Gosling joins Star Wars Starfighter Obey your thirst. Discover how the Gosling-Levy pairing might reshape the genre of space opera when it arrives in 2027.
There is a strange buzz that fills the air when Ryan Gosling appears on set. It’s not the orchestrated buzz of a marketing strategy, it’s the quiet assurance of a performer who knows that film is as much about what you don’t say as what you do. When Gosling was officially announced to be joining Star Wars Starfighter with Shawn Levy at Star Wars Celebration Tokyo in April 2025, the news was more than a simple casting win for Lucasfilm. It was something far more fragile: a possible course correction for a franchise that’s been failing for focus for the better part of a decade.
The Rise of Skywalker ended the Skywalker Saga, and since then, Star Wars has felt less like one shared universe and the galaxy has become multiple tossed captains in the ship. But “The Mandalorian and Grogu” restored faith and The Book Boba Fett got things all mixed up, Andor demonstrated maturity and seriousness in Star Wars storytelling, and The Acolyte explained how far off that can fly.
Through it all, one question looms over Kathleen Kennedy’s leadership: what the hell is Star Wars Starfighter in 2027?
Now, enter the Gosling–Levy pair — not so much a studio double feature as two filmmakers connected by the same childhood dreams and creative vision, returning with something that actually feels personal once again.
Here we’re getting into speculation, Star Wars Starfighter focuses on Gosling as not a smuggler, not a Jedi, but a very real trader in an uncle outraged into protecting his Force-sensitive nephew from dark side hunters in a galaxy still recovering from Palpatine’s final death, in which Amy Adams is said to be the boy’s mother, and possibly a Jedi herself who gives her brother (Gosling) the son’s protection as she goes to meet the galactic threats elsewhere.
If this is the case and screenwriter Jonathan Tropper has been as characteristically tight-lipped as always then this setup is genius in its simplicity. For four decades, Star Wars has weighed fathers and sons, masters and apprentices, the burden of blood and destiny. An uncle-nephew relationship allows for a genuinely horizontal dynamic: chosen responsibility as opposed to inherited burden. Gosling wouldn’t be wrestling with the sins of his father—he’d be leaping into danger for love of his sister and her child.
This turns the whole hero’s journey on its head. Luke Skywalker became a legend because of who his father was. Gosling’s character, let’s call him Kael for the sake of our theory, would be a hero for who he chooses to be. That has a very modern ring to it, in a time when a found family often trumps blood ties.
There’s another theory made that mentioned by CBR that’s worthy of your attention, one which links Star Wars Starfighter to the wider weave of today’s Star Wars narrative.
Baylan Skoll references the Bokken Jedi in Ahsoka, Force users who trained outside of the Now I’m watching Ahsoka. They are survivors, self-made warriors who cobbled together knowledge from legends, ancient holocrons, and fragments of lore rather than being expert practitioners. Crude, authentic, and defined by loss rather than tradition.
But what if Baylan is one of them? A former student of Luke Skywalker’s temple who escaped Ben Solo’s massacre — someone who saw friends die, chose survival over heroism, and vanished rather than standing and fighting. That kind of background would explain everything about who he is now. Five years Post-Exegol, the galaxy doesn’t need another chosen one. It needs a broken man who relearns how “to be whole” by protecting someone else.
That would explain the “Star Wars Starfighter” titles even better than a simple aesthetic reason. He is flying a starfighter, literally, because he is on the run. Now action sequences become character beats — every evasive dive through an asteroid field isn’t just spectacle, it’s a man dodging his past until he can no longer. The ship becomes a metaphor: run-down, cobbled together, but still capable of amazing things when properly captained.
Shawn Levy, the director of the new Star Wars movie is really important to this equation. Levy is not a visionary auteur in the conventional sense. He’s not Denis Villeneuve drawing with shadows and silence, or Christopher Nolan stretching time like taffy.
Levy’s talent is subtler, and perhaps more challenging: He makes tentpole movies feel intimate. Free Guy shouldn’t have worked as a comedy about an NPC gaining self-awareness in a video game that sounds like algorithmic nightmare fuel. And yet Levy injected it with such happy earnestness that even Ryan Reynolds’ blue-shirted everyman seemed worth rooting for.
Then there was Deadpool & Wolverine, and that could’ve been a cynical IP soup concoction. But Levy approached Wolverine’s mourning with sincere respect all the while delivering the R-rated mayhem fans desired. He understands that the most successful blockbusters function on two or three different frequencies simultaneously: the visual, emotional and, in the case of the sense of irreverent humor.
For Star Wars Starfighter, this approach is just right - it’s fun without feeling like a drag and you get a sense of accomplishment for each stage you complete. The sequel series always felt embarrassed to be Star Wars, constantly trying to upend expectations until there were none left to upend.
Levy is not a subversion, he is an embrace. He’ll give us the trench run homage, the cantina scene, the binary sunset moment – he’ll give us all of those things, but he’ll earn them through character work rather than nostalgia triggers.
Star Wars Starfighter movie appearance five years after The Rise of Skywalker is something that builds hope to open up interesting story possibilities while closing others.
This is a galaxy being rebuilt. The New Republic that was decapitated by the destruction of Hosnian Prime that the First Order killed is either in the process of rebuilding or has fractured into various regional powers. The First Order’s remnants haven’t simply vanished but they’ve likely sprouted as warlords, marauders, or desperate holdouts.
And the Jedi? Rey is probably off training her first students somewhere, but the Force-sensitive populace hasn’t suddenly exploded in size. If anything, parents are likely keeping their children’s talents under wraps, taking heed of how the last regime treated “Force-wielding terrorists.
As IGN mentioned, This adds poignancy to Gosling’s role as the overprotective uncle. He’s not just running from dark side hunters, he’s trying to navigate a hideous bureaucratic system in which signing up a Force-sensitive kid for school could very well be handing him or her over to a government that wants to stop another Palpatine. The film might delve into the paranoia of the post-war generation, the way its trauma reverberated through organizations even after it won.
There’s also the prospect of legacy characters turning up that don’t overwhelm the story. Daisy Ridley’s Rey makes a cameo not as a savior, but as a distant hope, a legend that Kael doesn’t believe in until she sees for herself. The Starfighter vs. the sequel trilogy, however, would be scale: Rey is not the main character in this one, She’s not in this world, She’s is in another dimension, a parallel story.
What interesting is about the path Ryan Gosling’s career has taken. He’s also one of the few actors to flex his star power between indie bona fides (The Nice Guys, Blade Runner 2049, First Man) and blockbuster draw (Barbie, La La Land) without ever really feeling like he’s slumming in either realm. He has never led a franchise this large, this culturally laden.
There’s danger here. Star Wars has chewed up bright futures before, just look at the Solo cast, or the skilled actors buried beneath sequel trilogy exposition. But there’s also an unprecedented opportunity. If Starfighter works, Gosling doesn’t just get one big movie, he gets ownership of a new corner of the galaxy.
Gosling is the right age for this at 46 as he can convey gravitas, yet be around for multiple films, and is savvy enough to know when to fight for creative input.
But more than that, he adds an element of the audience that doesn’t usually think about Star Wars. The Barbie crowd, the Drive lovers, the Oscar-season crowd who tip it to his nominations, they will come to this galaxy, enlarging the base beyond the faithful who gauge midi-chlorian counts on Reddit.
In January 2026, screenwriter Jonathan Tropper made a comment that should have attracted more attention:
“Star Wars Starfighter is truly standalone, there are no secret cameos from legacy characters. Interview In a day and age where all blockbusters are secretly backdoor pilots for ten other projects, this is radical.”
What that means is the film has to be able to stand on its own. You don’t just play John Williams’ Force Theme to make you cry, you have to earn it through new themes. It can’t just take the outline of Darth Vader to create menace — it must introduce new villains (Matt Smith and Mia Goth, according to casting rumours) that feel as iconic. This is Lucasfilm betting on storytelling over brand recognition, and that confidence is contagious.
It’s not trying to sound legendary — it’s practical, almost humble. A name that can function as a job, a vehicle, and just a way to get around, instead of a symbol burdened with the weight of mythology. It implies a movie about people at work—hazardous, urgent work rather than destiny congealing in the veins.
If Star Wars Starfighter is successful as early executive reactions indicate that it could rewrite the Star Wars rule book entirely. No more trilogies in the works before the first film debut. No more mystery boxes that go nowhere. Just filmmakers with passion projects, actors with real chemistry, and stories that just happen to take place in space.
For Ryan Gosling, success means showing that he can bear the impossible load of fan expectations and still come out on the other side as a fully realised artist. For Shawn Levy, it’s proof that his particular brand of warm-hearted blockbuster filmmaking can survive in the most closely parsed sandbox in cinema. What they really want is for the original 1977 Star Wars to feel real again — not because of twists or surprises or retcons, but because that film had heart. And it made people feel, and that’s what we haven’t had.
Speculation, set visits and Star Wars Starfighter trailer dissections over the past 18 months have been propelled by that one hope that Star Wars will discover its soul again. Release was then scheduled for May 28, 2027, for the new film. But in years now, that excitement really does feel deserved rather than manufactured. Because somewhere in a London editing suite, Ryan Gosling is learning to fly, and the galaxy is at last becoming large enough for new stories once again.
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Monarch Season 2 reveals a shocking twist linking Monarch and Apex Cybernetics. Here’s how the Apple TV+ Monsterverse series changes the Godzilla timeline.
This isn’t simply another gigantic lizard tail crashing into a building. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (if you’re keeping up withApple TV’s) has achieved the rarest of things: shifting the focus from “Big G” to the disastrous, trauma-ridden human beings left in his wake, all the while maintaining an 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
But as we’ve been distracted by the trans-generational trauma of the Randa family and the effortless charisma of Kurt and Wyatt Russell as the same man, the showrunners have been orchestrating a much larger plan.
There’s a huge twist right under your nose, one that connects the “good guys” over at Monarch with the corporate bad actors we encounter later in the timeline. If you watch closely in the Monarch Season 2 opening, “Cause and Effect,” and the faint trail left all throughout the first season, it’s obvious: Monarch is not only tracking the Titans, they’re the creators of the very weapons designed to annihilate them.
Before we go down the rabbit hole, let’s discuss that 82% rating. In a season of franchise fatigue, Monarch triumphed by being human drama first and monster spectacle second. The show has been acclaimed by critics and fans for its dual-timeline story telling. We get the 1950s—the “Golden Age” of discovery with Bill Randa, Keiko, and Lee Shaw versus the 2015 post G-Day world. This apparatus does more than supply backstory, it facilitates a globe-trotting “Who Done It” mystery.
The high score is indicative of a series that treats its lore with respect. It doesn’t just throw a Kaiju at the screen to fix a boring scene, it creates tension based on the premise that the world we know isn’t the world that it really is.
The biggest surprise is not a new Titan (though “Titan X” is terrifying); it’s the discovery of just how deeply Apex Cybernetics has already infiltrated Monarch from within.
Apex Cybernetics needs no introduction to regular GoK fans as they are the corporate bad guys opposite Monarch in Godzilla vs. Kong—the ones who made Mechagodzilla out of a Ghidorah skull and a massive amount of hubris. In the films, they feel like a different, antagonistic group. But Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is completely changing that narrative.
Monarch Season 2 started off in the same way. Deputy Director Natalia Verdugo’s death by Titan X was not just a “shock death” for stakes. It created a power vacuum. When a leader in a secret organization dies, the one who comes into the light is usually a man with a secret intentions. And with Verdugo out of the way, that defines the line between Monarch’s “protect and study” mission and Apex’s “weaponize and destroy” mission blurring even more.
Remember Tim? The bottom-tier analyst who felt like the last “good guy” in the present-day Monarch? Season 1 ends with a bombshell: Tim is working with Apex.
This is the twist hiding in plain sight. We have been cheering on the “scrappy” Monarch team to reunite with their father and rescue the world, but the show has dropped whispers that the very organization we are following is bankrolling, staffing, — or maybe even being run by the future creators of Mechagodzilla.
The show takes us back to the Bikini Atoll nuclear ”test.” We see the horror of Bill and Keiko when they discover the military is not baiting Godzilla – they want to kill him.
The humanity factor within this is Lee Shaw’s complicity. He restrains Keiko and the bomb drops. This is the moment that plants the seed Monarch has always been a puppet for those with bigger guns and darker agendas. If Barris (the interim director) is in fact an Apex double agent, it recasts the past 60 years of Monsterverse history as a long-term R&D project for corporate warfare.
The show created Axis Mundi, a “sub-realm” that lies between this world and the Hollow Earth. It’s where time works differently, Keiko lived 50 years there but aged only a few weeks.
That the portal is a “leak” and not a door adds a fascinating wrinkle to the notion, suggesting an unregulated and possibly dangerous flow between planets.
Cate makes choices in Monarch Season 2 to resurrect a person who then inadvertently releases something tied into the series’ main message: humanity’s never-ending curiosity and greed usually comes with unintended consequences. The release of Titan X into the ocean is a reminder that we are out of our element, and that we are the real “monsters” in this tale.
The theory that Monarch and Apex could in fact be two branches of the same organization adds a far deeper layer to the entire Monsterverse. Monarch isn’t the “good science” and Apex isn’t the “evil corporation” — the twist implies that both organizations may be related in some way, if not from the start, then at least now by ideology. If that interpretation is true, it changes the story completely for the Monsterverse movies.
Cate and Kentaro, the Randa Kids, hunt for a father who deceived them, and get that their entire family fortune is based on a foundation of corporate espionage.
Lee Shaw: A lifelong “good guy” who turned out to be the enforcer for the bad guys all along.
The despair of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is that the “Legacy” in the title isn’t focused on the monsters. It’s about the secrets we inherit, and how they grow up to crush us.
If Monarch: Legacy of Monsters was the origin of a secret in its first season, Monarch Season 2 is the industrialization of the Hollow Earth. Though the series is a “prequel” (set in 2017) to the neon-drenched chaos of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (set in 2027), it acts as the “secret history” that tells how a ragtag group of men with clipboards grew into a global powerhouse with gravity-defying jets and prosthetic Titan-gauntlets.
In The New Empire Monarch has beryllium carbide (B.E.A.S.T.) Glove-level tech (and more) gleaned from Apex Cybernetics research with which he now wraps Kong in the New Empire. Monarch Season 2 features the chaotic and unscrupulous beginning of the partnership.
The Brenda Connection: Brenda Holland (May’s former boss) is more than just a corporate bad guy — she is the connection. Monarch Season 2 reveals that her “animal testing” was in fact brain-based mapping at the onset for Titans.
The BEAST Precursor: Early Monarch/Apex models are shown, some designed to work with Titan biology. The exoskeleton tech Trapper wields in The New Empire wasn’t conjured from thin air; it was developed from the information Cate and Kentaro are now finding in 2017.
The New Empire submerges us in an underground Iwi village in a “hidden” layer of the Hollow Earth. Monarch Season 2 the physics of even making it.
The “Leak” Protocol: portals are stabilized in The New Empire. We get the “wild” form of these portals in Monarch Season 2. The Axis Mundi realm we learn about in the show is the hollow earth’s “waiting room.”
Time Dilation: The fact Keiko Miura (Cate’s grandmother) is still young is what allows the Monarch to eventually establish stable outposts. They go on to ‘tune’ the frequency of these rifts to not take the time-slip that caused the near erasure of Keiko and Lee Shaw from history.
One of the highlights of The New Empire is Trapper, the Titan vet. Monarch Season 2 teases this career path.
From “Fear” to “Upkeep”: the mid-century surges Bill and Keiko honored pedophile Titans as gods to fear and obey. In the 2017 timeline, the transformation takes place. We have Monarch (and Apex) realizing that if they can’t kill Godzilla, they have to “manage” him.
The Medical Shift : The sea creature Titan X and the “Sea Scarabs” in Monarch Season 2 necessitate that Monarch introduces the very biological containment and field-based medical work Dr. Ilene Andrews and Trapper depend on ten years hence.
The Monarch Season 2 premiere finds us on Skull Island, and Kong is now front and center. This is what links Kong: Skull Island (1973) and Godzilla vs. Kong (2024).
The Apex Base: We see Apex already firmly established on the island by 2017 in the series. This is how they came to construct the huge “dome” habitat that we see in later movies. They weren’t just hanging out and waiting for the next rental unit to be turned over; they were there, hiding in the jungle, pilfering Monarch’s observations for years.
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| Year | Event/Project | Key Media |
| 1950s | The Foundation of Monarch | Monarch Season 1 & 2 Flashbacks |
| 2014 | G-Day (San Francisco) | Godzilla (2014) |
| 2015 | The Randa Siblings’ Journey | Monarch Season 1 |
| 2017 | The Apex/Monarch Alliance | Monarch Season 2 |
| 2019 | The Rise of King named—- Ghidorah | Godzilla: King of the Monsters |
| 2024 | The Mechagodzilla Incident | Godzilla vs. Kong |
| 2027 | The Skar King War | Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire |
While all are awaiting the next Godzilla roar, the actual story is being told in the whispered conversations between Tim and his handlers.
The 82% RT score is well-earned as the series Monarch Season 2 knows the biggest twists are not giant robots dropping out of the sky as they are discovering that the people you trusted to protect the world were the ones who had been selling it out one piece at a time.
Why does Star Wars need an Ahsoka Tano Replacement in Season 2? Explore the narrative challenges, potential successors, and what it means for the franchise's future.
Ahsoka Tano is the most loved and surviving character in the Star Wars franchise. Her debut as Anakin Skywalker’s eager Padawan catched many hearts in The Clone Wars (2008). Later she came back in Rosario Dawson’s live-action series which was a big success for the Star Wars franchise. So when people started talking about an Ahsoka Tano Replacement, the internet, predictably, lost its mind.
However, Star Wars didn’t introduce a replacement character because she’s been the emotional heartbeat of an entire era of the franchise. They never sideline Ahsoka, just replace because the franchise needed a new generation of storytelling and a new entry point. Let’s break down exactly why Ahsoka Tano Replacement was necessary, what it means for Season 2, and why Devon Izara might actually be a brilliant move rather than a betrayal.
The character Ahsoka was already in the Star Wars canon for 15 years until Season 1 of Ahsoka aired in 2023. Her arc — from bright-eyed Padawan to disillusioned exile to seasoned, grey-area warrior was essentially complete. Ahsoka’s journey began from disappointment from her masters that caused her departure from the Jedi Order. She then survived Order 66 and built the Rebellion, and emerged on the other side of the Galactic Civil War carrying years of experience and emotional struggles along the way.
Ahsoka Season 1 doubled down on this. It brought back Sabine, Ezra, Thrawn, and Hera — practically the entire Rebels cast — and ended on a massive, multi-threaded cliffhanger. Ahsoka was stranded on Peridea. Thrawn had returned to the known galaxy. Baylan Skoll was chasing something ancient and cosmic near the Mortis God statues. It was a setup for an enormous second act.
But that setup also revealed the problem that led to Ahsoka Tano Replacement: with so many returning characters, so much pre-existing lore, and Ahsoka herself carrying 15 years of character development, new audiences didn’t really have a door to walk through. The show was deeply rewarding with Ahsoka Tano Replacement for fans who knew the Rebels continuity and somewhat alienating for everyone else.
Then tragedy struck. Ray Stevenson, who had delivered what many fans called the single best performance in any Disney+ Star Wars show, passed away in May 2023 — three months before Ahsoka even premiered. His character, Baylan Skoll, was left mid-arc, literally standing on a statue of the Father on Peridea, apparently on the verge of unlocking something tied to the Mortis Gods.
Lucasfilm took the decision to recast the role, with Game of Thrones actor Rory McCann stepping in for Season 2. He did what he had to because Baylan’s story couldn’t just be abandoned and its creative decision but the recast also signalled that the franchise was willing to change faces when the story demanded it.
The Baylan recast, the Klothow departure, and the general creative shake-up heading into Season 2 created an opening — and Lucasfilm used it wisely. Rather than plug the gaps with more legacy characters, they built a new pipeline entirely, launching Maul — Shadow Lord on Disney+ in April 2026 and introducing the character who everyone is now calling the true Ahsoka Tano replacement: Devon Izara.
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Devon Izara is a Twi’lek Jedi Padawan, voiced by Gideon Adlon, who survives Order 66 and finds herself hunted in the early years of the Empire. She’s introduced in Maul — Shadow Lord alongside her Master, Eeko-Dio-Daki (voiced by Dennis Haysbert). On paper, Ahsoka Tano replacement parallels to young Ahsoka are immediately obvious — alien Padawan, uncertain future, powerful Force sensitivity. But Devon’s story has a darker edge from the very beginning.
Where Ahsoka entered the Clone Wars as an eager, optimistic apprentice, Devon begins her story already broken. She was expecting a future as a Jedi Knight that no longer exists. Her Order is gone. Her world is ash. And into that vacuum steps Darth Maul, who sees in her exactly the kind of raw, traumatised potential he wants to mould into something dangerous.
Showwriter Matt Michnovetz described Devon as “a young person realising that the future she expected to have as a Jedi is no longer possible” — someone who must adapt or be consumed. That’s a genuinely different emotional starting point from Ahsoka, and it gives Devon space to go places Ahsoka never went.
The Star Wars franchise in the transition phase after The Skywalker Saga era ended. The Sequel Trilogy left a complicated legacy. The Disney+ era has been wildly uneven in quality. Andor was acclaimed. The Book of Boba Fett was messy. Obi-Wan Kenobi was divisive.
And people have to watch the entire franchise to enjoy Ahsoka Season 1, despite its 85% Rotten Tomatoes score.
Lucasfilm introduces Ahsoka Tano Replacement, a new character to carry the new generation into the franchise. They can feel close and grow with the character if any mistake happens then the franchise will fall apart. Ahsoka did that beautifully for fans who discovered her in 2008. But she can’t do it again; she’s too far along her arc, too mythologised, too complete as a figure. The franchise needs a new entry point, and Devon Izara is the most deliberate, most structurally sound answer they’ve offered yet.
Devon’s potential arc — from surviving Jedi to possible Sith apprentice — also gives the franchise something Ahsoka’s story never quite delivered: genuine moral uncertainty with no clear safety net. The theory that Devon could eventually become Darth Talon, a George Lucas-approved dark side warrior from the Legends continuity, adds a layer of real narrative stakes that Ahsoka’s story, with her clear heroic alignment, could never quite achieve.
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None of this means Ahsoka Tano is being erased. Ahsoka Season 2 brings back Rosario Dawson front and centre, alongside Hayden Christensen’s Anakin, Lars Mikkelsen’s Thrawn, and a host of returning Rebels favourites. Hera Syndulla is getting a more prominent role. Chopper is apparently doing something genuinely chaotic. Dathomir — Maul’s home world — is making its live-action debut. The Mortis Gods are expected to appear in the flesh. This is a season designed to pay off everything Season 1 set up.
But the existence of Devon Izara running parallel to this in animation is clever franchise architecture. It means younger viewers who discovered Star Wars through Maul — Shadow Lord will have a character they’re already emotionally invested in before they ever sit down with Ahsoka Season 2. It replicates exactly what The Clone Wars did for an earlier generation — it gives new fans their own hero to follow.
The Ahsoka Tano Replacement conversation is, ultimately, the wrong frame. Devon isn’t replacing Ahsoka any more than Ahsoka replaced Anakin. She’s the next link in a chain of characters who carry the emotional truth of Star Wars — that ordinary people, confronting impossible choices in impossible circumstances, can define what the Force means for an entire era.
Star Wars has always been generational. Luke gave way to Leia, who gave way to Ahsoka, who shaped an entire generation of fans. Now Devon Izara waits in the wings — more complicated, more morally precarious, and perhaps more interesting than anyone who came before. That’s not a loss. That’s exactly how the story is supposed to work.
Ahsoka Tano Replacement doesn’t mean that she is being erased. Instead, Devon Izara represents the next generation of Star Wars storytelling, giving a new generation of fans to grow with the franchise while Ahsoka’s own journey moves into its final chapters. Ahsoka journey, already active for 15 years in the story, introducing a younger Jedi with a different path allows the franchise to explore new themes and keep the galaxy feeling fresh. Rather than replacing Ahsoka entirely from her place, Devon expands the universe and ensures that Star Wars continues to evolve for a new generation of viewers.
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