Star Wars: Starfighter is making franchise history with its newly updated logo. The Ryan Gosling-led movie has been etching its name into the record books on multiple fronts since it was announced at Star Wars Celebration 2025 in Japan. Its debut teaser, unveiled at D23 in August, kept its focus on just three characters, a Star Wars first. The story also takes place five years after The Rise of Skywalker, a historic move in itself, as the first Star Wars film with no legacy characters.
Lucasfilm unveiled an updated Star Wars: Starfighter logo at Disney's Entertainment Showcase at D23 in August. The new logo partially covers the iconic Star Wars wordmark, marking the first time the legendary monogram has been obscured in one of the franchise's logos. It may seem like a small detail, but it breaks a tradition that has persisted for nearly 50 years.
The design features the classic "STAR WARS" wordmark with a yellow outline, superimposed over a star-filled night sky. A silver "STARFIGHTER" title is then stretched across the middle, covering parts of the text.
This is a sharp departure from the logo Lucasfilm debuted when it announced the movie in Japan in 2025. That version featured a completely blacked-out "STAR WAR"S wordmark with a glowing "STARFIGHTER" title placed in the open space between "STAR" and "WARS." The letters never touched the main wordmark the way the new ones do.
This also isn't the first time Starfighter has experimented with its branding. Earlier this year, images of a retro-styled crew patch from the film's production surfaced online, and co-star Aaron Pierre later posted a photo of himself wearing a cap bearing the same triangular design.
The patch, with its warm red, orange, and yellow gradient lettering, drew comparisons to a triangular design legendary artist Ralph McQuarrie created while the original Star Wars was still in production.
Starfighter hits theaters on May 28, 2027, and revolves around Gosling's Kade Auberon, a cynical rogue from the wrong side of the galaxy whose fate is intertwined with the fastest starfighter ever built. Shawn Levy directs from a screenplay by Jonathan Tropper, and the filmmaker has noted the honor of releasing the film on the same weekend the original Star Wars hit theaters exactly 50 years earlier. Flynn Gray, Matt Smith, Mia Goth, and Amy Adams also star alongside Gosling and Pierre.
How Starfighter's New Logo Compares To Previous Star Wars Logos
The new Starfighter logo stands out against the franchise's past designs. In the Disney+ era, for instance, series like The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Andor, Ahsoka, The Acolyte, and Skeleton Crew all followed a similar formula.
Each show placed its subtitle above, below, or beside the Star Wars text instead of overlapping it, as Starfighter now does. Animated projects such as The Clone Wars, Rebels, The Bad Batch, and Visions experimented with beautiful color palettes and textures, but they still left the core logo fully visible.
The movies followed the same pattern. From The Empire Strikes Back through the prequel and sequel trilogies, and even standalone entries like Rogue One and Solo, the lettering appeared complete and unobstructed, with subtitles placed underneath or around it. The logo was always left untouched, sacred as George Lucas intended.
That reverence doesn't come from nowhere; the logo's origin plays a significant role in why it's so respected. The first version was created by designer Suzy Rice in 1977 for 20th Century Fox, the studio Disney would later acquire. Lucas wanted something "very fascist," designed to intimidate the audience. Visual effects artist and future director Joe Johnston later refined it into the version we know today.
After debuting alongside the iconic opening crawl, the logo became so revered that the wordmark was left unobstructed in film artwork for decades. Starfighter breaking that tradition is actually befitting, since the film itself is breaking away from previous Star Wars stories, functioning as a standalone movie.
Geraldo Amartey is a writer at The Direct. He joined the team in 2025, bringing with him four years of experience covering entertainment news, pop culture, and fan-favorite franchises for sites like YEN, Briefly and Tuko.
