News Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge - Historical Construction/Impressions

SSG

Well-Known Member
The new MiceChat update also shows a new cabin going up on TSI.

cabin.jpg
 

DDLand

Well-Known Member
In my professional life, I'm more on the civil/transit side, but my education background is almost entirely structural engineering, taught within the framework of California's seismic requirements. I'm even sitting about 6' from a real live structural engineer at this very moment!

That said, I agree with everything @flynnibus has said: the legs should be steel to deal with the tall unbraced load (essentially creating a moment frame out of the 4 legs/columns), but there's really no clear reason that the body/head structures should be so solidly built. It would be fine to construct it out of wood or smaller steel members, and this would help reduce the loads that need to be supported so high up in the air.

From the joints and connections we've seen in construction photos and videos, these look like they will be entirely stationary (which is in line with Disney's policy of removing overhead moving set pieces, following DLP's Big Thunder incident), meaning they could essentially be made from paper mache and would be just fine. If there's no live load being applied to them from movement, and minimal dead loads from the structure itself, the structure can be surprisingly lightweight. it's a small world used this very approach for a fast & cheap build before the World's Fair, but those set pieces and props are doing fine 50+ years later.

The only potential logic I can think of is that WDI has been under fire recently for having too much overhead cost. By over-designing elements of projects with massive budgets like this, it helps them hide their high costs as being relatively smaller in comparison to the construction cost, even if that construction is unnecessary. When vertical construction began, I commented that the cross-bracing was massive for a warehouse-type building, which would seem to follow the general idea of this whole thing being incredibly over-designed (for whatever reason). Obviously I'm not running any calculations, nor have I even seen the structure in person, but from my position there seems to be something going on that we don't know about

EDIT: I know that "value engineering" gets a (mistakenly) bad reputation around these parts as being an excuse to cut show elements, but that's typically something that comes in the budgeting phase of a project. In fact, this is a perfect example of where value engineering could and should be applied, reducing the construction costs and structural loads, while still providing the exact same end product to guests, which in turn frees up more money to be spent elsewhere. It really makes me wonder what's going on with this project...
I'm inclined to think that these AT-ATs will be more involved than what meets the eye. While clearly the legs are stationary, the head could actually be remarkably complex. An AT-AT head has four weapons mounted to it. Two under the cockpit and two on either side of the pilot. AT-AT's weapons are extremely powerful, and as a result recoil. That quick pulse after each firing is a quintisential part of their look and feel. Additionally the side mounted weapons are equipped with a greater freedom of movement, being built onto a rotating joint that moves vertically to the ground. This gives AT-ATs greater flexibility for both close range ground targets and aerial targets.

These particular features (recoil and rotating joint) can be seen clearly in this quick compilation of AT-ATs from Hoth:


I suspect in Disney's obsessive focus to detail, these characteristics won't go unnoticed. I'm guessing many Star Wars nerds who know Episode 5 by heart are working on this!

So considering the idea these heads will be supporting 4 constantly recoiling and possibly pivoting canons with electrical for lights and simulated lasers the overbuilt head becomes more reasonable.

Now obviously this is conjecture, but with this attraction I'm betting on more realism. Static AT-ATs wouldn't fit the bill.
 
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Old Mouseketeer

Well-Known Member
This may be the first time I'm able to understand what I'm looking at besides the trees being added to ROA!



Which is probably why I'm going to end up being wrong. Watch it end up being some kind of fancy churro cart or something. :hilarious:

Actually, no. Based on the most recent overhead photo this mass of concrete and toothpicks lines up with the rockwork adjoining the new Indian Village. I think this is a good guess (although up until now I was totally thrown off by the telephoto lens effect).
 

TP2000

Well-Known Member
Back at it again!



Well, the AT-AT building just leaped up another 20+ feet taller. This building is going to be the biggest at Disneyland by leaps and bounds; height, width, depth, scale, etc.

Also, at the 6:00 mark we get really good shots of the Indian Village. Am I wrong in thinking the "room" being built into the rockwork might be for the re-staged scene where the Indian Shaman tells his stories to the tribe? Or as the guys who guide the Canoes tell you, he's telling "The story of how the churro came to his people".

e783b443ec38276b4cbaaeac0969b82f.jpg
 

Curious Constance

Well-Known Member
The 6 point mark of that video where we're seeing the village, are we seeing the back of it, and the river/boats will be traveling in front of it on the other side we can't see?
 
D

Deleted member 107043

The 6 point mark of that video where we're seeing the village, are we seeing the back of it, and the river/boats will be traveling in front of it on the other side we can't see?

Yes, I think so. I'm actually finding harder to get my bearings now that there are so many trees. It took me a moment to realize that I was looking at the Fantasmic storage building. It's all changed rather suddenly.
 

FerretAfros

Well-Known Member
A good something or a bad something?
Not necessarily bad, just expensive. It would be sort of like buying an industrial dish washer for your home kitchen. Sure, it will get the job done, but it's really not the most effective use of your money

Similarly, along Big Thunder Trail they've been doing a lot of sculpted concrete work to look like wood:
i-7MkStLJ-O.png

True, concrete has a longer lifespan than wood, but is it worth it? Aged-look wood would likely last 20+ years before needing to be replaced, and would be relatively cheap and easy to remove and replace. Sculpted concrete is significantly more expensive to build, and will likely need to be repainted more frequently than wood would need to be replaced. Additionally, replacing the wood is a fairly quick and simple task that could be completed by nearly any contractor, while repainting the concrete will require high-end faux finish painters. You could probably replace all the wood 3 or 4 times (effectively 70-100 years of maintenance) before you approach the startup price of making it out of concrete and the initial paint job

And to what purpose? Sure, it looks like the sculptors and painters have done an incredible job, but in a land that's full of "real" aged wood, it just doesn't quite match its surroundings; this is an issue in WDW's new Fantasyland project, where they also used a ton of sculpted concrete but the uncanny valley remains. Why not just make the dilapidated wood shack and timber retaining wall out of wood? I'm not an accountant, but it just doesn't make sense to me for either the initial construction or lifecycle costs

This is what value engineering is all about. And they don't seem to be applying any of those common sense principles to this project
I'm inclined to think that these AT-ATs will be more involved than what meets the eye. While clearly the legs are stationary, the head could actually be remarkably complex. An AT-AT head has four weapons mounted to it. Two under the cockpit and two on either side of the pilot. AT-AT's weapons are extremely powerful, and as a result recoil. That quick pulse after each firing is a quintisential part of their look and feel. Additionally the side mounted weapons are equipped with a greater freedom of movement, being built onto a rotating joint that moves vertically to the ground. This gives AT-ATs greater flexibility for both close range ground targets and aerial targets.

These particular features (recoil and rotating joint) can be seen clearly in this quick compilation of AT-ATs from Hoth:


I suspect in Disney's obsessive focus to detail, these characteristics won't go unnoticed. I'm guessing many Star Wars nerds who know Episode 5 by heart are working on this!

So considering the idea these heads will be supporting 4 constantly recoiling and possibly pivoting canons with electrical for lights and simulated lasers the overbuilt head becomes more reasonable.

Now obviously this is conjecture, but with this attraction I'm betting on more realism. Static AT-ATs wouldn't fit the bill.

That's an interesting theory, and probably partially correct. If they fire, I imagine they would have some movement on the guns, to make them as realistic as possible

But there's still seemingly no reason why they couldn't build a heavy-duty framework that attaches the moving pieces to the tall legs, and attach a lighter superstructure for the aesthetic-only elements. That approach would be somewhat similar to the approach Disney uses for most buildings, which are framed out of steel, and then have wood additions for façade elements like rooflines, cupolas, and widows. There's still plenty of strength for the functional elements, but the non-functional items aren't overbuilt

The only logic I can think of is that the project was given a massive budget, and WDI feels they need to spend every cent of it, regardless of whether there might be a more affordable option. Whether this is to hide WDI's own huge costs relative to the overall project cost, or to ensure that large budgets are approved for future projects (a frequent problem with publically-funded operations like snow removal), or some other reason, I just don't know
Well, the AT-AT building just leaped up another 20+ feet taller. This building is going to be the biggest at Disneyland by leaps and bounds; height, width, depth, scale, etc.
I read somewhere recently that the building will have the highest rockwork in DLR, so presumably part of it will be taller than the Matterhorn. Similar to the Cadillac Range in Carsland, I expect that it will mostly be mid-height with occasional spires going higher, but it will be quite large regardless. At least from what we can see so far, it looks like the 3rd level won't be incorporated into the ride space, so it is likely all for the façade
Also, at the 6:00 mark we get really good shots of the Indian Village. Am I wrong in thinking the "room" being built into the rockwork might be for the re-staged scene where the Indian Shaman tells his stories to the tribe? Or as the guys who guide the Canoes tell you, he's telling "The story of how the churro came to his people".

e783b443ec38276b4cbaaeac0969b82f.jpg
It looks like that area will be 'outside' the railroad and roughly the same elevation as the tracks. Considering that anything up there wouldn't be visible from the canoes, the lower deck(s?) of the Twain, or any of the inward-facing railroad carriages, I doubt it is any sort of significant show element

My guess is that it will be the top of a waterfall that is used to hide the river entrance to the Fantasmic! storage area, similar to the Little Mermaid waterfall/storage area on Storybookland (though hopefully more convincing). The new concrete structure will probably be a pump room (pulling double duty as secondary/emergency egress for the storage bunker below), with the new rockwork forming the waterfall. According to ROA's lore the headwaters are under the treehouse on TSI, but this may become the highest point of water on the updated river
 

Curious Constance

Well-Known Member
Thought this was kind of interesting. Here is a direct quote from disneygeek.com explaining what's going on in this pic....

"They were using it to move dirt from the Star Wars side to the river side. A front end loader was dumping dirt into the hopper on the left and it would travel along the belts through the trees."

IMG_4212.jpg
 

The Mur

Well-Known Member
ok, so the angles are still tough but here is what I am thinking - both of the AT-AT's are "facing" a core in the building that is open and over a smaller concrete pit. I am thinking that is where one of the elevator/lifts will be and that would mean we might rise in our vehicle up while facing the AT-ATs.
 

Curious Constance

Well-Known Member
I saw that in one of the videos posted earlier and wondered what it's for. There'll be a passage nearby so could it be for theming purposes to hide the backside of Pooh?
Good idea. I was thinking it would be hiding Star Wars land in Critter County, but forgot there is an equal need for hiding Critter Country from Star Wars areas.
 
D

Deleted member 107043

Train trestle on the right. I couldn't be more confused about the placement of everything. The train seems really high to me.

IMG_4297.jpg

Yeah, and from that angle it's difficult to tell if what we're calling the Native American Village on the right is in front of the bridge, aligned with it, or behind it. I guess if you consider that the bridge marks the Frontierland entrance to SW Land it would be reasonable to assume that those forms are along the ROA shoreline as it bends southward and the DRR continues heading east over the bridge towards Fantasyland.
 

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