The ‘Rogue One’ Screenwriter Is Working on a Reboot of ’80s Favorite ‘The Last Starfighter’

“Greetings, Starfighter.”

Patrick Carone

Apr 6, 2018

If you’re anything like us (that is, old), at one point in your life you owned a well-worn VHS tape—perhaps even taped off cable—of The Last Starfighter. The 1984 sci-fi adventure about a teen from the wrong side of the trailer park who gets called up to space to fight in an intergalactic war because he was good at a video game tapped into pretty much every kid’s wildest fantasy.

Now it seems a reboot is on the way thanks to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story screenwriter Gary Whitta, considering two posts he recently dropped on Twitter.

Okay, probably shouldn’t show you this so early but here’s a little something I’ve been tinkering on with my co-writer Jonathan Betuel. You might recognize the ships. Thanks to the amazing Matt Allsopp (lead concept artist on ROGUE ONE) for creating these images for us. pic.twitter.com/CIobLYYRHk

— Gary Whitta (inactive) (@garywhitta) April 4, 2018

Yup, sure looks like Alex’s ship from The Last Starfighter.

Okay, back to work… might have a bit more for you later 🙂 pic.twitter.com/mYeLqHUvrb

— Gary Whitta (inactive) (@garywhitta) April 4, 2018

Ah, well, there you go! EW has more info on the aftermath of the tweets:

Later in the day, i09’s James Whitbrook asked Whitta a few questions about the project. Whitta confirmed that the project was still in the early stages, but that “we’ve had a lot of talks with Universal.” Remaking The Last Starfighter has been a difficult prospect in the past because Betuel owns a significant portion of the film rights and hasn’t been interested in a remake, but together he and Whitta “have a fully developed story that is a combination of reboot and sequel that we both think honors the legacy of the original film while passing the torch to a new generation,” according to Whitta. Read the full Q&A here.

Considering just about every movie, TV show, and beverage from the ’80s and ’90s is being remade or rebooted, we’re really not surprised. But as far as projects Hollywood is going to pick, they could do far worse.