It never got a sequel but The Last Starfighter fans have waiting over 40 years for the story to continue.
Its ending practically dared Hollywood to launch a second mission with Alex Rogan rebuilding the Star League and hunting down Xur across the galaxy – while likely also dealing with other more grounded issues on Earth.
But while fans have quietly kept the dream alive, the sequel has remained stuck in the same place for decades: talked about, teased, and never quite real.
Lance Guest (aka the titular hero, Alex Rogan) joined the Rewind Classic Movies podcast to talk about the legacy of the 1984 sci-fi favourite, and when the topic of a follow-up came up, his enthusiasm was immediate.
“I guess the question that people want me to ask is, would you go back?,” said GB.
“Oh, yeah, of course. Oh, yeah, why not?,” said Lance.
Why It’s Exciting – Part One
It’s not just that he would come back that’s exciting, it’s how instinctive the answer feels, like returning to this world still makes perfect sense to him.
What makes it even more fascinating is that Guest isn’t doing the usual legacy-sequel tease. In fact, he’s upfront about how little he knows about any behind-the-scenes progress.
“What do I know? I don’t know anything … It’s not like we all get together and go, here, I have this idea. You know, that’s not what’s going on.”
In 2021, Rogue One writer Gary Whitta shared concept art by Matt Allsopp (who also worked on Rogue One) and new music by Chris Tilton and original composer Craig Safan on YouTube. He’s been working on a follow-up since 2018, with original writer Jonathan Betuel.
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It’s Already Happening. Sort of.
Last Starfighter 2 isn’t just a fan dream, it’s a real project, and it’s not running purely on nostalgia fumes. It depends on the unglamorous basics: the rights, the script, and someone with the power to get it made. And it sounds like Whitta is passionate about it. The same way Lance is. He still remembers original lines and enjoys talking about the movie and telling old behind the scenes stories.
Our Starfighter does offer one concrete detail that matters. He points to the property’s status, and where the sequel potential really sits.
“I know that John (Betuel) has the rights to it, which, you know, he really fought a long time to get … And he’s working on the script … It’s up to him to make the script and present it to the people who are going to make the movie.”
The most telling moment might be how little Guest seems to care about practical obstacles. In recent years he’s struggled to talk for decent periods due to issue with his vocal chords. He kindly ran over the agreed time when talking to GB and AJ on the podcast and his enthusiasm meant it wouldn’t stop him returning.
“Even if my voice was bad, I’d still do it, you know,” he said.
A sequel still isn’t confirmed. But with Alex Rogan ready to fly again, The Last Starfighter finally feels one step closer to what it was always setting up.
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Why It’s Exciting – Part Two
Inspired by the conversation and 40 years of love for the movie, we here at Rewind Classic Movies decided to do something we don’t often do, and are cautious about. We used AI. Now, let’s be clear. We generally are not super fans of AI and understand concerns about it. We hate seeing so much of it online, especially when used to deceive or just get likes or views. So we don’t do it lightly. But we are passioante about this film being made.
So we took original scenes of the movie, photos of costumes, screengrabs from the podcast interview with Lance, a scene idea from Matt Allsopp’s art and used them to create a single shot of an older Alex Rogan returning to a trailer park with a smoking blaster. Then combined it with a new piece of music from Chris Tilton and Craig Safan, one word of dialogue from the OG movie with a little tweak and the official pitch title card of The Last Starfighters. Plural.
It made us emotional. Perhaps even shed a tear.
Then we put it online.
And in less than 24 hours it’s had over 50,000 views, thousands of likes and hundreds of comments. All of those comments (bar, perhaps, two) were not just in favour of a sequel. They were passionate about it. This little clip stirred emotions in people who loved this as a kid and are now wanting it to continue more than ever. For some, like us, our hero Alex Rogan is now at the other end of his Starfighting. And we want to know what’s happened since. And what happened next. How is Mags? Louis? What happened to Grig? To Xur? To the Star League?
Please let us find out soon. This is our chance for our Luke Skywalker to have a heroic next chapter in a way the boy from Tatooine didn’t quite get.
The teaser clip is at the top of this article but you can also see it here: https://youtu.be/gV6yeCpuvFs
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