Star Wars: Starfighter First Footage Details — Ryan Gosling Revealed as Kade Auberon at D23

Lucasfilm finally showed Star Wars: Starfighter in motion on Friday night. Then it kept the footage in the room.

At the Disney Entertainment Showcase at Anaheim’s Honda Center on August 14, director Shawn Levy and Ryan Gosling introduced the first footage from the standalone film — roughly a minute, according to reports from journalists in attendance. It has not been officially released online, and Lucasfilm has not announced when that footage will become public.

What did come out officially: Gosling’s character has a name. He’s Kade Auberon.

What Lucasfilm actually released

Worth separating from the reporting, because a lot of coverage is blurring the two.

Lucasfilm officially confirmed Kade Auberon’s name, published a new synopsis, revealed the Starfighter logo and shared material from the D23 presentation. StarWars.com also continues to carry the official black-and-white production image of Gosling and co-star Flynn Gray first released when production began in August 2025.

The actual D23 footage remains exclusive to the audience that saw it in the room. Everything in the breakdown below comes from journalists who attended the presentation rather than from an official public trailer.

One clarification: this was the first footage, not the first image from the movie. Lucasfilm had already released that production photo of Gosling and Gray on August 28, 2025.

Who Kade Auberon is

Lucasfilm’s synopsis is deliberately thin: Kade is described as a cynical rogue whose mysterious past throws him into a dangerous adventure across the galaxy.

Gosling filled it in slightly from the stage, saying Kade is a guy from the wrong side of the galaxy whose fate is tied to the fastest starfighter ever built.

That’s the whole confirmed picture. Lucasfilm has not said Kade is ex-Imperial, ex-Rebel, a New Republic veteran, a smuggler or Force-sensitive. Those details remain unconfirmed.

The spelling matters slightly: earlier online reports and leaks used “Cade.” Lucasfilm’s official spelling is Kade.

The jacket

One of the presentation’s most memorable details came before the footage.

Gosling walked out in a retro Mickey Mouse Club jacket — a callback to his childhood stint on The All-New Mickey Mouse Club — before Levy presented him with a Starfighter jacket featuring what D23 called an important symbol from the movie.

StarWars.com describes the design as an inverted symbol, but Lucasfilm has not publicly identified it as a Rebel Alliance emblem or explained what it means for Kade.

That makes the symbol interesting. It does not make any theory about Kade’s allegiance confirmed.

What the footage showed

This reconstruction is based on reports from journalists who were in the room, including Deadline, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and GamesRadar.

It opens on Flynn Gray’s unnamed character uncovering a small craft in a worn-down garage or hangar. Kade catches him touching it and tells him to leave it alone.

Deadline quoted Kade identifying the ship as a decommissioned G17 and calling it the fastest starfighter ever built. GamesRadar described the craft as an Imperial model. When the boy says he has never heard of it, Kade replies: There’s a reason for that.

From there, the footage moves into a montage. Reports describe Kade working on the ship, high-speed flying, water-heavy environments, large geysers erupting from the ocean, droids firing on the craft and a droid or robot assisting during takeoff.

Because the footage has not been officially released, Red Reactions is treating those scene details as reported eyewitness descriptions, not as footage we independently viewed.

What we’re not saying about the boy

Flynn Gray’s character does not have a publicly confirmed name, and Lucasfilm’s D23 materials do not explain his relationship to Kade.

There has been earlier reporting that Gray was cast as the nephew of Gosling’s character and that Amy Adams would play the boy’s mother. Lucasfilm has not officially confirmed those relationships in its current cast or D23 materials, so they should remain reported, not confirmed.

Claims that the boy is a Skywalker descendant, a Jedi-in-waiting or otherwise tied to the Force remain unconfirmed.

The rest of it

Release: May 28, 2027, in theaters. Levy noted at D23 that the film opens on the same weekend the original Star Wars opened 50 years earlier.

Setting: the film takes place roughly five years after The Rise of Skywalker. Lucasfilm calls it an all-new standalone adventure, while Levy has repeatedly described it as neither a sequel nor a prequel and said it is not about legacy characters.

That makes Starfighter the first Star Wars feature film set beyond the events of The Rise of Skywalker. It is not being presented as Episode X.

Cast: Gosling and Gray, plus Matt Smith, Mia Goth, Aaron Pierre, Amy Adams, Simon Bird, Jamael Westman and Daniel Ings. Lucasfilm has not publicly named the other characters.

Behind it: Levy directs from a script by Jonathan Tropper. Levy and Kathleen Kennedy produce, with Gosling, Dan Levine, Mary McLaglen and Josh McLaglen serving as executive producers. Production officially began in the UK on August 28, 2025, with additional location filming later taking place in the Mediterranean.

And one persistent bit of trivia worth stating carefully: Tom Cruise visited the set and operated a camera during an action sequence. Levy has said footage Cruise shot will appear in the movie. Cruise has not been announced as a member of the cast.

The bottom line

Lucasfilm has now given Ryan Gosling’s character a name, an official synopsis and a mysterious ship at the center of the story — while keeping the first footage away from the public.

For now, Kade Auberon is confirmed. The G17 and the footage details are reported from people who were in the room. Theories about his allegiance, the boy’s identity and the wider story are still just that.

The next major step is simple: an official public trailer.