STAR WARS Brings Back Classic X-Wing Rivalries in THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU

Star Wars is gearing up for its return to theaters this May with The Mandalorian and Grogu, and while Lucasfilm is still keeping the story locked down tight, new details are starting to slip through.

What’s coming into focus is something longtime fans are going to appreciate. The franchise isn’t just pushing forward, it’s reaching back and pulling one of its most beloved Legends-era concepts into canon.

We already know Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin is tracking down remnants of the fallen Empire, which somehow leads him into conflict with the Hutts. Beyond that, the specifics are still mostly under wraps.

Jonny Coyne is confirmed to play an Imperial warlord named Janu, though even that name might not be the full story. Jon Favreau has teased that audiences will “like his name” when it’s finally revealed, which feels like a hint that there’s more going on with this character than meets the eye.

Now, here’s where things get a lot more interesting.

A newly published set of character descriptions from Odeon UK points to a major element of the film that feels ripped straight out of the old Expanded Universe playbook.

Coyne’s character isn’t just another Imperial holdout, he’s a skilled starfighter pilot and direct rival to Trapper Wolf, played by The Mandalorian producer Dave Filoni.

Here’s the official description: “In the brimstone-red corner, Jonny Coyne plays a survivor from the fall of the Galactic Empire, now leading a brutal splinter group.

“Meanwhile, in the electric-blue corner, Mandalorian and Grogu producer Dave Filoni plays the New Republic’s X-Wing ace Trapper Wolf. In this dogfight-to-end-all-dogfights, someone is going down.”

That setup instantly calls back to the legendary X-Wing novels by Michael A. Stackpole and Aaron Allston, which focused on elite pilots locked in high-stakes space battles rather than Force users clashing with lightsabers.

Those stories built intense rivalries, squad dynamics, and war stories that felt grounded in a different side of the galaxy.

Back in 2014, Disney rebranded those stories as Legends, effectively removing them from official canon. But over time, pieces of that material have slowly been reworked and reintroduced. According to Dave Filoni, that’s very much intentional.

Speaking at Star Wars Celebration 2025, Filoni explained his approach to continuity: “I deal with Star Wars history in that way–even though a lot has been shaken up over the years, there are certain pillars that I like to stick to,” he explained. This is why so much of the timeline matches up so well.

That philosophy seems to be guiding what we’re seeing here. Instead of directly adapting the X-Wing books, Lucasfilm appears to be reshaping their core ideas into something new.

The film introduces a group known as the Adelphi Rangers, led by Sigourney Weaver’s Colonel Ward, with Filoni’s Trapper Wolf among their ranks. It’s hard not to see them as a spiritual successor to Rogue Squadron and Wraith Squadron.

Those original novels stood out because they told war stories from the cockpit. They focused on strategy, camaraderie, and survival, showing how a small group of pilots could shift the balance of power in a fragile post-Return of the Jedi galaxy. If The Mandalorian and Grogu is tapping into that energy, it could bring a fresh kind of energy to the big screen.

It also lines up with where Star Wars seems to be heading overall. Space combat is clearly becoming a bigger focus again, especially with Shawn Levy developing Star Wars: Starfighter for release next year. Even though that project takes place in a different era, the emphasis on pilots and dogfights suggests a shared direction.

Between Din Djarin’s ground-level story and what looks like full-scale aerial battles unfolding above him, this movie could end up delivering the best of both worlds.

If Lucasfilm really is pulling from the DNA of those classic X-Wing stories, fans might finally get to see one of the coolest corners of Star Wars fully realized in live-action.

And if that “dogfight-to-end-all-dogfights” lives up to its promise, this could be the kind of high-speed, blaster-fueled chaos the franchise has been missing on the big screen!