On Friday, Ryan Gosling and director Shawn Levy brought the house down at Disney’s D23 with the first footage from their upcoming Star Wars: Starfighter. By Sunday, as the fan expo was winding down, virtually all traces of the teaser had been scrubbed from the internet. (Emphasis on virtually.)
As Gold Derby noted over the weekend, unlike San Diego Comic-Con, where security strictly enforces a no-shooting policy when it comes to exclusive clips, Team Mickey seemed fine with the 14,000 faithful packing the Honda Center to capture all the video they wanted. We even used fan-sourced video in our coverage of The New Simpsons Movie from the same Disney Entertainment Showcase event.
Sure enough, by Saturday, dozens of videos popped up on YouTube and social media showing Gosling’s hot-shot flyboy Kade Auberon entering a workshop and finding a young man (co-star Flynn Gray) messing around with a ship covered by a tarp. “Didn’t I tell you not to touch anything?” Kade scolds the teen, who replies, “What kind of starfighter is this?” “It’s a decommissioned G17 Imperial Reaper, the fastest starfighter ever built.” Cut to a montage of the Reaper in action across the galaxy and dodging laser fire from droids.
Then the clips began disappearing.
Read more: Everything to know about ‘Star Wars: Starfighter’
It’s hardly a shock that the videos have been purged. Lucasfilm has a reputation for keeping tight control over every facet of its projects. J.J. Abrams famously hung posters around the set of The Force Awakens with the slogan “loose lips bring down starships.”
Which means we’ll get an official, high-res version of the teaser online when the company deems fit.
In addition to the sneak peek, Levy and Gosling shared a few details of the film. “Our movie comes out May 28, 2027. I’m honored that we’re releasing our film on the same weekend that the original Star Wars came out exactly 50 years earlier,” said Levy. “Starfighter embodies the themes of hope and family that have always been core to [these films]. It takes place in a period of time that’s never been shown in a Star Wars adventure.”
Gosling, who took to the stage in retro-style Mickey Mouse Club gear in a nod to his Disney origin story, described Kade Auberon as “a guy from the wrong side of the galaxy whose fate is intertwined with the fastest starfighter ever built.” By the end of the presentation, Levy upgraded Gosling to a Starfighter-themed varsity jacket.
In addition to Gosling and Gray, the cast features Amy Adams, Matt Smith, Mia Goth, Aaron Pierre, Simon Bird, Jamael Westman, and Daniel Ings.
