SW Sequel Trilogy lock on Galaxy's Edge is over.... Starting 5/28

[DLRExpert]

Disney+ characters Mandalorian, Grogu, Fennec, Boba Fett will start making appearances at GE.
Boba Fett and Fennec start on 5/28

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

Gosh this exciting news!!!!!

 

[Pluto468]

So exciting! I hope they will be around for a while. But what I really want them to do is turn the whole thing into Mos Eisley.....

 

[DLRExpert]

Which means Luke, Ashoka, Gideon, Cad Bane, Cara Dune and more can all show up there.

 

[Brandonius]

This is great news!! I'm waiting for the day Darth Vader and Kylo Ren can both walk around at the same time in the land. Imagine Imperial Storm Troopers offloading from the dark side ship instead of First order... oh man...

Disney supposedly took inspiration from the wizarding world for galaxy's edge. The Wizarding world lands aren't even remotely canonical! Ollivander's is literally in the middle of Hogsmeade for crying out loud. Dementors are attacking the quidditch pitch while both Draco Malfoy AND Ron are playing in the same season. There are TONS of details that aren't accurate to "the canon of Harry Potter" - but nobody cares! We just want to have a good time and see our favorite characters and be in the land we wanted to be in. If we can't walk on Tatooine, at least let us see and snap a pic with Han Solo or Darth Vader in star wars land. Almost nobody cares about the "canonical timeline" of the land - we do care about you stuffing it full of retail and charging us to ride the best ride! Just let us have a good time and see our favorite characters. Its not that complicated Mr. Chapek, even if your spreadsheets may tell you otherwise. </rant>

 

[brightlined]

Interesting note from the Parks Blog article:

"We are committed to the long history of Batuu and the collection of amazing characters who inhabit the outpost including our legacy characters and original characters and know that we will feel the same about new and future characters from the ever-expanding galaxy of Star Wars storytelling. While we as visitors may be able to experience different stories throughout Star Wars history, the characters on Batuu can not. They will remain in their specific story and timeline and won’t intersect with other characters or stories that would not be appropriate for them."

 

[Epicnemesis]

I’m all for them moving away from the sequel trilogy. I’m not a sequel trilogy hater, but they just didn’t resonate anywhere close to the original, or even the prequels did with me. There is a good story somewhere there, but it was just too disjointed with the last Jedi. It felt like someone did mad libs with the second movie.

My wife and daughter are going to flip out with grogu.

 

[auroralark]

Yes! This is awesome news! I hope Mando and Grogu show up before we go in August.

 

[1Disneylandfan]

I hope their all around for my trip in July. My eyes glazed over at the announcement of Grogu being there in the future!

 

[katyringo]

Fan girl screamed!

This is great news!

 

[StarlitNight05]

So exciting! Grogu!!!

 

[wassily]

A generation of Star Wars fans grew up with Star Wars Rebels and Clone Wars Animated Series. It's about time.

 

[Kit Jackson]

So exciting! I hope they will be around for a while. But what I really want them to do is turn the whole thing into Mos Eisley.....

This is one of the many things that infuriates me about Galaxy's Edge. If they were going to insist on setting it during the sequel trilogy, at least set it on Tatooine, and then anything that isn't exactly like the movie can be explained with, "well it's decades after the original trilogy and things have changed."

There are TONS of details that aren't accurate to "the canon of Harry Potter" - but nobody cares! We just want to have a good time and see our favorite characters and be in the land we wanted to be in. If we can't walk on Tatooine, at least let us see and snap a pic with Han Solo or Darth Vader in star wars land. Almost nobody cares about the "canonical timeline" of the land - we do care about you stuffing it full of retail and charging us to ride the best ride! Just let us have a good time and see our favorite characters. Its not that complicated Mr. Chapek, even if your spreadsheets may tell you otherwise. </rant>

I totally agree with this. The Wizarding World did an excellent job of recreating a familiar place, even if they didn't 100% of the detials correct. It still feels like the place we know and love from the Harry Potter books or movies.

Batuu is Star Wars because Disney says it is. It is a planet that almost no fan had a connection to before Disney created it for the parks. In creating Galaxy's Edge, it's like Disney totally forgot that people love taking pictures with the characters, so making it difficult/nearly impossible to take pictures with your favorite/any character was a mistake. I think deciding to set the land in a very specific moment of a specific trilogy was stupid. It severely limited what they could do, and they are now realizing that's a problem and finally starting to fix it. Now if they could just add in original trilogy characters as Force Ghosts, that would be beyond awesome.

If they insisted on creating a brand new planet, and keeping the different eras seperate, make different days different trilogies/eras. One day, its original trilogy, another day it's sequel trilogy, another day its prequel trilogy, another day it's between any of the trilogies, and it could be random so you never know who you will be interacting with. At least give the fans something familiar that we know and love.

I’m all for them moving away from the sequel trilogy. I’m not a sequel trilogy hater, but they just didn’t resonate anywhere close to the original, or even the prequels did with me. There is a good story somewhere there, but it was just too disjointed with the last Jedi. It felt like someone did mad libs with the second movie.

My wife and daughter are going to flip out with grogu.

The Last Jedi is a giant narrative mess. The Force Awakens was okay, but The Rise of Skywalker feels like it was a sequel to a movie that existed after The Last Jedi that we didn't get to see.

 

[katyringo]

I agree with others.. Disney made their own star wars planet. They could have done anything!! And they made their own rules
So dumb it made no sense!

They literally could have been like "batu is a star wars planet with no specific time or
Triology, you never know who you will see on batu! It's where star wars comes together to create a unique experience for Star Wars fans of all ages and generations!"

No one cares if one second you are waking. With young Luke and R2D2 and the next you on are rise joining the resistance. Why? Because a Star Wars fan holds all of those movies and characters in their heart and brain. The last thing I'm thinking about in batu is is what star wars characters are dead and which ones are alive lol..

Also.. Why does Disney feel so strongly about this, but we got Iron man
Alive and well in Avengers Campus.. and all the princesses walking together.. folks don't care. Timeline is suspended when you enter a Disney Park.

I agree with whoever compared it to Universal and Harry Potter. Escape from gringotts is set in the last book right? That didn't mean they set the whole entire land to the last book!

 

[CarolynFH]

Batuu is Star Wars because Disney says it is. It is a planet that almost no fan had a connection to before Disney created it for the parks. In creating Galaxy's Edge, it's like Disney totally forgot that people love taking pictures with the characters, so making it difficult/nearly impossible to take pictures with your favorite/any character was a mistake. I think deciding to set the land in a very specific moment of a specific trilogy was stupid. It severely limited what they could do, and they are now realizing that's a problem and finally starting to fix it. Now if they could just add in original trilogy characters as Force Ghosts, that would be beyond awesome.

I agree. I read the book Black Spire before GE opened, quickly recognizing that in large part it was intended to describe Batuu and orient people to it. I really enjoyed the RotR queue because I could remember the history of it from the book. But what percentage of DL and WDW visitors have ever heard of that book, much less read it? Batuu as a place is totally unfamiliar to most guests, and few have any connection to it. I think many if not most visitors want to see characters they’re familiar with from the movies, and they’re not worried about when/where “long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away” those characters belong.

 

[brightlined]

Batuu is Star Wars because Disney says it is. It is a planet that almost no fan had a connection to before Disney created it for the parks. In creating Galaxy's Edge, it's like Disney totally forgot that people love taking pictures with the characters, so making it difficult/nearly impossible to take pictures with your favorite/any character was a mistake. I think deciding to set the land in a very specific moment of a specific trilogy was stupid. It severely limited what they could do, and they are now realizing that's a problem and finally starting to fix it. Now if they could just add in original trilogy characters as Force Ghosts, that would be beyond awesome.

The problem is that Batuu was entirely designed by Imagineering to be a unique, immersive experience in a specific time and place - a chance to visit a real Star Wars place as if it were real. It was an incredible idea, and I love that they went for it, but I don't think it's working anywhere near how hoped it would.

And you could tell that right away. Anyone who invested in the story, interacted with CMs as if they were themselves in the universe, maybe even invested in learning Aurebesh, saw a tremendous benefit. But that was probably 1% of the people visiting the land.

Over time, it became obvious that fewer and fewer day-to-day CMs were investing in the story because there was no need for them to.

I think, right now, you're seeing the tug of war between Experiences and Imagineering. I doubt Imagineering is willing to let go of that project - especially with things like Galactic Starcruiser at WDW built on it. (That might be why this is DLR-only for now.)

But I agree with everyone else - Batuu doesn't need to be 100% immersive or locked to a specific time for it to be amazing. They wouldn't even need to reconfigure ROTR or MF:SR to move Batuu to a "timeless" era. Once you enter the door of whatever, you enter that time period. (The only major issue is Kylo Ren's Tie-Fighter and the First Order stuff in that area.)

They have to know by now that most of the upcoming Star Wars media is either pre- or post-OT. I have a feeling that these meetups will be popular enough that Experiences will win out, and Imagineering will have to do something.

 

[Kit Jackson]

@brightlined-Can you explain the difference between Experiences and Imagineering? I thought that Imagineering designed/built the whatever and then maintained it, but it seems from what you are saying that I may be wrong. I'd love to hear more about this from you or someone else who is more familiar with this than I am.

 

[brightlined]

@brightlined-Can you explain the difference between Experiences and Imagineering? I thought that Imagineering designed/built the whatever and then maintained it, but it seems from what you are saying that I may be wrong. I'd love to hear more about this from you or someone else who is more familiar with this than I am.

Speaking a little bit as a layperson, too:

Imagineering designs things, Operations runs them, Experiences is kind of everything else in the park: shows, meet and greets, the general vibe.

I don't know the specifics of Galaxy's Edge - it's an Imagineering project, but also kind of a show in and of itself, which probably falls to Experiences in some way (if I'm even close to understanding). But it's always felt like it's Imagineering's baby, especially given how unique it is as a project.

I'm totally speculating here, but it's hard not to imagine that Experiences would like to do more things like this - in the land and not just over in Launch Bay (if/when it's open). But I'd also bet that Imagineering doesn't want to water down their original intent. My guess is that Imagineering still has the lay of the land here, but if this is popular (and I think that's likely), I think it'll be harder for them to maintain the purity of the original project.

I'm totally mouthing off here, though.

Anything that changes at Galaxy's Edge would need the funding to do it, and this kind of thing would be way more cost-effective than something more drastic.

 

[Mike_M]

I have to admit that I’m a bit on the fence with this.

I’m a huge Star Wars fan, and the original movies, along with the current shows are my favorite era of the saga.

However…

One thing that I loved about SW:GE was how it wasn’t a ‘greatest hits’ land, and tried to tell a cohesive narrative across the whole land. It was its own story, independent of any existing story with the exception of using the characters of the sequel trilogy. It felt fresh and not just rehashing a story or film everyone has already seen. It was Disney storytelling at its best (for me at least).

What I wish they would do is allow Tomorrowland to be the home of Star Wars’ greatest hits. It already has Star Tours which covers all eras, has hosted the Jedi Academy interactive experience, Hyperapace Mountain, and the OT Stormtroopers on patrol. IMO, it’s the perfect place to have introduced fan favorite characters and even perhaps added some more Star Wars theming or attractions to the land to cater to the more popular eras of Star Wars.

I’m probably in the minority here so I won’t complain (much lol). I’ll probably get over it with time, it’s just a shame to see WDI give up on such a unique and creative experience.

 

[starlite_]

So many folks saying they should have done Tatooine instead of Batuu... I'll be honest, it looks the same to me. Just less sand.