The music of the franchise has been some of the most iconic, largely thanks to the efforts of John Williams. For the new film, composing duties will go to one Thomas Newman, best known for The Shawshank Redemption, Spectre and Skyfall, and more recently The Thursday Murder Club. On an episode of Kevin McCarthy’s “On Film…” podcast, the director revealed Starfighter would be “classically inspired” and avoid replicating what Williams has already done.
“It may be inspired by some of that,” he acknowledged, “but I knew that I needed a big-hearted movie score from a composer who, like John, doesn’t shy away from themes.” As far as getting Newman onboard, Levy said he simply called the conductor up: “I said, ‘Hey, it’s Shawn, would ever consider–?’ And he said, ‘Send me the script, and describe your vision.’ And I did both those things, and it was yes, and I’m so stoked.”
“If you asked me to name my favorite scores, five of the top ten are Tom Newman. The guy is a maestro,” Levy continued. What he wants from the score of Star Wars: Starfighter is “myriad musical signatures that help tell the narrative alongside, and in addition to, the words and images.”
Promising words, and an exciting prospect for those into Star Wars’ music. Hopefully we get to hear whatever Newman’s cooked up at Star Wars Celebration at some point before Star Wars: Starfighter itself hits theaters on May 28, 2027.
Destiny 2‘s new expansion, Renegades, is juking where most brand crossovers jive by having a Star Wars collaboration where, instead of simply just jamming Star Wars stuff into Destiny and calling it a day (well, aside from a few notable weapons), Bungie’s sci-fi shooter is telling its own story inspired by Star Wars, with plenty of themes, locales, and design language given a sideways look to make it look like a merging of the two worlds, rather than a direct transposition.
But just like George Lucas once said, the thing about poetry is that it rhymes. So when Destiny 2 needs a Jedi Order equivalent in a world that already has space wizards, it needs something else to make the parallel clear and feel like the Order—and you can’t just give them a laser sword and call it a day, even if they are also kind of doing that.
Enter the Praxic Order. A faction that’s been touched upon in Destiny‘s worldbuilding since the very first game, they’re stepping into the spotlight for Renegades with actual characters playing a role in the story, as players go up against a fallen guardian, Dredgen Bael (voiced by Marvel Rivals and Dan Da Dan‘s Aleks Le, doing his very best Kylo Ren impression). The Praxic Order will be represented in Renegades by a character named Aunor, who is… essentially a space magic cop.
So far, so Jedi! In a new behind-the-scenes featurette released today, the Destiny 2 team describes the Praxic Order as an “internal affairs” group for the Vanguard, the entity that manages guardians in Destiny‘s world, with their job specifically being to police any guardians who utilize the power of darkness, rather than the power of light that usually gives them their abilities.
That in and of itself is interesting, as Destiny 2‘s broader narrative has spent a good long while at this point tasking players with exploring the darkness and finding strength in the balance of these two diametrically opposed entities—so to suddenly have a main character in Renegades who is the member of an ancient order that has to grapple with the realities of a changed world where their specific, dogmatic view of the way things work no longer wholly applies? That’s Star Wars as hell.
And as funny as it is that a key kind of quasi-multiversal trait of the Jedi Order is that regardless of whatever universe they show up in, they’re kind of just jerks, that’s also a really clever way to bring in elements of Destiny that already feel like Star Wars and push them into an even more direct parallel for this new expansion. If the rest of Renegades can deliver that kind of fun interrogation of Destiny and Star Wars‘ shared similarities in this way, fans of both will be in for a treat.
Destiny 2: Renegades will launch next week on December 2.
Disneyland After Dark will include 70 Years of Favorites, Sweethearts’ Nite, Disney Channel Nite, Star Wars Nite, and Pride Nite with dates being announced for all.
Disneyland recently announced the dates and initial details for all five of the 2026 Disneyland After Dark events, including new themes, new events, and fun new perks. Disneyland After Dark is a separately ticketed event held at Disneyland on select nights from January to June. The events take place from 9 pm-1 am, but admission includes a pre-party mix in allowing guests into the park as early as 6 pm. The purchase of tickets also includes unlimited digital downloads of Disney Photopass photos, and a commemorative event guide map, and a keepsake. 70 Years of Favorites, Sweethearts’ Nite, Disney Channel Nite, Star Wars Nite, and Pride Nite have been announced as the five themes for this year’s Disneyland After Dark.
Sweethearts’ Nite
The night is dedicated to celebrating love for all sweethearts, whether spouses, family, or friends will be returning this year. With nine nights, including January 22nd, 25th, 27th and February 3rd, 5th, 8th, 10th, 12th, and 7th, it is a good way to kick off the year. Bringing back the same environment as past years, the nights will also include a few new events and items.
Entertainment will include:
The “Celebrate Love Cavaclade” as it glides down Mainstreet, USA (new)
“Once Upon A Dream – A Musical Journey Through the Disney Songbook” featuring live singers and culminating in a nighttime ball beneath the stars (new)
A Valentine’s Dance Party at Tomorrowland Terrace featuring Donald Duck and Daisy Duck
Disney Duets Festive Karaoke in the Golden Horseshoe (new)
Photo Backdrops staged throughout the park referencing all your favorite films like “The Aristocrats”, “Tangled”, “Aladdin”, and “Lady and the Tramp”
Specialty food will include:
A Triple Berry Slushy with a Mickey-Shaped Glow Cube at Galactic Grill (new)
Surf N’ Turf loaded fries at Red Rose Taverne
Mickey Shaped Strawberry Cream Puff at Rancho Del Zocalo Restaurant
Additional specialty items are available at table-service restaurants like Café Orleans, River Belle Terrace, and Carnation Café, but reservations are recommended
Sweethearts’ Nite will also feature Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse ear headbands, trading pins, T-shirts, zip-up hoodies and tumblers for sale.
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70 Years of Favorites
One of the new themed nights is 70 Years of Favorites, celebrating the seven decades of unforgettable moments at Disneyland park, in honor of Disney’s 70th anniversary. There will be just two nights, on March 3rd and 5th. Events will include:
Swing dancing at the Royal Theatre in Fantasyland
A Videopolis Dance Party at Tomorrowland Terrace, featuring a live DJ and ‘80s tunes in a throwback setting
Line dancing at The Golden Horseshoe, paying tribute to “Woody’s Round Up” show, a staple on the Frontierland stage in the late ‘90s and early 2000s
Photo opportunities thrown back to past entertainment like “Mad T Party”, “Main Street Electrical Parade” and Club Buzz
Encounters with “Long Lost Friends” including those from Disney Afternoon, “Mother” and “Father” from Carousel of Progress, Merlin, Flik and Atta, and the Fantasmic! Monkeys
And as with all Disneyland events, special food will be featured as well, including:
Mushroom Philly Sandwich (plant-based) and Maple Bacon Cinnamon Roll at Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe
Birria Mac and Cheese in a Bread Bowl at Refreshment Corner
Gaston Brew at Red Rose Tavern
Additionally, Blackened New York Steak and Prawns will be available at River Belle Terrace, but reservations are recommended
Disney Channel Nite, Star Wars Nite, and Pride Nite are all returning themes for Disneyland After Dark, with further details about their entertainment and specialty foods to be announced early in 2026. Disney Channel Nites will be a blend of entertainment, characters and music, celebrating the beloved eras of the iconic TV channel will take place April 12th, 14th, and 16th, followed by Star Wars Nites on April 28th and 30th, as well as May 4th and May 6th. The two Pride Nites will take place during the month of June, Pride month, on the 16th and 18th to celebrate and bring together allies and members of the community for a festive evening featuring rainbow projection, lively decor, and dazzling entertainment.
Tickets for the 70 Years of Favorites and Sweethearts’ Nite go on sale to the general public on December 11 at 9 am. Magic key presale holders can get tickets on December 9th if they are Inspire Key holders, while All-Key holders get access to tickets on December 10th. Sale dates for the other three nights will be announced along with their other details in 2026. These nights will be full of magic and fun so don’t miss out.
When you think of the Star Wars prequels and conflict, you probably think of one of the most important interstellar campaigns of the entire saga, the Clone Wars. But in Star Wars‘ old expanded universe, only fleetingly touched upon in the rebooted continuity, a conflict preceded both the Clone Wars and the broader prequel trilogy itself that helped pave the way for the state of the Galactic Republic as we knew it coming into The Phantom Menace, one arguably that helped create the circumstances for the Clone Wars too: the Stark Hyperspace War.
First introduced in background material for the run-up to The Phantom Menace, and ultimately more fully explored in the pages of Dark Horse’s Star Wars comics, the Stark Hyperspace War has largely made its way into modern Star Wars canon through offhanded mentions in name only. But the bones of the conflict itself in the Expanded Universe set the stage for the politics at play both among the Jedi Order itself and within the Galactic Senate by the time we see them both facing existential crises by the time of The Phantom Menace.
Although the prequels and the EU alike would go on to explore the cracks running deep in the Republic that allowed Palpatine’s machinations to splinter it and forge the Galactic Empire, the Stark Hyperspace War was one of the earliest windows into the timeframe around the prequel trilogy, and with it, our first indicators of some of those cracks in the galaxy’s institutions.
Even before the war formally broke out in 44 ABY—roughly 12 years before the events of The Phantom Menace—the Galactic Republic had faced longstanding issues with increased corruption and lawlessness, especially in the Outer Rim territories. The Rusaan Reformations that had radically overhauled both the representative structure of the Republic and the military power of the Jedi Order centuries prior had both seen an increase in the political power of industrial conglomerates within the Republic, such as the Trade Federation and banking clans, as well as a diminished reach for the Republic’s judiciary branch, under which the Jedi and the minor security forces the Republic could muster served.
It was this perfect storm that ultimately led to the rise of Iaco Stark, a noted smuggler, as a major power in the Outer Rim. Building a Robin Hood-esque reputation on raids against Trade Federation transports, stealing goods to sell to communities for less than the costs enacted by the Federation, Stark successfully convinced a growing group of business allies and mercenaries to form the Stark Commercial Combine, one of the largest conglomerates of pirate activity ever formed in Republic history.
But Stark was secretly working with the Trade Federation’s leader, Hask, and another crucial business figure, Adol Bel, head of the Thyferran Xucphra Corporation, one of the only companies in the galaxy that could distribute and produce the vital medical supply, bacta. Preparing to stage a conflict between the Combine and the Trade Federation, Stark had grander dreams: to draw the Galactic Republic into a conflict that would consume it entirely.
The first phases that set the stage for the Hyperspace War saw Xucphra sabotage one of its own bacta facilities on Thyferra, rendering galactic supply incredibly scarce. The bacta crisis instantly drove up demand and prices of medical treatment, especially in the Outer Rim, as hoarding of what remaining supply was available created even more economic pressure.
Working in tandem with the Trade Federation, Stark’s Combine began staging raids on bacta supplies owned by the corporation, selling it at a profit but still below the skyrocketed demand while dramatically raising Stark’s reputation even further, not just as a shield against the Trade Federation but as a figure people could point to as a sign of the Republic’s inadequacies.
The bacta crisis, as well as the Combine’s growing “hostility” towards the Trade Federation, suddenly made the issues in the Outer Rim a key issue in the Senate, although not necessarily out of a concern about corruption in the outer territories. Both Nute Gunray, at the time a ranking minister of the Federation and its Senate representative, rather than its outright leader (and unaware of Hask’s deal with Stark), and Senator Ranulph Tarkin, an avowed militarist advocating for changes against the Rusaan Reformation’s decrees on Republic military assets, both used the crisis to advocate for increased martial power, both privately and on a galactic scale.
They were defeated in the tide of Senate opinion, however, by then-Senator Finis Valorum, who successfully pushed the Senate to open diplomatic negotiations with the Combine. With Valorum and Gunray tasked as the Republic’s primary negotiators, alongside a task force of Jedi diplomats (who were surreptitiously tasked by the Order to investigate the true nature of the bacta shortage on Thyferra, believing industrial sabotage was in play), the Republic and the Combine agreed to meet on the world of Troiken to enter talks. However, in secret Gunray leaked the location of the peace talks to Tarkin, who had been privately accumulating his own militia from Republic member worlds’ own defense forces sympathetic to his anti-reformist beliefs.
Hoping to stage a surprise assault on the gathered Combine forces at Troiken, Tarkin believed his victory would advance the militarist cause within the Senate, and make him a prime candidate to assume the Chancellorship—while also eliminating one of his key rivals in Valorum and the Jedi’s negotiation party as a necessary cost of the conflict. But, through Hask, Stark already knew of Tarkin’s fleet, using the pretense of Gunray’s betrayal of the peace talks to immediately hold the Republic and Jedi delegation hostage upon arrival at Troiken.
Stark even managed to lace Gunray’s surreptitious messages to Tarkin’s fleet with a Navicomputer virus that destabilized Tarkin’s ships’ ability to safely navigate hyperspace, destroying many as they re-entered realspace in unsafe environments such as planetary atmospheres or within stars and black holes, and leaving the few that did make it to Troiken, Tarkin’s flagship included, vastly outnumbered by the Combine fleet.
On the ground, confused crossfire caused by Gunray ordering the Trade Federation’s own Battle Droid security forces at the peace talks led to the mortal wounding of the Jedi’s lead negotiator, the Wookiee Jedi councilmember Tyvokka, and a hasty retreat by the remaining diplomats and Jedi to Mount Avos, the former hub of a spice mine that they could use to hide and entrench themselves from Stark’s forces. Above Troiken, Tarkin ordered his remaining troops to abandon ship, positioning their escape pods to link up with the Republic forces at Avos, turning the mountain into a siege target for Stark and his armies.
While the Jedi and Republic forces fought to defend their position at Avos against multiple waves of Stark’s mercenaries, on Thyferra, Jedi Master Tholme and his apprentice Quinlan Vos successfully managed to uncover Stark’s connections to the Trade Federation and Xucphra’s leadership, providing the burgeoning evidence needed to move against the Combine on Coruscant.
The united forces of Tarkin’s remaining militia as well as the Jedi—especially the Jedi Knight Plo Koon, who used his telepathic abilities to learn of the Combine’s plans and prepare the Republic’s successful defense of Mount Avos—opened a window of opportunity, as Stark pivoted to a siege of the mountain range, knowing the Republic defenders barely had supplies to last for longer than 10 days.
While Jedi Master Adi Gallia managed to successfully flee through the cave system beneath Avos with Gunray and Valorum and requisition a functioning Combine transport to get the senators back to Coruscant to petition the Jedi Council and the Senate to not give in to Stark’s demands, Koon and the other Jedi (including Qui-Gon Jinn and his recently elevated padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi) lead Tarkin’s forces to rebuff multiple failed assaults on the mountain by Combine troopers, loosening Stark’s tenuous grip on the alliance.
Although the Senate refused to send military backup to Troiken and relieve the Republic delegation—arguing that the threat of Stark’s navicomputer virus infecting trade ships in the Outer Rim took precedence over aiding what they saw as an illegal private military force—the Jedi Council, threatening Gunray with the exposure of the Trade Federation’s broader complicity in the war, convinced the minister to allow them use of a Trade Federation fleet to send a Jedi strike force to Troiken instead.
The plan was in part only able to be coordinated again thanks to the psionic abilities of Plo Koon, who meditated with his fellow Jedi between Combine assaults to not just telepathically liaise with the Council on Coruscant, but to learn of Stark’s increasing loss of sway among Combine leadership with each failed siege on Avos… and convince the smuggler to accept amnesty in exchange for aiding the Jedi in bringing the war to an end.
Buying time for the arrival of the Jedi strike force, helmed by multiple masters from the Council, the remaining Jedi and Republic soldiers, Tarkin included, laid out a plan to both transmit a patch to Stark’s navicomputer virus to the Jedi fleet upon its arrival and escape through the abandoned mining caves beneath Avos, sealing the exits behind them to stop the Combine forces from pursuing them altogether. But while the Jedi successfully aided the arriving fleet above Troiken, the plan on the ground went awry, due to Tarkin’s increasing frustration that Plo Koon’s commanding presence had brought the war to a largely peaceful end instead of advancing the militarist cause.
Attempting to kill the escaping Jedi and condemn the pursuing Combine armies to death, Tarkin blew himself up with a detonator, sealing the cave system entirely while also leaving the trapped Combine armies to be devoured by local wildlife living deep within Avos’ cavernous structures. The Jedi delegation and the remaining Republic wounded survived, but Tarkin’s legacy was secured as the “hero” that ended the Stark Hyperspace War with his sacrifice.
Although the Stark Hyperspace War lasted for mere days, it would have lingering ramifications for the Galactic Republic throughout the remainder of its waning across the next two decades. Although the Stark Combine broke up after the war, lessons learned by the pirates that had made the militia up only increased the effectiveness of piracy within the Outer Rim, emboldened by the Senate’s unwillingness to support Tarkin’s paramilitary with judicial forces.
Republic veterans of the war—whose lingering wounds from the conflict were compounded by the bacta shortage—established the Stark Veterans Assembly to both foster support for treatment and to continue Ranulph Tarkin’s military advocacy within the Senate after his death, a sentiment that would eventually lay the groundwork for the creation of the cloned Grand Army of the Republic in secret.
For the Jedi, the death of a councilmember sent shockwaves through the Order—as had its necessary role in increased peacekeeping to bring the war to its conclusion. With Tyvokka’s seat on the council now vacant, Plo Koon was advanced to the rank of Master to fill it in light of his key role on Troiken. Meanwhile, in the Senate, Valorum’s part in the conflict elevated his standing within the Senate, leading to sweeping support for his election as Supreme Chancellor just four years later.
Gunray in turn saw his own internal standing in the Trade Federation rise, even if he’d played his part out of necessity, setting the stage for him to assume leadership of the conglomerate… putting all the pieces into place for the manipulations that, less than a decade later, would begin to see the plans for the phantom menace of a Sith takeover of the galaxy fall into place.
Adam Driver’s conflicted Star Wars figure Ben Solo has been in the news lately for all the wildest reasons that it’s almost easy to forget that next month marks ten years since he made his galactic debut with the release of The Force Awakens. Now, to celebrate that anniversary, a legendary Star Wars publication is going back to how the sequel trilogy began to shape its fascinating dark side foil—and we’ve got a look inside.
Ahead of Force Awakens‘ anniversary next month, io9 has an exclusive look at a few pages from Star Wars Insider‘s 10-year anniversary special covering the film’s landmark moment. A hardcover, fully illustrated release, the magazine includes almost 100 pages of behind-the-scenes insight and interviews about the making of a whole new era of Star Wars, from concept art that shaped the early phases of the sequel trilogy, to early scripting, all the way to shooting the movie and beyond.
Just one of the new interviews included is, of course, all about the evolution of the film’s antagonist, with Adam Driver discussing just why he wanted to take on a role like Kylo Ren in the first place. The intrigue, it turns out, started with the mysterious mask that hid Ben Solo from the world and his pained parents, Han and Leia.
“Wearing a mask is quite a challenging thing… [the prospect] was very scary and terrifying, so it wasn’t immediately a ‘yes,’” Driver said of the offer to join Star Wars. “Actually, I thought about it quite a bit, even though it was kind of a no-brainer, but I didn’t want to take it lightly.”
Beyond Ren’s connection to the broader Star Wars world, Driver was fascinated by the physicality of the character, and how much of Ben Solo’s personality had been shaped, almost subsumed even, by the costume that was Kylo Ren. “There are so many layers to Kylo Ren anyway, it was interesting to find out who he was with the mask on or with the mask off, and that was part of our initial conversations,” Driver continued.
“There’s something empowering for someone to completely hide themselves in a mask that is so intimidating.”
It’s perhaps no surprise then that a decade later—and two more movies, including an untimely redemption and sudden death—Driver remains fascinated by the potential of who Ben Solo could be… a potential that, given everything we’ve heard lately, might go unseen for a good while yet after Disney put the brakes on The Hunt for Ben Solo. While we ponder what could’ve been, however, ponder what was in our full excerpt from Star Wars Insider‘s interview with Driver below.
Ahsoka‘s focus on the relationship between the titular ex-Jedi and her reluctant padawan Sabine was one of the most surprising, and yet paradoxically frustrating aspects of the series. On the one hand, it helped broaden Star Wars‘ vision of the Force, and who could wield it, pushing back on narrow-sighted Jedi doctrines of the prequel era to give us a Force-wielding character with more parallels to Luke’s journey with the Force across the original trilogy. On the other, for as much as some of those Jedi doctrines were pushed back on in making Sabine Force sensitive, at the end of the day, Ahsoka turned master and apprentice into pretty much the same kind of Jedi we already had, with the same kind of teaching methods and understandings—teaching methods we’ve spent the prequel era engaging with the failings of, and being told in the sequel era that they must be let go of to allow a new generation of Jedi, free from the Order’s dogma, to truly flourish.
But one writer who helped shape Sabine’s journey in Rebels disagrees that it should’ve ever happened in the first place.
“It was absolutely not the plan… we really felt that not only did it step on Ezra’s story… it was a weak retread, we already did this,” reflected Henry Gilroy, a senior writer and executive producer on Star Wars Rebels, in a recent episode of Pod of Rebellion, the Rebels cast’s own rewatch podcast series. According to Gilroy, the potential of Sabine discovering her Force sensitivity was an idea floated during Rebels, but ultimately dismissed by the writing team. “The idea of Sabine training as a Jedi when she is already this fantastic warrior of her own type, we felt like, ‘This is overkill.’”
Sabine undergoes a parallel to Ezra’s own Jedi tutelage in Rebels when she has to wrestle with the mantle of the Darksaber, the ancient Mandalorian lightsaber that became a mythical symbol of the right to rule Mandalore—attempting to reconcile her own trauma relating to the work she did in the process, work that ultimately allowed the Empire to oppress her people as a student at its military academies. But although she trains to wield the weapon, she ultimately passes it on to others to lead the Mandalorians… so imagine Gilroy’s surprise then when Ahsoka comes along and Sabine’s swinging a lightsaber around again.
“I had nothing to do with the Ahsoka series, so I was shocked,” Gilroy continued. “What I love about the story with the Darksaber is that you don’t have to be a Jedi to have Jedi ideals… I think that’s what’s really the more important thing, rather than Force pushing Ezra a hundred feet when she’s never used the Force before.”
Although Gilroy does raise some interesting points, his commentary also serves as a challenge Star Wars has by and large struggled to grapple with in recent years, especially as storytelling within the galaxy far, far away slowly moves further into the post-originals, post-sequels era: the separation of what it means to be a Jedi from a philosophical and moral standpoint, and what it means to be a Jedi in taking on the mantle as a follower of the Jedi Order as an institution.
The afterglow of the prequels and their own nascent commentary on the Order’s twilight has seen much Star Wars ink spilled on the profound failures and flaws that allowed it to be subsumed by Palpatine’s machinations: a legacy of institutional rot and dogmatic busybodying that blinded the light of the Jedi’s most profound beliefs as a force for good. But at the same time, we have seen Star Wars‘ heroes—even some like Ahsoka Tano herself, a victim of the Order’s most profound flaws—and the broader franchise itself wrestle with attempting to revive the Jedi and either seeing them making the same mistakes or not being willing enough yet to make the distinction between Jedi ideals and Jedi Order doctrine and make that separation.
Maybe with time, that will change. Ahsoka season two will see Ahsoka and Sabine closely bonded once more, and the potential for that discussion between them to arise. At some point we are still meant to get a movie about Rey attempting to revive a new Jedi Order, and see how she blends the lessons she learned from Luke’s failures with the ancient texts she helped preserve after his death. Whatever vision of being a Jedi Star Wars eventually takes on going forward, a separation between it and what once was arguably means that we’ll need more characters following in Sabine’s footsteps, and helping to broaden the franchise’s understanding of the Force in the process.
The Edge of Fate was supposed to be a bold new foundation for Destiny 2‘s future. Instead, it was the beginning of the decade-old sci-fi shooter’s most disappointing stretch yet. Back in September, Bungie promised a roadmap laying out the vision for the live-service MMO in the year ahead. Two months later, the plans are still in flux. Bungie now says it won’t be ready to reveal what Destiny 2 looks like moving forward until early 2026. In the meantime, it’s scrambling to engineer a 180 with its upcoming Star Wars expansion.
“As we continue to act on your feedback, we’re taking additional time to craft our long-term strategy for the future of Destiny before we share a full State of the Game and multi-year roadmap next year,” the studio revealed this week. It treated fans to what it’s called a new “Content Calendar” instead. No big ideas. No major overhauls. But it did preview everything fans can expect from the December 2 Renegades expansion and its first significant update.
Destiny 2: Renegades Content Calendar has been published.
We need more time for the roadmap, plain and simple. Expect a true Roadmap, and State of the Game, next year.
The big takeaways? All players will be able to hit the new Power cap just by playing Renegades activities, vault capacity will go up to 1,000 slots to accommodate all the new loot, and all Exotic Armor ornaments can now be swapped between gear of the same class and slot, giving a big boost to Destiny 2‘s fashion meta. The seasonal Dawning, Iron Banner, and Call to Arms events will also be returning. Any lapsed players probably have no idea what to make of Bungie saying stuff like “Vanguard Alerts will bring back some Nightfall vibes,” but long story short: Renegades should hopefully cut a lot of the grindy bullshit fans faced in Edge of Fate back in July.
Here’s Bungie’s brief postmortem on what feels like Destiny 2‘s least played, most panned expansion since launch:
With Edge of Fate, we presented a different vision for the future of Destiny 2’s core game. One intended to refocus our releases and player call-to-action on a familiar but deeper pursuit of Power and ascending to higher Tiers of gear across a wider range of activities supporting customizable challenge and commensurate rewards.
Very quickly, the feedback made it clear that this was the wrong path for Destiny.
Even if our execution had been perfect, and we see plainly that it was not, it is clear that grinding Power will never be a substitute for earning a trophy. Climbing though throwaway tiers en-route to the gear you want to build around isn’t aspirational. And the Portal itself surrenders too much of Destiny’s feeling of place and exploration. These lessons, and many others besides them, have been taken to heart by our team over the last three months.
I have no doubt that Bungie has taken all of the negative feedback to heart. I imagine this has probably been one of the toughest stretches, purely in terms of morale, in the game’s post-launch life. But it remains to be seen if the studio can still engineer a way out of Destiny 2‘s 2025 nosedive. The challenge, as ever, is in how you make doing the same stuff over and over again still feel fresh more than a decade later. Maybe you can’t. Or maybe Destiny 2 just needs a humble back-to-basics reboot, at least for its progression and weekly grind. I’m still rooting for it.
The weeks, months, and now years since the release of The Last Jedi have seen Lucasfilm scrambling over where to go next in a galaxy far, far away. Johnson’s trilogy all but evaporated, and announcement after announcement of new movies suffered similar fates. Next year, the release of a movie version of a TV show that was still two years from existence at that time will mark the first Star Wars movie since the conclusion of the sequel trilogy. A trilogy whose final film was put into disarray by the polarizing reaction to Johnson’s work.
But, for Johnson himself, he looks back on that time and everything that’s come since with positivity. Speaking at Newport Beach Film Festival this week, Johnson (who did go on to make a new trilogy, just of Knives Out films) was asked if the fan reaction to The Last Jedi was responsible for him not making new Star Wars films.
“No, not at all,” he said. “In fact, it’s the reason that I wanted to. My overall experience with putting the movie out, and what you’re talking about with fan feedback… I mean, first of all, I’m a lifelong Star Wars fan. So I know the deal. I know that Star Wars fans are passionate about this stuff. We love the stuff we love, we hate the stuff we hate, and we fight about it. And that’s been happening since the original trilogy. I was in college when the prequels came out. Are you kidding me? The prequel wars? We had a few. I mean, everybody did. And so, the notion that Star Wars has been this kind of Shangri-La, united fandom, and that [nothing] could then split that apart [is false]. The reality is Star Wars has always been something that has meant different things to different people. And I think that’s part of the fun and the passion of it as fans, is arguing about it respectfully.”
“I’ve talked to so many people over the years, since we made that movie, who have such deep connections to Star Wars and who have deep connections to that movie,” Johnson continued. “And so it’s been the most positive experience I’ve ever had with anything I’ve made, in terms of interacting with people who’ve seen it. I came out at the other end of it loving Star Wars fandom more than I did even going into it.”
We may never know exactly what happened with Johnson’s Star Wars movies, and, in fact, he often says he’d love to make them one day. But that all this time later he can look back on the experience as a positive is a testament to why he would have been a great person to entrust those movies to.
You can watch the full discussion, thanks to Star Wars Culture, at the link below. The above quote comes in the last two minutes.
Destiny 2‘s big Star Wars collaboration has made a distinct point that while it is drawing on elements from the galaxy far, far away, this isn’t a Fortnite situation: Renegades wants to tell a Destiny story that feels like Star Wars, instead of transplanting elements from one universe into the other and calling it a day. That’s also going to be the case as well for a whole armory’s worth of weapons that you’ll loot and shoot your way through the new adventure with.
Today Bungie dropped a new trailer for its upcoming expansion, focusing on the new gear they’ll be able to acquire in Renegades—a lot of which, of course, is inspired by iconic weapony from Star Wars.
There’s a lot of fun stuff in here for Destiny 2 fans—congratulations to the Titans among us, who will apparently get to boost around flying like Mandalorians with a new piece of armor that gives them a jetpack—but of course the main appeal is going to be the Star Wars guns. But just like the rest of Renegades, you’re not picking up direct versions of those weapons (and they will still play in Destiny 2‘s weaponry archetypes, so don’t expect to be pew-pewing blaster bolts everywhere); you’re picking up Destiny weapons that are inspired by iconic Star Wars weapons. Here’s a breakdown of what’s what in the trailer:
The Uncivil Discourse is a hand cannon inspired by Han Solo’s legendary DL-44 blaster pistol.
The Modified B-7 Pistol is another hand cannon, inspired by the MW-20 Bryar pistol used by Cassian Andor (and the K-16 Bryar that inspired that, used by Kyle Katarn in Dark Forces). Sadly, it does not appear to go vuh-weeeeee when you reload it.
The All or Nothing is a pulse rifle inspired by the EE-3 Carbine rifle, famously wielded by Boba Fett.
The Refurbished A499 is a heavy sniper rifle, inspired directly by the Amban Phase Pulse Rifle, the disruptor originated for Boba Fett in the animated sequences of the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special, but now best known as one of the primary weapons of Din Djarin on The Mandalorian.
The M-17 Fast Talker is a submachine gun inspired by the DC-17m Repeating Blaster Rifle, the multipurpose weapon system used by Republic Commandos during the Clone Wars, and introduced in the 2005 classic shooterRepublic Commando.
The Compact Defender is a sidearm inspired by the Defender sporting blaster pistolused by Princess Leia in A New Hope.
Heirloom is a combat bow that fires explosive bolts, befitting a weapon inspired by the iconic Wookiee bowcaster.
And, of course, there is the Praxic Blade, which is a lightsaber. Not as clumsy or as random as a blaster, this kinetic-slot sword can reflect incoming fire, as well as be thrown for a ranged attack.
It’s a fun mix of weapons, and it’s fitting that there’s a variety from not just across the Star Wars franchise, but a few in specific that pay homage to Star Wars‘ own FPS roots. It’s a really nice way to do something that feels like it’s Star Wars-y, instead of just having your guardians rubbing shoulders with luminaries from the galaxy far, far away.
Destiny 2: Renegades is set to release on December 2.
London — The suit worn by Will Ferrell in the 2003 comedy hit “Elf” is going under the hammer at an auction of movie memorabilia in London this December, and the skin-tight green and yellow piece of Hollywood Christmas magic is expected to fetch over a quarter of a million dollars.
Bidding for the iconic suit, complete with the conical hat and matching tunic, will begin at 50,000 pounds, the equivalent of about $65,000, but it’s expected to eventually sell for as much as 200,000 pounds, or about $261,000, when the hammer falls at the Propstore Winter Entertainment Memorabilia auction.
According to the description on the Propstore Auction house’s website, there are tags reading “Mr. Ferrell” on the inside of the tunic and the stockings, with “Hero-3” also handwritten on the tunic tag.
Buddy’s screen-matched hero Elf costume is expected to fetch up to $261,000
Andrew Matthews/PA Images via Getty Images
The auctioneers say the belt also has “Mr. Ferrell” written on it in blue ink.
Large movie productions often create several versions of the same props, but the term “hero” is typically used to describe the highly-detailed iterations which are central to the plot and intended for close-up shots in the final cut of the movie.
The suit going up for sale does not appear to be the same one that Ferrell wore to an NHL hockey game in Los Angeles just after Christmas last year, when he gave fellow sports fans a giggle by sitting near the ice looking disgruntled with a beer and a cigarette in the garish outfit.
Will Ferrell entertained fans by wearing an Elf-like costume to a hockey game
Ronald Martinez / Getty Images
Another notable item up for sale in the December auction is Marty McFly’s iconic hoverboard from the second and third installations of the “Back to the Future” trilogy, which is expected to sell for more than $156,000.
According to the product description, it’s the lightweight foam version of the prop, which actors used for scenes where their characters were seen carrying the boards, rather than a wooden version that Michael J. Fox and his fellow actors were seen riding in other parts of the movies.
The example of the then-futuristic hoverboard does have some “wear from use and age, including adhesive residue around the fastening strips, cracks in the foam, and paint chipping throughout,” according to the auctioneers.
The foam prop was used by actors in scenes where they carried the futuristic Hoverboard
Andrew Matthews/PA Images/Getty
The most valuable lot in the auction, however, will be the original prop used as Boba Fett’s rifle in “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.”
The auction house says it is the only known example of the prop. Other stunt versions and castings were made for later movies in the franchise, but, according to Propstore Auctions, this EE-3 carbine blaster has been “identified by its serial number and photo-matched by details on the stock, directly confirming its provenance.”
The blaster, which started its life as a genuine 1917 Webley & Scott No.1 Mark I flare pistol, is expected to fetch the equivalent of around $915,000 when it goes under the hammer.
The unique prop used by the Boba Fett character in “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back,” is expected to fetch the equivalent of around $915,000 at auction.
Andrew Matthews/PA Images/Getty
The three day auction begins on December 5 and will feature other iconic film memorabilia including Indiana Jones’ fedora, worn by Harrison Ford in the 1984 “Temple of Doom” movie, Obi-Wan Kenobi’s lightweight lightsaber from 1999’s “Phantom Menace,” and Jack Nicholson’s stunt axe from the horror classic “The Shining.”
We know Rian Johnson has a keen eye for Star Wars (and wanting to get back to it, the long, long way round), and we know he has a keen eye for murder mysteries with all his work on the Knives Out movies. But he is also apparently good at blending those skills for a secret third talent: being able to figure out someone special is hidden under layers of Stormtrooper armor… especially when it came to his future Knives Out star.
At this point we all know that Daniel Craig had a special cameo in the first entry of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, playing the First Order Stormtrooper that Rey manages to successfully use a Jedi mind trick on to free herself from Kylo Ren’s captivity. But in a recent Q&A session for the latest Knives Out movie, Wake Up Dead Man (alongside Craig himself and moderated by Force Awakens and Rise of Skywalker director JJ Abrams), Johnson shared how he managed to figure it out early… well, mostly.
“When I was writing episode eight, we were watching dailies, because [Abrams was] shooting seven,” Johnson said. “One day… it was a scene with Daisy [Ridley] where she does the Force mind control on a Stormtrooper and gets him to unlock her things. The daily came up, the stormtrooper came up, she said it, the Stormtrooper didn’t say anything—just walked across the room to her.
“And I did this,” Johnson continued, adjusting himself to sit straight in his seat. “‘Who’s that actor?’ And Pablo [Hidalgo] at Lucasfilm was like, ‘I think it’s just a stunt dude in a Stormtrooper thing,’ and I go, ‘No—that’s a real actor, just from the way they walked across the stage.’”
Johnson got the confirmation a day later that he was right—and that it was none other than the future Benoit Blanc—and of course, the rest is history.
Although the idea of putting the two directors of the Star Wars sequel trilogy together on a panel (alongside a notable and easily identified Stormtrooper) might get Star Wars fans on tenterhooks seeing what tidbits about making The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker might emerge, that was pretty much all Johnson and Abrams had to say about the galaxy far, far away and their part in it. You’ll simply have to make do with two very talented directors and a Hollywood megastar talking shop about making movies and Knives Out in the full Q&A session below, instead.
The Acolyteonly lasted a single season, but fans still carry a torch for the late Star Wars spinoff. One element the show seemed eager to continue, and something a specific sect of fans were looking forward to, was the relationship between ex-Jedi Osha (Amandla Stenberg) and future Knight of Ren founder Qimir (Manny Jacinto).
To put it bluntly, people wanted to see those two smooch, and Jacinto’s among those ranks. During a recent interview with TV Insider, he talked about Qimir and Osha’s relationship—Oshamir, for short—being a dynamic that interested him to begin with. In his eyes, the big thing missing from “a lot” of franchises today is “the romance, the love and relationships. It’s a weird thing: we have the big fight scenes and the origin stories of these heroes and whatnot, but they don’t really have a relationship with other people.”
“I’m incredibly proud of what we did in The Acolyte and I loved Qimir and Osha relationship, because we were taking it back to having a relationship in this big world,” he continued. “[Relationships] made the characters and the story more compelling as opposed to just having big fight sequences. We were taking it back to a relationship in this big world.”
The lack of romances in blockbuster movies has long been a talking point, and Star Wars has been part of those conversations. Relationships and romance has always been a core part of the franchise, which Disney hasn’t always been the best about accepting, much less portraying. Most romances in the franchise don’t end well, but maybe summer 2026’s YA romance book Eyes Like Starsfrom Ashley Poston will buck the trend. And maybe if it’s successful enough, it’ll lead readers to Oshamir or whatever other ship is waiting.
Star Wars: Visions‘ third “volume” hit Disney+ this week, delivering nine shorts from a bevy of talented Japanese animation studios, each delivering their vision of what Star Wars can be unbeholden to the typical constraints of its contemporary storytelling universe. But only one of those shorts this season took that goal of taking Star Wars somewhere completely and utterly new, and it did so brilliantly.
Although I’ve just slapped a giant “spoiler warning” above, it’s actually very difficult—intentionally so, it could be argued—to “spoil” what exactly David Productions’ “BLACK”, directed by Shinya Ohira. Positioned as the final short of the anthology, it’s 13 minutes long, features no dialogue, English or Japanese, outside of grunts, and is soundtracked exclusively by vibrant, energetically smooth jazz. There is no particularly clear narrative, beyond the fact that “BLACK” is about stormtroopers.
It might be about one stormtrooper in particular; it might be about two. It might be about every stormtrooper to ever be chewed up and spat out by the Imperial engine. It’s perhaps, most definitely above anything else, about stormtroopers dying, at the very least. Almost free-falling, “BLACK” guides us through battle after battle, across space, across planets, and across anywhere the Galactic Empire could fight the Rebel Alliance, blurring these locations between each other as we are guided by the bodies of dying stormtroopers. Their TIE Fighters are exploding and shattering, their battle stations are torn apart by violence, and as each scene blurs from one moment to the next, their bodies are flung, gunned down, cast aside, forgotten. It is both the point and yet not the point.
Amid the chaos and fury, we follow two stormtroopers, their helmets mirrored in the way they have been cracked open to reveal the manic human beneath them, breaking the illusion of this uniform force of oppression, and yet the person beneath them appears to be the same one: masculine, bearded with blond hair, and vividly, starkly beleaguered. Regardless of what is happening around them, these two stormtroopers—one shaded in intensely neon greens, the other in vivid crimsons—are intent on hunting each other down and tearing them apart. They are the only consistent elements throughout “BLACK,” both in terms of focal points in that they come to embody the furor and violence echoed around them.
Are they the mind of a singular trooper? Is one real and the other symbolic? Are they separate men? Is the struggle literal or metaphorical? “BLACK” keeps this question clawing at the minds of its audiences as they race alongside these two figures through the discordant world around them, rendered intentionally loose, all scraggled lines and forms that squish and stretch, in scenes that melt and swirl together, over and over. We see suggestions towards one or the other—the flash of a life and love before the war, the firing neurons of the brain inside a singular body, left to be lost in snow alongside so many others.
But the aggression of “BLACK” is as much about its attitude towards its audience as it is these two warring figures: it explodes in your face, asking nonstop for you to consider what it means, what to take from it, and even what is actually happening before your very eyes. “BLACK” is not concerned with telling you a story but practically screaming at you to find a sense of meaning in it yourself. It is a piece that is unwilling to hold your hand, and that makes it all the more thrilling than its slick animation or its intense action can ever be.
In doing so, it becomes something pure to what Star Wars: Visions is supposed to represent. This is arguably something that could only be done with Star Wars with the lack of constraints or adherence to canonical events that is unique to Visions, and it’s arguably only the kind of story that could be told in the medium of animation. But above all, “BLACK” relishes in both doing something new and in how it treats its audience with the trust to find connection with it, to vibe with its jams, rather than sit and be told with certainty this is what it’s saying and this is what it all means. It’s not Star Wars made to be written up and stripped for parts by wikis and YouTube explainers; it’s Star Warsthat trusts you enough to demand that you find your own way.
That’s when the franchise is at its most exciting: when it not only trusts its audience enough to take them somewhere new and exciting, and especially to challenging places, but also trusts that audience to find a meaning, rather than the meaning. Star Wars is a fantasy, it’s symbolic, it’s mythic, and it is at its very best, as “BLACK” is, when the galaxy far, far away is open to interpretation and suggestion—and when everyone can take something different away from it, from their own certain point of view.
Star Wars: Visions, the Lucasfilm anthology series that hands over the keys to the galaxy far, far away to animation teams from around the world to create whatever they want with it, has been predicated on the novelty of the new. Both its first two “volumes” of seasons, one focusing on storytelling from a raft of premiere Japanese studios, the other on teams from around the globe, have been bright spots in a universe of familiarity because of their very nature as brand-new Star Wars: material that is unbeholden to any vision of continuity, material that can imagine any perspective or any scenario, rooted in iconography and concepts we have seen remixed and reworked for generations, to ask the simple question of what Star Wars can mean and can be to a specific set of creators.
Paradoxically, that it has succeeded so well in communicating this vast potential to Star Wars fans has created a problem for the show coming into its third season, which begins streaming today: Star Wars: Visions, and its broad vision of the franchise, is no longer all that new. That’s especially a challenge in this third season in particular, as Visions is not only returning to a Japanese-centric focus for the new crop of nine shorts, but those shorts are made by a near-even mix of returning and new studios from the first season—and further compounding that is the fact that several of the new shorts are direct sequels to shorts from that debut season, too.
It creates an interesting challenge, then, of how Visions can balance this vibrancy it has gained from inviting fresh perspectives into Star Wars with building on the groundwork that made Visions a success in the first place. Is it simply enough for the anthology series to be more, rather than new, now that we have become familiar with it?
It’s a question that, for the most part, volume three and its myriad creative teams are disinterested in directly asking or answering. But it’s a question that lingers in your mind throughout watching the nine new shorts, as the series provides tales that are, in general, satisfying to watch in the moment but broadly struggle to capture the same transformative feeling that made both its two volumes so enchanting to experience.
That is not to say that Visions volume three is disappointing—what worked across volumes one and two still continues to work here. There is plenty of jaw-dropping spectacle, from intense action sequences to stunning vistas. There is still plenty of inspiration in transposing Star Wars concepts and designs into new frameworks—either, as volume one did, by reframing them through Japanese design and history to draw on Star Wars‘ enduring connection with Japanese cinema, or just by simply playing with the sandbox that iconography represents. It just doesn’t quite land as enchantingly as it did the first and second times around, but beneath that sheen of newness still lies some incredibly well-done, visually resplendent Star Wars storytelling.
An interesting point to note in that familiar feeling is that, compared to volume two, which broadened its perspective both through international animation studios and in simply the kinds of Star Wars stories it wanted to tell, volume three echoes volume one’s fascination with the Force and Jedi in particular, bringing the balance back towards stories based on duels and mysticism (that’s not to say there aren’t notable highlights that largely eschew those ideas, such as Project Studio Q’s “The Song of Four Wings” or Wit Studio’s “The Bounty Hunter”). But this time that spiritualism feels not just wholly connected to a Jedi/Sith dichotomy, although there’s plenty of that: if a broad theme unites the shorts of volume three, it is the concept of Star Wars as a generational story, of lessons learned and passed on through families, masters and students, and cycles of conflict.
If there is a weakness to volume three, it’s perhaps where that familiarity is most explicit. Three of the nine shorts are sequels, directly or otherwise, to stories from volume one: Kamikaze Douga and Anima’s “The Duel: Payback,” Production I.G’s: “The Ninth Jedi: Child of Hope,” and Kinema Citrus’ “The Lost Ones” (which follows the Jedi F from the studio’s volume one short, “The Village Bride”). While broadly these shorts are solid—”Payback” is the weakest of the three, simply executing a lesser version of “The Duel” and, perhaps unfairly, now has to draw comparisons to Emma Mieko Candon’s incredible Ronin novel on top of that—they do generally sit together to give volume three a feeling of continuity, rather than striving for newness.
Of them all, “The Lost Ones” works best simply by expanding F’s story and world, rather than directly following on from the events of its predecessor as both “Payback” and “Child of Hope” do (the latter literally climaxing with a “To Be Continued” message, presumably in Visions‘ new Visions Presents format announced previously at Celebration Japan). Perhaps Kinema Citrus thought it could balance that out by providing a wholly new concept for another short (the studio also animated the adorable “Yuko’s Treasure” this season), but “Lost Ones” still stands out as a highlight for simply proving that there is space to return to the worlds established in these stories while still doing something that feels additive, rather than iterative.
All that, however, does not apply to a singular exception among Visions volume 3’s roster: the final short of the anthology, “BLACK.” If the rest of volume three is a well-executed familiar blanket, David Production and director Shinya Ohira’s 13-minute mood piece is a stunningly captivating shock to the system: alien and new and experimental in the exact ways you would want Visions to strive for.
It feels barely like anything we’ve ever seen from Star Wars—the imagery of the Stormtrooper armor and the machines of the Imperial/Rebel conflict lost in the sound and fury of its manic, mind-bending visuals—and also so unlike anything else from Visions, whether in volume three or otherwise, that it gives “BLACK” a discordant sense, but one that feels incredibly exhilarating in the moment. That it sits at the very end of the season feels intentional in this way—to coax you in with well-done, albeit familiar, slices of animation before “BLACK” overwhelms your senses with a bold story that puts the onus on its audience to interpret and find meaning in it, a free-flowing, hectic, scratchily animated vision of smooth jazz and the human condition locked away in the mind of a Stormtrooper.
That by far and away the absolute highlight of the season is such a challengingly complex and engaging short, one that transcends into something that feels like an arthouse piece, is the exact reminder that Visions, and anyone who’s been following the anthology along diligently, needed: Visions can do very good, very familiar Star Wars. But it is at its very best when it manages to wow you with something that is completely and shockingly new.
Star Wars: Visions Volume 3 is now streaming on Disney+.
In the beginning there was the word, and that word was Basic. But just howyou approach writing the primary language of the galaxy far, far away, has been a fascinating topic of exploration in Star Wars from its start. The need to flesh out Star Wars into a wider universe after the original film exploded into popularity created a worldbuilding problem that would take decades to “solve”—and in doing so created a rich variety of writing systems to populate its galaxy.
Before you even get to how to even write it, you have to know what Basic (also known as Galactic Basic, or Galactic Basic Standard) represents in Star Wars. Although we as an English-speaking audience hear it as English—and of course Star Wars is a fictional universe created by English-language speakers—Basic itself is not meant to be a direct equivalent to spoken English.
Although we have seen that multiple languages exist across the Star Wars galaxy—Rodese, Shyriiwook, Huttese, Sith, Ghor, and so on—Basic is essentially a lingua franca, a common language adopted on a broad level by galactic society. But when we watch Star Wars, we are not really hearing Basic, but instead Basic’s translation into English, or whatever language you are watching a Star Wars project in: the Japanese dub of A New Hope is as canon to Star Wars as its English-language version is, even if there are subtle differences due to the nature of translation.
But that generalized view of Basic was not fully formed when Star Wars was created—not in its spoken form, as that didn’t really matter for the most part. Its written form, however, quickly became an issue.
The original Star Wars is covered with English signage and written words on displays, something that would change in the wake of the film’s blockbuster success. Both Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi would, with the confidence that audiences had accepted the galaxy far, far away, move away from putting English text on-screen, instead creating unique writing systems—reams of text that were not just left untranslated, but were never given meaning behind the symbology beyond the graphic design.
That would begin to change with the arrival of the Expanded Universe in the early 1990s and Aurebesh.
Aurebesh was developed in 1994 by Stephen Crane for a companion booklet to West End Games’ tabletop skirmish game Star Wars Miniatures Battles, a spinoff designed for miniatures originally intended to be used with the company’s highly influential Star Wars roleplaying game. Inspired by a font design glimpsed in the opening of Return of the Jedi, Aurebesh was fleshed out by Crane with Lucasfilm’s approval.
A 34-character alphabet, Aurebesh takes its name similarly to how “alphabet” itself is a portmanteau of the first two characters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and beta, instead borrowing the first two characters Crane established, Aurek and Besh. The writing system was further expanded upon by Crane in the 1996 supplement Imperial Entanglements, which added punctuation, and by that time, although other Expanded Universe works had attempted to establish their own non-Latin writing systems (such as Atrisian Script, most commonly seen throughout the LucasArts Star Wars games in the mid-’90s), Aurebesh quickly became widely adopted by EU material as the primary written word of Star Wars.
But the EU, as influential and popular as it was at the time, was not the movies—and Aurebesh would arguably really take off when it was first used on-screen in Star Wars in 1999, alongside other newly introduced typefaces, in The Phantom Menace. From there, Aurebesh as Crane had designed it would continue to appear throughout EU material and the prequel trilogy. In 2004, when the original Star Wars was re-released on DVD, one of several cosmetic tweaks included the official overwriting of what had previously been English text with correctly translated Aurebesh, effectively establishing the writing system as Basic’s official writing system, appearing heavily again in series like Clone Wars, and of course, after Star Wars‘ sale to Disney and the reshuffling of Star Wars canon.
Crane initially didn’t design a numerical system for Aurebesh, as the alien text seen in Return of the Jedi still utilized Arabic numerals—an alternate dot-based number system was actually created in 1995 for the West End Games RPG supplement Platt’s Starport Guide, and eventually found its way into Star Wars canon through the popularization of fan-made fonts shared online, namely Peter Schuster’s New Aurabesh, first released in 1998. The font, including its West End-inspired numerical system, would eventually be used in episodes of Clone Wars and Rebels, and appear alongside continued use of Arabic numerals in the Disney-era movies.
For as widely adopted as Aurebesh became, however, the system didn’t come without its faults. The Latin alphabet still occasionally appeared in Star Wars material alongside Aurebesh, meaning that it existed in the galaxy far, far away even if Aurebesh was significantly more widespread. That alphabet also inadvertently played a key part in Star Wars worldbuilding through ship design: namely, that alphabet fighters were all built around the adoption of the Latin alphabet before Aurebesh existed (they’re X-Wings, after all, not Xesh-Wings). Ship design, among other military designations, raised similar questions with other real-world alphabets too, in particular with the Greek alphabet, which was frequently adopted throughout the series, from Lambda-class Imperial shuttles, to Delta Squad, the stars of Republic Commando.
Although Aurebesh and variations upon it have become the dominant written language of Star Wars today, there are hundreds of writing systems across the EU and contemporary canon to reflect hundreds more languages beyond just Galactic Basic. Here’s a few examples beyond Aurebesh that have existed across the original Expanded Universe and current continuity.
Atrisian Script: As previously mentioned, this writing system, similar to Aurebesh, was inspired by the typeface seen in Return of the Jedi. First identified as such in a 1997 West End Games RPG journal, Atrisian Script was retroactively established as the primary typeface in Star Wars‘ ’90s gaming boom, appearing in Dark Forces, TIE Fighter, X-Wing, and more before the popularization of Aurebesh.
High Galactic: High Galactic was codified as the explanation for why the Latin alphabet still existed alongside Aurebesh. First referred to as such in a 2010 Star Wars Hyperspace Fan Club article called The Written Word, High Galactic has since made its way into contemporary continuity, and was first identified as such in the 2015 novel Heir to the Jedi. High Galactic is considered rarer, and education in the usage of it was largely the pursuit of the upper classes, in comparison to the more widely adopted Aurebesh.
Tionese: Similarly, Tionese (named for the Tion Cluster, a system of planets in the Outer Rim) was established by that same 2010 article as the in-universe equivalent to the Greek alphabet. In both the Expanded Universe and its far briefer existence in contemporary continuity, Tionese is considered an ancient writing system, still present but long since replaced by Aurebesh.
Trade Federation Script: One of multiple writing systems introduced in The Phantom Menace alongside the first uses of Aurebesh on screen (including Futhark and Fothork, two different Naboo writing systems), this writing system was mostly used by first the Trade Federation, adapted from the Nemoidian writing system for their native tongue Pak Pak, and then broadly throughout the prequel era and Clone Wars as the Basic writing system adopted by the Separatist Confederacy.
Sith/Ur-Kittat: Multiple Sith writing systems existed over the course of the Expanded Universe, some taking inspiration from hieroglyphs, others more runic systems. Sith as we know it today was largely developed by Ben Grossblatt for the 2010 reference book Book of Sith. The writing system established there would go on to be used in Star Wars Rebels, and appeared across multiple TV series before being prominently used as a plot point in The Rise of Skywalker.
Mando’a: The language of the Mandalorians is one of the most fleshed-out constructed languages in StarWars, with its primary spoken form fleshed out for the 2005 shooter Republic Commando and then by author Karen Traviss for her tie-in novel series. But written Mandalorian actually predates Mando’a’s broad development, first appearing as a typeface made for Attack of the Clones. This written form would then go on to appear throughout Clone Wars and Rebels‘ use of the Mandalorians, before returning to live-action use in The Mandalorian season two.
Multiple writing systems have been introduced since the reboot of Star Wars canon. Protobesh and Domabesh, although named similarly to Aurebesh, were new writing systems created as graphic design for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, intended to be ancient writing systems established before Aurebesh. Ghor, developed significantly as a conlang for Andor‘s second season, also had not one, but two writing systems developed as part of that process: Dixian and Ghorelle, also known as Low and High Ghor, respectively.
One thing that has remained true about writing within Star Wars throughout the last almost 50 years is that its development is as driven by fans as it is creatives working in the galaxy far, far away. From the earliest days of the EU, it was not just ancillary material but the work of fans collating and developing font packs in the early days of Internet fandom who helped codify and standardize writing systems that would then work their way into other primary material like the prequels and TV shows like Clone Wars—a legacy that persists to this day, with resources like AurekFonts not just collating writing used in Star Wars, but designing typefaces that then in turn make their way into official material.
Wondering what reading and writing is like in the galaxy far, far away has long been the pursuit of Star Wars fans, so it’s really only fitting that they have played such a fundamental role in helping shape what we have come to know about it all across the years.
The fact that The Acolyte won’t return to the world of Star Wars has many downsides, but few are as painful as the story of the Stranger. Season one’s main villain, played by Manny Jacinto, was a fascinating, complex character whose views on the Force, the Jedi, and the Sith were poised to change everything we knew about Star Wars and more. And while we are now unlikely to ever see it, there was a loose, tentative plan to keep his legacy around for a long, long time.
Early next year, Abrams Books is publishing The Art of Star Wars: The Acolyte by Kristin Baver, and this weekend, a few pages came to light that revealed some of Acolyte creator Leslye Headland’s plans for the character. “[The design of the mask] felt like it foreshadowed a possible connection to the Knights of Ren with the Kylo Ren shape we landed on,” Headland said. “We just started to go in that direction.”
It gets better. “It was in the design of the character, as well as knowing that we were going to introduce Darth Plagueis, who has to end up with Palpatine as his apprentice,” she continued. “Following the Rule of Two—a precept that limited the Sith to just two at any given time, a master and an apprentice—one way to keep it going is if the Stranger is the first Knight of Ren, part of a Sith-adjacent cult that we know eventually survives.”
Headland even hinted at the eventual connection by having some of John Williams’ Kylo Ren music in Michael Abels’ score for the show. “And since we never name him, you don’t know,” she said. “Does he have a first name, and then his last name is Ren? It’s a good way to nod to it without having to give away too much information.”
Of course, all the hinting in the world no longer matters because the show is done and, most likely, so is our chance to explore the character. But it does make sense. The Sith are usually few due to their evil ways, but what about other Force users that embrace the Dark Side? Wouldn’t they have someone to follow? And maybe, that was the original Knight of Ren.
You can see the images from the book in the tweet below. The book itself is out in January and can be pre-ordered here.
Here’s the page from The Art of The Acolyte book where Leslye reveals that The Stranger was supposed to be the first Knight of Ren, in HD quality. This page and others were initially previewed at Celebration Japan and I guess no one read them too carefully lol pic.twitter.com/NxZMvXfU7T
A Washington D.C. man was arrested last month for following National Guard troops around while playing “The Imperial March,” Darth Vader’s theme song in the Star Wars films. But now that man is suing, with the help of the ACLU, because he says his First and Fourth Amendment rights were violated while he engaged in peaceful protest.
Sam O’Hara, 35, was walking in the Logan Circle neighborhood of D.C. on Sept. 11 when he spotted National Guard troops patrolling the area. O’Hara started playing “The Imperial March” from his phone while walking behind them and started filming it for his TikTok account. But “in less than two minutes,” according to the lawsuit, Ohio National Guard member Sgt. Devon Beck turned around and threatened to call the local cops to “handle” him if O’Hara didn’t stop.
O’Hara didn’t stop, so that’s what Beck did. He called the Metropolitan Police Department, who came and put O’Hara in handcuffs. He remained “tightly handcuffed” for about 15-20 minutes, according to the suit.
The four MPD officers who made the arrest, Tiffany Brown, JM Campbell, Edward Reyes-Benigno, and Alfonso Lopez Martinez, are all named in the lawsuit, which was filed with help from the DC chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
O’Hara has “experienced significant anxiety around law enforcement and feels less safe in his neighborhood,” according to the suit, and the “overly tight handcuffs” reportedly left marks on his wrists. He also had pain in his arms and shoulders the next morning, according to the suit. O’Hara has had two surgeries on his left shoulder since 2023.
The suit includes some jokes about Star Wars, which was probably to be expected:
The law might have tolerated government conduct of this sort a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. But in the here and now, the First Amendment bars government officials from shutting down peaceful protests, and the Fourth Amendment (along with the District’s prohibition on false arrest) bars groundless seizures.
President Donald Trump has sent a surge of federal agents to cities that he considers to be Democratic and has seen mixed success sending National Guard troops to cities like Portland and Chicago. Judges have flip flopped on whether Trump is allowed to do that, with some finding that he can with others finding he can’t as the cases make their way up the ladder to higher courts. As of this writing, Trump has not been allowed to deploy troops to Portland and Chicago.
But there’s very little question that Trump has the ability to deploy the National Guard to Washington D.C. because it’s not a state. The president has incredible powers to do many things in D.C. that he really can’t do elsewhere. But the free speech protections of the First Amendment, as well as the protections from unreasonable search and seizure in the Fourth Amendment, still apply to the entire country—even in D.C.
Curiously, when Gizmodo went to find the videos that O’Hara has posted to TikTok in order to embed them in this post, we found that the video from Sept. 11 had been slapped with the warning: “This post may not be comfortable for some audiences. Log in to make the most of your experience.”
There’s nothing graphic about the video and it’s unclear why TikTok wouldn’t allow the video to be embedded, but the local TV news outlet WUSA9 has a video that also shows you what happened, including O’Hara’s arrest.
O’Hara hasn’t stopped filming National Guard troops around D.C. since his arrest. There are plenty of videos at his account @freedc20009.
More information about the scrapped Ben Solo movie has come to light, with writer-director Steven revealing a sad first the movie became for the Star Wars universe.
What did Steven Soderbergh say about the Ben Solo movie?
In a recent post on his Bluesky account, Soderbergh revealed that his planned movie with Adam Driver, titled The Hunt for Ben Solo, was fairly close to being done. So much so, in fact, that Soderbergh had a finished movie script for it, and that they had turned it in to be greenlit by Disney when it was rejected.
According to Soderbergh, he asked producer Kathleen Kennedy about it, and was told this is the first time in Star Wars’ history a project this close to being made was rejected.
“In the aftermath of the [Hunt for Ben Solo] situation, I asked Kathy Kennedy if LFL had ever turned in a finished movie script for greenlight to Disney and had it rejected. She said no, this was a first,” said Soderbergh.
Ever since the initial discovery of the film, more information seems to have come out by the day. According to a new report from The Playlist this week, the movie was much more than just a concept, and had even begun moving into early preparation when Disney decided against it. Jeff Sneider of The InSneider also said that Lucasfilm has no plans to revisit the character of Kylo Ren/Ben Solo currently.
In a recent interview with AP, Driver revealed that acclaimed filmmaker Steven Soderbergh tried to develop a solo Kylo Ren movie, one that would take place after The Rise of Skywalker. Despite it being “one of the coolest” scripts he’d ever read, the idea was nixed because Disney’s Bob Iger didn’t see how Ben Solo would’ve survived the events of The Rise of Skywalker, who dies at the end of the film.
Earlier this week, Adam Driver sent a disturbance through the Force when he revealed The Hunt for Ben Solo, a Star Wars film developed by himself, director Steven Soderbergh, and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns, which the actor said was backed by Lucasfilm but ultimately scrapped by Disney executives Bob Iger and Alan Bergman. However, a new report twists the lightsaber in a bit further, alleging that the movie had made significant headway into initial development before it was killed.
Playlist reports that The Hunt for Ben Solo—which would’ve been set after the events of The Rise of Skywalker and resurrected the titular character after he seemingly sacrificed himself to resurrect Rey—purportedly had received an internal green light from Lucasfilm when it was then offered to Disney executives for approval.
What that meant was that the film, allegedly developed under the codename “Quiet Leaves,” had a finalized script in place and was entering early phases of staffing and pre-production planning after Lucasfilm itself had given the studio’s approval. At that point, Disney had already purchased a “beat sheet”—a document providing a broad chronological guideline of the planned events and emotional beats of a story to guide the eventual screenplay—from Soderbergh and his wife, Jules Asner, the latter writing under the pen name Rebecca Blunt.
At that point, Burns (who had previously been involved in Star Wars on iterations of the Rogue One script before eventual Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy was brought into that project) was reportedly paid “more than any screenwriter in Lucasfilm history,” according to Playlist, to write the script.
Lucasfilm, which at this stage had not yet entered production on a new Star Wars film after the release of The Rise of Skywalker in 2019, allegedly only waited until The Hunt for Ben Solo was considered ready to begin filming before presenting it to Disney, with a “final script, budget, and proposed start date,” only for Iger and Bergman to reject it, citing confusion about the survival of the redeemed Kylo Ren.
io9 has reached out to Lucasfilm for comment on the veracity of Playlist’s report and will update this story when and if we hear from the studio.
But the report does coincide with public statements made earlier this week on Bluesky by an account believed to be Soderbergh’s. The account “Bitchuation” (a handle Soderbergh had previously used on Twitter before seemingly migrating to the rival social media platform in November 2024) stated in a series of messages on October 22, two days after Driver’s public reveal of the project, that “I did not enjoy lying about the existence of THE HUNT FOR BEN SOLO, but it really did need to remain a secret…until now!”
“Also, in the aftermath of the HFBS situation, I asked Kathy Kennedy if LFL had ever turned in a finished movie script for greenlight to Disney and had it rejected,” the account continued. “She said no, this was a first.”
Playlist further noted that the reason both Driver and Soderbergh have felt comfortable discussing The Hunt for Ben Solo this week is that, in spite of positive fan reaction to the idea, both actor and director firmly believe that the project is permanently dead, and they are no longer bound by any related disclosure agreements (no Ryan Reynolds Deadpool leak here, it seems).
Unrelated to Hunt for Ben Solo, Playlist also further touched upon a recent claim from the InSneider that director David Fincher had attempted to develop a new Star Wars film, only for it to be turned down. Contrary to that initial report, Playlist claims that Fincher’s project—supposedly set between the events of The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker—never went beyond very early conversations and concepts and didn’t gain traction with Lucasfilm, rather than breaking down over say on the final cut of the film, as the InSneider had suggested.
We’ll bring you more on Lucasfilm’s plans for the future of Star Wars—scrapped or otherwise—as we learn them.
As part of what’s becoming his soft launch into being a pop culture pundit, Rise of Skywalker actor John Boyega has weighed in on the time-honored rivalry between Star Warsand Star Trek. Though he starred in the former’s sequel trilogy, Boyega says he understands the appeal of the latter, echoing the typical refrain of most Trek fans: the importance of balancing talking and action.
Speaking at Dragon Con (thanks, Popverse), Boyega made no qualms over the fact that he, like most normal people, double-dips in loving both series. While a fandom layperson might assume Boyega would prefer Star Wars, what with his breakout role as Finn, Boyega says he’s actually more attuned to Star Trekbecause it tends to address its issues rather than brandishing a lightsaber and getting active.
“In Star Trek, they give you time to have discussions. I think there’s something Star Wars can learn from that actually,” Boyega said. “In terms of me appearing in [Star Trek], I’ve got to stay on team. I’m a lightsaber guy.”
This is the latest in a string of Boyega observations about the direction of Star Wars and what he would’ve done differently if he were in charge. So far, he’s discussed the whole “Reylo” situation, the handling of Luke’s last stand, and not making new characters OP (read: overpowered)—the type of garden variety takes that lend themselves well to hours-long YouTube retrospectives. But he’s also hit the mark on having fans reckon with the toxic facets of the fandom.
Deplorable treatment of Star Wars actors of color also reared its ugly head when Obi-Wan Kenobi star Moses Ingram became the target of fandom trolls. This led Obi-Wan Kenobi himself, Ewan McGregor, to stand in support of Ingram—a tendency many actors have, stepping in when Disney sits on its hands in situations like this with its shows and movies. Guess not everyone can be Gina Carano.
Both fandoms certainly have their fair share of dirty laundry that would call into question whether the intergalactic grass is greener on the other side. But an argument could be made that a show more predicated on talking things out and centering diversity into its very framework lends itself to having a fandom that doesn’t get pointedly weird about seeing people with different skin tones as important players in its stories.
But that’s a discussion for another day. Likely after the heat death of the universe, when Star Trek and Star Wars fans no longer fan the flames of which of their series is better.
