Wednesday, August 19, 2026
Latest:

FANgirl Blog

getting to the <3 of the matter

Fangirl Star Wars 

Star Wars at D23 2026

Lex , , , , , , , , ,

This past weekend, Disney held the 2026 iteration of D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event (previously D23 Expo), its official fan convention for all aspects of The Walt Disney Company’s operations. As usual, Lucasfilm had a large pavilion on the main show floor, and Star Wars offered an array of panels, talent appearances, and other events for attendees. With the recent change in leadership and the next Star Wars Celebration convention only eight months away, unsurprisingly D23 focused on recently released and previously announced Star Wars projects rather than its longer-term future.

In the Parks division, for example, Star Wars had little role. No new attractions or other major additions were announced for any of the global theme parks. In fact, Disneyland Paris will remove the Hyperspace Mountain overlay for its version of Space Mountain, returning it to its original Earth-to-Moon rocket journey inspired by the tales of Jules Verne. The day after the convention, Disney revealed a one-month sunset for the Play Disney Parks app, which has included the Star Wars Datapad mobile game since Galaxy’s Edge opened in 2019; the impact on Star Wars, though, is incidental to the overall decision to end the app. In more exciting news for Galaxy’s Edge, the Imagineers previewed two additional Batuu Buddies animatronic interactive toys – a Grogu and a Baby Rotta to join the Ewok now available at Disneyland’s Droid Depot – and showcased a prototype food truck inspired by The Mandalorian & Grogu movie.

At the studio-wide Entertainment Experiences Showcase on Friday night, Star Wars highlighted its major upcoming live-action releases. First, Dave Filoni took the stage to remind everyone that 2027 marks the 50th anniversary of the Star Wars film franchise. As previously announced, the milestone will be celebrated in part with the theatrical release in February of a new restoration of the 1977 version of Star Wars, removing alterations from the 1997 Special Edition and subsequent remastered home-video releases.

Next, Filoni was joined by Rosario Dawson, Hayden Christensen, and Eman Esfandi to talk Ahsoka Season Two. They revealed its official poster and the release date of January 20, 2027. Throughout the convention, the Lucasfilm pavilion included displays of costumes from Season Two as well as concept art for various characters and scenes, some of which had been glimpsed in the never-publicly-released teaser shared at the Ahsoka panel at Celebration Japan in April 2025. This time, though, Filoni shared a full live-action teaser trailer for Ahsoka Season Two to highlight returning heroes and villains and the prospect of a major war pitting the fledgling New Republic against Thrawn’s Imperial forces and their Dathomir witch allies.

The other project featured at the Entertainment Experiences Showcase was of course the only announced upcoming new movie, Star Wars: Starfighter slated for May 28, 2027. Director Shawn Levy and headliner actor Ryan Gosling didn’t say much about the movie or its plot, but they did unveil its logo, the name of Gosling’s character, and the jacket worn by Kade Auberon in the film – which includes a new twist on a familiar symbol on its back. They also shared a short teaser for the attendees in the room, but it has not yet been released officially.

Following the panel, Levy gave several interviews in which he elaborated on his remarks about Starfighter. In addition to expressing his lifelong passion for Star Wars since 1977, he discussed some of the other influences on Starfighter, such as the book and movie The Outsiders and the American car culture that inspired George Lucas in American Graffiti and The Phantom Menace podrace. Levy officially confirmed that the movie takes place five years after The Rise of Skywalker. “This is a moment in the galaxy,” he explained, “when there is no sort of governing enforcer or order. Everyone is just trying to survive. Everyone is having to do what they have to do to get by.” Levy also effused about the storytelling autonomy he was given:

“While I was making Deadpool & Wolverine, Lucasfilm and Disney said, we want you to do Star Wars – and take it somewhere unexpected. I said, okay, well, what’s it a sequel to? What’s it a prequel to? And they’re like, nothing. Just make it loyal to this franchise you love, but a new adventure. New characters, new timeframe, new starfighters, new freighters, new aliens, new droids. For a director, a creative playground. I somehow expected, well, it’s Star Wars, I’m gonna have overlords staring over my shoulder. But they said, take it where you think it should go, and then they backed it up by giving me that freedom.”

These remarks by Levy are consistent with numerous prior statements from other filmmakers about their experience of the Star Wars creative process under recently retired Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy. Similarly, other Star Wars storytellers – including Filoni – have spoken about drawing inspiration from the wide body of sources that also inspired Lucas. But as we have expressed at FANgirl Blog and Hyperspace Theories podcast, for Star Wars to remain timely mythic aspirational heroic fiction in the 2020s and beyond, it must evolve to allow a new generation of storytellers to shape Star Wars with the sources that inspired them. Likewise, while it is fascinating to hear Levy describe world-building elements in Starfighter that we had considered strong candidates for the design of the Sequel Trilogy (which ultimately portrayed the galaxy differently), we also have repeatedly maintained on the blog and podcast that successful franchise management is undermined by permitting individual filmmakers to unilaterally make major lore – or character development – decisions that significantly impact the wider franchise in the hands of later storytellers.

In a post-panel interview of his own, Filoni explained that, beyond his own excitement to share Ahsoka Season Two with the fans, “I’m also excited for Lucasfilm: we’ve got Shawn Levy coming with Starfighter, and Ryan, that’s real exciting.” He also acknowledged, referring to the fans, that “they’ve been so patient waiting for Star Wars.” Although Starfighter will be released while Filoni is president of Lucasfilm, it appears the offer to Levy was made prior to his promotion to Chief Creative Officer, by which point Deadpool & Wolverine had nearly completed filming. The official press release for the D23 news about Starfighter similarly confirms that the film’s producers consist of Kennedy, Levy, Gosling, and three other individuals who have produced one or more of Levy’s previous movies. How Starfighter relates to the future of Star Wars under Filoni’s stewardship remains to be seen.

At Saturday’s Disney Worldbuilders panel, Filoni took the stage alongside Jared Bush (Walt Disney Animation), Kevin Feige (Marvel Studios), Pete Docter (Pixar), and Jon Favreau for a panel moderated by Leslie Iwerks, who has directed multiple other Disney+ documentaries about the company’s history and creative process, too. As part of the panel discussion, Filoni emphasized that “I’m always excited about the future of Star Wars.” He then elaborated:

“Star Wars Land should evolve like [Disneyland and the other Parks], as well, when you see what people are interested in. We have several different generations of Star Wars fans. We have the Original Trilogy fans, Prequel Trilogy fans, Sequel Trilogy fans, Clone Wars fans, Expanded Universe fans. They all have different interests. I always look at it like, how are we going to serve all of these different interests? And most importantly, how do we bring them all together? Because they have this common love of Star Wars. I think the Park is a great place to do that. We’ll update things. We bring new characters in. We make rides different. … I think we have to be thinking, I’m nostalgic for Star Wars. How do we maintain its past, but how do we move it forward? No one was better at that than George himself, if you look at the Original Trilogy and the Prequels. I tell my whole team, all the clues we need to know, everything we need to study, to be Jedi are in his films. We just need to pay attention. That’s what I’m doing and trying to help people understand.”

Later, Filoni reiterated a longstanding theme of his convention panel appearances: the importance of the entire creative team behind Star Wars. “The most important ingredient, though, is always going to be people that have an imagination to say, but what if we did this? And it’s going to be something that you can’t always think of yourself. You need your team of people to bring that to you. You capitalize on that moment of inspiration and something wonderful happens.”

Related Links

FANgirl Blog Links

Lex
Latest posts by Lex (see all)

Lex

B.J. Priester has been a Star Wars fan since he played with the original Kenner action figures as a young boy. His fandom passion returned after watching Attack of the Clones in 2002 and reading the entire New Jedi Order series in 2003. He voraciously caught up on the novels and comics in the Expanded Universe in addition to writing fanfiction, frequently co-authoring with Tricia. B.J. has served as editor of FANgirl Blog from its inception, as well as contributing reviews and posts on a range of topics. He edited Tricia’s novel Wynde, and is collaborating with her on several future projects set in that original universe. Currently a tenured law professor in Florida, B.J. has been a practicing lawyer in Washington, D.C., a law clerk to a federal appeals court judge, and a law journal editor-in-chief. He is also a proud geek dad whose son who is a big fan of Star Wars and The Clone Wars.

You May Also Like

Star Wars Celebration Anaheim: Pulling Back the Curtain on Star Wars Rebels

Lex

Daisy Ridley Roundup: November 17, 2015, Has Girl Power Unleashed

Fangirl

Fangirls Around the Web: June 28, 2014

Fangirl