By 
Let’s be honest, Star Wars could use a break right now. The franchise has struggled since 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, and the involvement of a big name star could only help restore some prestige to the brand. Sure, the upcoming film Star Wars: Starfighter does have a marquee name in star Ryan Gosling, and director Shawn Levy has credits on hits like Stranger Things and Deadpool & Wolverine, but even they pale in comparison to Tom Cruise. So it’s a good thing that Tom Cruise decided to get involved in the shooting of Starfighter… it’s too bad he’s just behind the camera.
In a profile for the New York Times, Levy revealed that Cruise came to visit the Starfighter set and, in typical Tom Cruise fashion, decided to shoot a scene. “Last week Steven Spielberg was here. And now Tom Cruise is wielding a camera, ruining his very nice shoes,” Levy said of the many visitors who came to his production. The profile then goes on to describe Cruise wanting to watch Levy shoot a scene involving a lightsaber fight in a small body of water. Levy “suggested the star jump on one of the cameras. He’d meant it as a joke,” the profile explains; “But there was Cruise, wading into the muddy pond, holding the camera like a pro.”
So while Tom Cruise won’t actually appear in Starfighter, the buzz can only help the production. Where the next Star Wars movie The Mandalorian and Grogu, and many of the shows for Disney+, tend to take place around safer material such as the original trilogy and the (now-reclaimed) prequel trilogy, Starfighter will follow the events of the disastrous Rise of Skywalker. Set five years after that film’s ending, the movie follows Gosling’s pilot on a dangerous mission crucial for the rebuilding of society after the fall of the First Order. Along the way, he’ll cross paths with a new villain played by Matt Smith.
That sparse plot description gives us just enough to be hopeful but not enough to be confident. One of the major problems with The Rise of Skywalker was its refusal to let the franchise grow past the Skywalker family, explicitly reversing The Last Jedi‘s attempts to make Rey a normal person. Starfighter sounded like it might harken back to the World War II fighter pilot movies that were such a huge inspiration for George Lucas when making the first Star Wars in 1977. Further, it would focus on a normal guy on a mission, not a Skywalker scion or a member of the Jedi Order.
With rumors that Daisy Ridley would reprise her role as Rey, we already figured that Starfighter wasn’t going to stray too far from the Skywalkers. And the news that there’s going to be a lightsaber battle only solidifies the fact that Starfighter won’t go entirely into new territory with dog fights and skyjinks.
Will that be enough to get people excited about Star Wars again? It’s too soon to tell, but Tom Cruise lending some of his star power—even if just to shoot a scene—can only help.
Star Wars: Starfighter arrives in theaters on May 28, 2027.
The post Tom Cruise Shot a Lightsaber Scene for Star Wars: Starfighter appeared first on Den of Geek.
