Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025: Perspective and Takeaways
Last month’s Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025 marked the sixteenth Celebration convention and the sixth held outside the United States. Multiple members of the FANgirl Blog team have attended the previous seven consecutive Celebrations, and nine of ten from 2010, the blog’s inaugural year. In addition to covering important panels from this year’s event, we noted several points of comparison with previous Celebrations worth mentioning at the blog.
Celebration is at its best when it lives up to that moniker. On occasion in the past, it has felt as though a significant portion of a convention was looking ahead to upcoming Star Wars that fans were anticipating (or learning about for the first time) rather than celebrating the existing Star Wars that fans already knew and loved. Too often, the franchise has regretted that choice in retrospect; projects were cancelled or never released, or the stories we ultimately got didn’t live up to their potential or to fan expectations. Fortunately, Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025 leaned heavily into celebrating the past and present. Panels on the Andor and Ahsoka streaming series for Disney+ focused their discussions with the participants on the previously released first seasons, rather than the pending second seasons. The Lucasfilm Animation panel similarly revisited the previous twenty years of animated series, and only briefly teased the next one, Maul: Shadow Lord, at the very end. Even the panel dedicated to a First Look at the third volume of Star Wars: Visions animation was inextricably connected to the two prior volumes that fans have already seen, including continuations in Volume 3 of acclaimed shorts from Volume 1.
That overall emphasis in the convention as a whole made the one notable exception, the opening panel promoted as featuring The Mandalorian & Grogu film, seem all the more an outlier. Despite lacking the Lucasfilm Showcase title used at Celebration Europe 2023, the panel nevertheless began with Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy referring to five movie projects currently in development before confirming that another Star Wars movie – revealed to be Star Wars: Starfighter, currently slated for release on May 28, 2027 – has officially moved from development into preproduction. Director Shawn Levy and star Ryan Gosling naturally avoided saying much about this film, though Gosling effusively praised the script, particularly its combination of “heart and adventure.” Levy clarified that the movie is a “standalone adventure” taking place after Episode IX on the timeline, explaining that it is “not prequel and not a sequel” to any other Star Wars movie and features “all new characters” in its story. Here again, the comparison to Celebration Europe 2023’s opening panel was striking: just as Levy and Gosling are riding the coattails of their massive successes with Deadpool & Wolverine and Barbie respectively, Jon Watts and Chris Ford were coming off the tremendous success of Spider-Man: No Way Home and its predecessors when they revealed, and made similar comments about, their Skeleton Crew streaming series. Despite its quality and favorable reactions from fans who watched it, Skeleton Crew was not able to attain the viewership numbers reached by Disney+ Star Wars series featuring well-known characters, continuing a long-established trend across Star Wars storytelling mediums. Only the future will tell whether Starfighter can break that trend at the box office.
The remainder of the panel for The Mandalorian & Grogu was unusual in other ways. The two hosts for the panel only came on stage after the Starfighter reveal had concluded. Their mundane questions only elicited entirely familiar answers, with Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau comparing making the movie to playing with Star Wars actions figures and Pedro Pascal retelling the anecdote of being immediately captivated by the visuals and story in the concept art for The Mandalorian when he was offered the lead role at the time of the first season. Star Wars newcomer Sigourney Weaver, who surely could have linked her long history in science fiction cinema to finally joining this iconic franchise, instead only briefly described her videoconference with Favreau and Filoni when she was offered the part, and falling in love with the characters and story while undertaking her “assignment” to watch the entire The Mandalorian series before reaching a decision whether to accept the role. Each member of the panel audience had a light-up wristband on their seat – but they were never even mentioned once the panel began, much less used in any coordinated way as part of the panel presentation. The panel started almost ten minutes late and ended nearly twenty minutes early, resulting in an event scheduled for an hour about The Mandalorian & Grogu that ended up spending barely fifteen minutes on the movie. The Celebration-exclusive sizzle reel only played once, rather than the usual twice. It is hard to believe that the panel we actually got was the panel that had been intended to kick off Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025.
The contrast with the other prominent panels deserves emphasizing. On the Andor panel, Tony Gilroy and Diego Luna spoke extensively about their passion for the project and their goals in making it. Each of the other six panelists had the chance to make meaningful remarks about their involvement in the series, perhaps none so memorable as Denise Gough clarifying that Dedra’s role in Season Two is “not so girl boss” and “much more fascist” this time. After a full forty-five minute discussion, they screened the entire first episode of Season Two for the panel audience. Similarly, both the Ahsoka and Lucasfilm Animation panels filled every minute of their allotted hour with insightful and interesting discussions. By the end of the three days, the first panel really did stand out as the only seriously disappointing one of the convention.
In August 2012, Star Wars Celebration VI was the last of the George Lucas era at Lucasfilm, although fans didn’t know it at the time. Looking back, though, the transitional nature of the convention, and of the Star Wars material discussed at the convention that did or didn’t ultimately get released after being discussed there, is much clearer in hindsight. While the official announcement has yet to be made, Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025 is likely the last of the Kathleen Kennedy era at Lucasfilm. Some of the major projects discussed at the convention – Starfighter, Andor, Visions, Light & Magic, and others – originate from her leadership. Other panels – particularly The Mandalorian & Grogu, Ahsoka, and Lucasfilm Animation – are grounded in Dave Filoni’s contributions, which Filoni repeatedly emphasized have their foundation in what he learned from Lucas, in honoring what Lucas created, and in passing along what Filoni learned from Lucas to the next generation of Star Wars storytellers. With Star Wars Celebration Los Angeles 2027 timed to coincide with commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the theatrical release of A New Hope, it also may mark a new era for the Star Wars franchise in more ways than one.
FANgirl Blog coverage:
- Hyperspace Theories: From Star Wars Celebration Japan
- Fangirls Going Rogue Episode 25.5: Star Wars Celebration Japan
- Skywalking Through Neverland Episode 513: Star Wars Celebration Japan Highlights – From Gosling to Loth Kittens
- Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025: Lucasfilm Animation’s 20th Anniversary
- Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025: Ahsoka
- Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025: Disney Experiences: Building the Galaxy with Walt Disney Imagineering
- Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025: First Look: Star Wars: Visions Volume 3
- Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025: The Heroic Sidekicks of Star Wars
- Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025: Perspectives and Takeaways
Related Links:
- Director Shawn Levy’s Star Wars: Starfighter Film Starts Production This Fall (StarWars.com; Apr. 18, 2025)
- The Mandalorian & Grogu Kickstart Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025 (StarWars.com; Apr. 19, 2025)
- The Cast of Andor Can’t Wait for You to See Season 2 (StarWars.com; Apr. 19, 2025)
- 5 Things We Learned at the Star Wars Celebration Japan Ahsoka Panel (StarWars.com; Apr. 20, 2025)
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.
