I watched the clip once. I watched it a second time. On the third pass the bravado peeled away and what remained wasn’t a spectacle so much as a small, stubborn story.
I’m Shawn Levy’s kind of storyteller now: part crowd-pleaser, part mentor. You’ve probably seen the headline — Ryan Gosling plays Kade Auberon, owner of a decommissioned Imperial starfighter he swears is the fastest ever — but that’s the surface. Let me show you why Levy and Gosling kept returning to a 1967 novel and a 1983 film to shape their space picture.
On a Hollywood soundstage, two men kept returning to the same book.
Shawn Levy told Fandango (and a wider YouTube audience) that The Outsiders shaped the tone of Star Wars: Starfighter. That’s not a stunt. It’s a map. Coppola’s adaptation of S. E. Hinton’s novel framed loyalty, class, and the stubborn dignity of kids on the wrong side of town — and Levy wants that grit on a galactic scale.
I’ll give you the framing: Kade Auberon is less a white-knight ace and more a survivor who clings to one stubborn claim about his ship. He carries his ship like a rusted trophy, and Gosling sells the small, necessary compromises of someone who’s earned his scars.
What is Star Wars: Starfighter about?
Short answer: a story about connection and unlikely heroism. Kade (Gosling) and a younger character played by Flynn Gray are the emotional engine. The film is set several years after The Rise of Skywalker, and Levy says the plot springs from two outsiders finding each other and being pushed toward something heroic.
At a small-town bookstore, teenagers trade copies of the same paperback.
That scene explains the tonal choice: lean, blue-collar, and textured. Levy described the characters as “from the wrong side of the galaxy.” That’s not shorthand for grit; it’s a production philosophy. The ship’s polish and the movie’s effects will be high-tech, but the human layer is meant to feel lived-in — a song of survival, not fan service.
The film’s grit arrives as a streetwise hymn, with visuals and effects orbiting but never eclipsing the relationship at the center.
How is Starfighter connected to The Outsiders?
Not plot-for-plot. It’s thematic. Coppola’s film and Hinton’s book center on class friction and loyalty. Levy and Gosling pulled from that emotional architecture: marginalized people forming a family and finding heroism through each other’s flaws and courage. That’s the connective tissue between a Tulsa gang and a lawless quadrant of the galaxy.
Outside a theater, the calendar still reads 2027.
Levy has also said this will be the furthest-forward point in the saga so far. That’s important: set several years after the Resistance beats the First Order, the film opens a question about who enforces order now. Lawlessness in space isn’t just atmosphere; it becomes a storytelling engine.
When is Starfighter coming out?
Star Wars: Starfighter is slated for release on May 28, 2027. That date gives Lucasfilm and Disney a wide runway to tease character arcs, align marketing, and let the film’s outsider tone land with audiences who expect spectacle but hunger for texture.
I’ve followed Levy’s interviews, tracked the casting, and listened for the small choices that reveal the film’s spine. You can read this as a space chase or as a story about class, mentorship, and the stubborn work of becoming heroic — which one do you think will stick with audiences long after the credits roll?