The announcement came at the National Eisteddfod — Wales’s most important cultural festival — which tells you everything you need to know about how seriously Lucasfilm is treating this project. “Star Wars: A New Hope” is getting its first-ever Welsh-language dub, retitled Star Wars: Gobaith Newydd, and it will air on Welsh broadcaster S4C from Christmas Day 2026 onward, ahead of the original film’s 50th anniversary in 2027.
The partnership brings together Lucasfilm and Disney, S4C, and the Welsh Government through its Creative Wales fund — the same government body that helped attract major film and television productions to Wales in recent years. The dub was directed by Ellyn Stern and produced by Michael Kohn, director of distribution operations at Lucasfilm, who noted that previous indigenous-language Star Wars dubs — including a Navajo version released in 2013 — had succeeded not just within their communities but internationally, making the Welsh-language case an easy one to argue internally, TVBEurope confirmed.
A Cast Built From Wales’s Best
The voice cast is the story. Matthew Rhys, the Welsh actor who won an Emmy for The Americans and starred in HBO’s Perry Mason, takes on Han Solo. Rhys Ifans, familiar to international audiences from Notting Hill, Elementary, and The Amazing Spider-Man, voices Obi-Wan Kenobi. Aimee-Ffion Edwards, currently appearing in Slow Horses on Apple TV+, plays Princess Leia. Mark Lewis Jones, a Star Wars franchise veteran who appeared in The Last Jedi, voices Darth Vader. Rising Welsh actor Osian Morgan voices Luke Skywalker, per ScreenRant.
The wider cast extends across Welsh screen talent: Llyr Ifans as C-3PO, Nia Roberts as Aunt Beru, Richard Harrington as Grand Moff Tarkin, Owain Arthur as Red Leader, and Rhodri Meilir as Gold Leader, Empire confirmed.
Why This Moment, Why Welsh
The project carries specific personal weight for Lucasfilm co-president Lynwen Brennan, who was born and raised in Wales. She noted that despite Wales’s long creative relationship with the franchise — the full-size Millennium Falcon was built at Pembroke Dock in 1979 for The Empire Strikes Back, and both Willow and The Acolyte filmed there in recent years — a Welsh-language translation had never existed before, Advanced Television reported. Her hope, she said, is that Welsh speakers experience the film with the same emotional impact they’d feel watching it entirely fresh.
S4C chief executive Geraint Evans described the collaboration as perfectly aligned with the broadcaster’s broader strategy to expand its reach through high-profile cinematic content while promoting Welsh language and talent on an international platform, TVBEurope noted.
The Welsh-language version isn’t the only indigenous-language Star Wars project currently moving through Lucasfilm’s pipeline. An Ojibwe-language dub — produced in partnership with the Dakota Ojibwe Tribal Council and the University of Manitoba — has already screened across Minnesota and neighboring states, per Disney’s official UK press release. That project’s success appears to have helped make the Welsh version easier to greenlight.
Star Wars: Gobaith Newydd — Gobaith Newydd meaning A New Hope in Welsh — premieres on S4C on December 25, 2026.
