News Star Wars Galaxy's Edge Disneyland opening reports/reviews

[mickEblu]

The area around the Falcon is cool, even hindered by awkward design with ramps and stairways that make it feel like it was slapped into an existing area or something. No characters, music or even anything to do in the line, though. Something went very wrong here. That boring line needs some robots or something.

Instead, there are CMs awkwardly selling SW drink bottles and yelling at people to keep the line moving if they're not buying a drink. Go set that stand up outside the line! Where are some entertaining things to look at besides the pretty guests?

Yeah with that Falcon queue they really put all their eggs in the Falcon window view and Hondo AA but it’s not nearly enough to carry it. Where are those voices talking to Hondo supposed to be coming from? I just Felt like I walked through a big empty nothing and then all of sudden they want you to feel like there’s some actual life to the place in the Hondo room? Terrible place making

 

[mickEblu]

I just got the sense when I was walking around DL on Sunday night that even casual guests don’t feel like SWL is Disneyland. You can see a certain joy in people when they are walking around the other lands emphasized by all of the music, entertainment and beautiful design of DL proper.

 

[DLR>WDW]

Maybe?

 

[BasiltheBatLord]

I really hate this new online mentality of "We have zero credible sourcing for this, but it COULD happen and if it does we get ALL the credit"

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

I just got the sense when I was walking around DL on Sunday night that even casual guests don’t feel like SWL is Disneyland. You can see a certain joy in people when they are walking around the other lands emphasized by all of the music, entertainment and beautiful design of DL proper.

It's totally lacking in the Disneylandian charm and fun. If people are really enjoying it, more power to them, but I find myself doubting it for some reason. The novelty of it being new and large wore off pretty darn quick for me.

It's kinda like going back to the new World Trade Center in NY. It's a big hip modern skyscraper attraction with a cool view from the top once more and a sensible memorial...but it's just not a fun place to visit anymore. It's too somber and weird and lacks the charm, the ugly 70s aesthetics of the two big rectangles that used to be there, the simpler times when it wasn't kind of a horrible place.

Not that DL is a horrible place. Just Galaxy Edge.

Edit: obviously that's kind of an extreme comparison. But I had similar feelings of something being "off" when I visited both places.

 

[solidyne]

Okay, seriously? Universal Studios has walk around Triceratops and a live Velociraptor show?



But I went to Star Wars Land at Disneyland and all I got was two bored stormtroopers and two shop clerks who were complaining about being scheduled to work on the 4th of July? Disneyland is not having a good summer.

Bob Chapek, call your office!

Exactly. I cannot be the only one thinking, "This should be a dewback or a bantha!"

 

[MoonRakerSCM]

I will add to my earlier review.... I know I said the queue was nice... but perhaps I was blinded for my love of porg nests...

Look at the queue for Star Tours and look at the queue for Falcon. Which would you say is better? Which conveys Star Wars more to people? Which is more entertaining? Which is more fun? Which is a more fun environment?

I'm asking questions I already have an answer to. Thinking about it, I'm amazed a 30 year old attraction is so far advanced over a brand new one...

 

[THE 1HAPPY HAUNT]

I will add to my earlier review.... I know I said the queue was nice... but perhaps I was blinded for my love of porg nests...

Look at the queue for Star Tours and look at the queue for Falcon. Which would you say is better? Which conveys Star Wars more to people? Which is more entertaining? Which is more fun? Which is a more fun environment?

I'm asking questions I already have an answer to. Thinking about it, I'm amazed a 30 year old attraction is so far advanced over a brand new one...

Plus star tours has the iconic star tours chime. what iconic sound is in the falcon queue? a hum?

 

[mandelbrot]

You forgot ROTR not being open.

I interact with people almost every day who've just experienced SW:GE. The overwhelming consensus I get is a collective "meh". That said, most of the people I talk to have no idea there's a much bigger attraction there that has yet to open. They just think what's there today is all there is. Once ROTR is open, there's an opportunity to relaunch the land since so many have no idea what's missing.

I've said it before but major attractions drive attendance surges far more than highly themed lands.

 

[TP2000]

I will add to my earlier review.... I know I said the queue was nice... but perhaps I was blinded for my love of porg nests...

Look at the queue for Star Tours and look at the queue for Falcon. Which would you say is better? Which conveys Star Wars more to people? Which is more entertaining? Which is more fun? Which is a more fun environment?

I'm asking questions I already have an answer to. Thinking about it, I'm amazed a 30 year old attraction is so far advanced over a brand new one...

It's actually 32 and a half years old, for those keeping score.

After my three rides on the Falcon a couple weeks ago, I look back fondly but I have no need to rush back and do it again. Unlike my first few rides on Racers or Indy or any other big E Ticket. The Falcon was reasonably fun, but nothing I need to wait in line again for anytime soon.

I sometimes think of the sullen Canadian teen who sat next to me in the back row on my first ride, who was too cool to even push a single fake button while I sat there like a fool pushing fake buttons as if our lives depended on it. She was so perfectly moody, so wonderfully annoyed, so easily ignoring everything and being above it all. I wish I had her ability to detach herself from the moment. I wish I could not care about a failing Star Wars Land and a messy summer at Disneyland like she does.

 

[TP2000]

Exactly. I cannot be the only one thinking, "This should be a dewback or a bantha!"

The only one who isn't thinking that is Mr. Chapek.

 

[mandelbrot]

I will add to my earlier review.... I know I said the queue was nice... but perhaps I was blinded for my love of porg nests...

Look at the queue for Star Tours and look at the queue for Falcon. Which would you say is better? Which conveys Star Wars more to people? Which is more entertaining? Which is more fun? Which is a more fun environment?

I'm asking questions I already have an answer to. Thinking about it, I'm amazed a 30 year old attraction is so far advanced over a brand new one...

That 30 year-old attraction had perfect storytelling before Disney decided technology trumped story. The (indoor) queue for Star Tours is perfect (exactly what the queue for MF:SR should have been) but Star Tours has lost every bit of cohesive story it once had. MF:SR has a story but robbing a train on some obscure SW planet doesn't seem like the experience most Star Wars fans were clamoring for. I don't know who's to blame but storytelling has definitely taken a few steps backwards over the last couple of decades.

Galaxy's Edge feels like it has a lot of story going on but there's nothing there to tell that story. This type of land REQUIRES a lot of actors as characters and a lot of kinetic energy from droids or spaceships or whatever. What's there today is lifeless, drab, and expensive. Rise of the Resistance could very well save the land but, as great as it may be, it has a lot to atone for.

 

[Curious Constance]

It's actually 32 and a half years old, for those keeping score.

After my three rides on the Falcon a couple weeks ago, I look back fondly but I have no need to rush back and do it again. Unlike my first few rides on Racers or Indy or any other big E Ticket. The Falcon was reasonably fun, but nothing I need to wait in line again for anytime soon.

I sometimes think of the sullen Canadian teen who sat next to me in the back row on my first ride, who was too cool to even push a single fake button while I sat there like a fool pushing fake buttons as if our lives depended on it. She was so perfectly moody, so wonderfully annoyed, so easily ignoring everything and being above it all. I wish I had her ability to detach herself from the moment. I wish I could not care about a failing Star Wars Land and a messy summer at Disneyland like she does.

She sounds just like my daughter!

 

[mickEblu]

I interact with people almost every day who've just experienced SW:GE. The overwhelming consensus I get is a collective "meh". That said, most of the people I talk to have no idea there's a much bigger attraction there that has yet to open. They just think what's there today is all there is. Once ROTR is open, there's an opportunity to relaunch the land since so many have no idea what's missing.

I've said it before but major attractions drive attendance surges far more than highly themed lands.

It’s just that crazy idea that people go to theme parks to have fun and not to live out some fantasy of drinking liquified fruit loops in a desert wasteland.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

Everyone complained when Dewbacks and things were added to the Star Wars Special Editions even though it was great. Now it seems infinitesimal stuff like this is exactly the type of charm that is missing from Disney's Star Wars Land. It needs a Special Edition. Beasts of burden, aliens and robots mingling, spaceships flying overhead, music etc.

Hypothetical concept art:

 

[Old Mouseketeer]

I will add to my earlier review.... I know I said the queue was nice... but perhaps I was blinded for my love of porg nests...

Look at the queue for Star Tours and look at the queue for Falcon. Which would you say is better? Which conveys Star Wars more to people? Which is more entertaining? Which is more fun? Which is a more fun environment?

I'm asking questions I already have an answer to. Thinking about it, I'm amazed a 30 year old attraction is so far advanced over a brand new one...

I have to agree up to a point. I like the Falcon queue up to Hondo. I think there could be more back story, but I like it. But it's not as interesting as FoP at Pandora. OTOH, Star Tours is crammed into an existing footprint and has seemed cramped to me since the original opening. But it has a lot of detail, including the first time 3PO was EVER a real robot! Now, the question is, does Star Tours pay off in terms of ride quality more than Falcon?

I think original Star Tours vs. original Falcon is close. Current variable 3-D Star Tours with big motion vs. original Falcon isn't close. Falcon is new and (somewhat) interactive. I think the big question is what Disney does with Falcon going forward. Do they make it truly more interactive? Do they add multiple missions? Do they add more motion? Do they fine-tune the back story, including enhancing the queue? I think these are the key questions. I like where they are starting. I'm looking forward to going again this month and enjoying repeat rides.

I have to admit, my assessment of Falcon is based on the totality of the experience and ride system. I love actually going through the Falcon interior (even with cheats) and walking into the Falcon cockpit. I am totally in awe of the ride system and the logistics of making it work. But, it's not everything I hoped for. There's a level of Disney hype on par with Indy. But I still think it's a fun ride that people will want to ride multiple times.

There are bigger issues with SW:GE overall. I love the ambiance. But I'm still processing whether it is a successful realization of the SE universe. The two times I have been there I have enjoyed it. But I recognize that Disney has made choices in dealing with potential crowding that were probably overly cautious. They're gonna make a boatload of money on this in decades to come--they could have afforded to risk overspending on more entertainment--especially when they learned that RotR wouldn't open any time soon. I know I've been slow to criticize. But as I start to gain some perspective, I see that the corporate hive mind may have assumed that the land itself would have provide the necessary "wow" factor. I don't think Walt would have made that mistake.

 

[THE 1HAPPY HAUNT]

Everyone complained when Dewbacks and things were added to the Star Wars Special Editions even though it was great. Now it seems infinitesimal stuff like this is exactly the type of charm that is missing from Disney's Star Wars Land. It needs a Special Edition. Beasts of burden, aliens and robots mingling, spaceships flying overhead, music etc.

Hypothetical concept art:

View attachment 388715

they should have built this. this actually feels like star wars because it is from star wars. this one pic has more life going on in that little town than batuu ever will. they needed to build this.

 

[wityblack]

Galaxy's Edge feels like a really high-quality country in Epcot's World Showcase. But having only one country is kinda boring.

 

[RobWDW1971]

Galaxy's Edge feels like a really high-quality country in Epcot's World Showcase. But having only one country is kinda boring.

If that country was then bombed out and deserted leaving rusted, broken droids in the planters.

 

[Old Mouseketeer]

If that country was then bombed out and deserted leaving rusted, broken droids in the planters.

You say that like it's a bad thing. But no matter how bad you think it is, it's no Damnation Alley. Rocket Rods. Superstar Limo. Light Tragic. Oh, you get the idea!