something akin to Episode 0 of a new trilogy. That would be unconventional for Star Wars, but it may be exactly what the franchise needs. After all, Disney has spent years fleshing out this galaxy far, far away since The Rise of Skywalker flopped, so having Starfighter be the bridge between the Sequel Trilogy and a New Jedi Order trilogy makes perfect sense.
Should Starfighter be the setup for a new trilogy, it would also explain why the film is chock-full of recognizable names. At first, it seemed odd that this Star Wars movie was filled with famous faces when the franchise has a rich history of utilizing mostly unknown actors. Now, it seems like Disney is gambling that fans of these famous actors will come back to this swashbuckling sci-fi universe despite the bad taste the Sequel Trilogy left in fans’ mouths.
A Rey of Hope
That brings us to the main reason why Starfighter setting up a New Jedi Order trilogy is so brilliant: if Disney just launched a new, Rey-centric Star Wars trilogy out of nowhere, it would likely be a box office disaster. That’s because the sequels left such a bad taste in everyone’s mouths that it prevents Disney from doing the logical thing and creating spin-offs based on all these new characters. However, a star-studded solo movie leading into the new trilogy (one featuring characters from the sequels, no less) might be the teaspoon of sugar fans need to return to the world of the sequels.
The rumor mill might be wrong, of course, and Starfighter may not be connected to any kind of new trilogy. That wouldn’t be so bad: the last great standalone Star Wars movie was Rogue One, without which we would have never gotten the excellent, Emmy-winning Andor. But if Disney is ready to roll the dice and finally take creative risks again with the setup to a new trilogy, Starfighter might be just the thing to thing to do the impossible and make audiences care about the world of the sequels once again.