Ryan Gosling: K-pop Star Wars

Production began on Shawn Levy’s standalone Star Wars movie, Starfighter, a few weeks ago. As previously mentioned, development on the project was accelerated as soon as Ryan Gosling signed on and you can tell what a priority it became since they were able to go into production less than nine months after he made his deal.

Exact details obviously, are being kept secret but Ryan said this summer that ,“This script is just so good. It has such a great story with great and original characters. It’s filled with so much heart and adventure.” All that Lucasfilm has revealed is that Starfighter will be an “entirely original story set in a period of time never before explored in Star Wars.”

And that might explain the look of it. The studio released one image to mark the start of filming and yesterday Shawn shared another: 

LOL Ryan Reynolds in the comments with some Canadian humour, specifically Ontario humour: 

Someone else in the comments, though, noted that “this doesn’t feel like Star Wars at all”, presumably related to the visual. I don’t have a PhD in Star Wars like Sarah but for the most part, we don’t associate the look of Star Wars with open sky and blue water. Sand, sure. Chrome, of course. Damp caves, definitely. 

That said, Luke Skywalker spent the last part of his life on the ocean planet Ahch-To so this wouldn’t be the first time we’ve been at sea with Star Wars. And, as Sarah has been saying since she first started covering Star Wars, this universe needs to expand, it can’t just be connected to the OG all the time, every story. 

I’m excited with what we’re getting from Shawn and Ryan Gosling. I like these tight pants on him, LOL. And I know his hair is supposed to look messy because he’s been through some kind of bruising ordeal but all I’m seeing is K-pop style, LOL. Hair like this on an idol is a regular Tuesday. Pretty sure Felix from Stray Kids has worn it like this before. Star Wars, after all, is a space opera – let’s get more “opera” back in this thing! 

And Shawn has a Stray Kids connection from Deadpool too. But also, Shawn himself, haha.

Star Wars: Starfighter comes out May 2027, we’re still over a year and a half away. But I love the tone they’re setting so far and sharing more, it seems, than they have with previous movies so early in production.