Del Ray BooksStarfighter, Shawn Levy’s upcoming Star Wars movie, has pushed the franchise further than ever before. Ryan Gosling stars as a pilot who takes on a young ward, not unlike many other Star Wars stories, but it takes place after The Rise of Skywalker, which is the farthest the timeline has advanced. As the movie’s cast rounds out, fans are speculating that it could bring in some forgotten faces, as it doesn’t have any obvious ties to the series’ broader narrative. The latest addition to the Starfighter cast is a well-known actress, and some onlookers think she could be playing a character who’d been relegated to the depths of the non-canon Legends timeline, but is still popular among hardcore and old-school fans.Amy Adams might bring Force powers to Starfighter. | Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc/Getty ImagesIn August, Variety reported that Amy Adams joined the Starfighter cast. Fans have since theorized that she could be playing Mara Jade, Luke Skywalker’s wife and mother to his son, Ben. The primary evidence is straightforward enough: Mara Jade is known for her red hair, and Amy Adams has red hair. But the fan-casting just got a boost from leaker John Rocha, who claims that, like Mara Jade, Adams’ character will be Force-sensitive.In the old Legends books, Mara Jade was introduced as an assassin for Emperor Palpatine, and continued to work for the Sith even after the Empire’s collapse. But after years of encounters with Luke Skywalker, she left her evil ways behind and joined the New Jedi Order, eventually falling in love with Luke along the way.While no longer canonical, Mara Jade has always been a fan-favorite. | Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty ImagesWhile a popular character, Disney’s decision to wipe the canon slate clean in 2014 relegated Mara Jade to the Legends timeline, and she was rarely mentioned again. While the prospect of Jade re-entering canon is exciting, this theory has some pretty glaring flaws. Mara Jade was around the same age as Luke Skywalker, but Amy Adams is much younger than Mark Hamill. Maybe Jade never hooked up with Luke in this timeline, but if they did have a romance, it was a May-December one. A good case could be made for not including Mara Jade at all. She’s become the poster child for Legends, and cramming her in would make all that old material matter even less than it already does. If Amy Adams is, in fact, playing a ginger Force-user, maybe the best move is for her character to be inspired by Mara Jade, someone who can ring true to Legends fans without complicating canon further. Her old stories aren’t going anywhere, but maybe it’s time for some new heroes to take the stage.Star Wars: Starfighter premieres in theaters on May 28, 2027.