Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance

Movielover

Well-Known Member
The area around the x-Wing doesn’t feel particularly special.... what’s that area supposed to be. The stormtroopers landed here and redecorated?

The resistance area is even worse.... “let’s just plant lots of trees and put up a few plastic airplanes.... that’ll work

And this right here just proves that you have no idea what you are talking about. The X-wing is the Resistance area that has been built and hidden in a forested area similar to the base they have in Rise of Skywalker. The First Order Tie area is clearly a outpost set up to allow a foothold for the First Order to conduct policing of the village. Clearly taking influence from how the Empire was set up in Mos Eisley.
 

Mike S

Well-Known Member
Yeah, that's what I said in my original post. Setting it on a new planet in the ST timeline could easily be the better long-term strategy (although I think it would have been better to just make it a Star Wars land in general and not bother with specific timelines).

My point about the OT was only a specific response to the lower than expected opening crowds. Not having Rise of the Resistance was obviously a major part of it too, but I'm pretty sure it would have been packed if those super hardcore SW fans would have had the chance to go inside the Mos Eisley cantina or some other similar location.
My thoughts as well as time has progressed. Everything should’ve been there then everyone could be happy with something. There should’ve been 3 attractions for each of the Trilogies. Rise of the Rebellion would’ve been the OT ride as it’s the originator of everything and of course it’s the Trilogy where pretty much everyone is in agreement on as being “good.” The Falcon could remain as it currently is with maybe some changes to involve Rey and the like and for the Prequels maybe Pod Racing, or something. The areas directly around each major attraction could be clearly set in their Trilogy but the town in the center could be made to be almost neutral. Little things here and there making references but nothing too direct and specific characters would mostly stick to their timeline areas and not interact in any fashion. You won’t catch a (young) Clone Trooper near RotR or a Stormtrooper near Pod Racing for example.
 

No Name

Well-Known Member
The land was supposed to be very successful and very profitable, so of course they’d want those benefits on both coasts. Also, they built largely identical lands to save on development costs. Also, they used the new trilogy for synergistic purposes, which was perhaps a mistake, but not the death of the land.

Pandora uses no specific characters or settings from the movie and it’s been very successful. Disney’s theme park success isn’t founded on recognizability. I think the majority of blame for Galaxy’s Edge falls squarely on the imagineers. For a billion dollars, they could’ve made an absolutely stellar land regardless of characters and whatnot present. Also, for a billion dollars, they shouldn’t be relying on high ops costs.

But alas, since DHS can’t really afford a huge increase in attendance due to some poor decisions throughout this whole process, it’s a good thing the land hasn’t increased attendance as much as perhaps expected. It seems to be fairly profitable per guest which is a good thing.
 

NoFunInBand

Active Member
Pandora uses no specific characters or settings from the movie and it’s been very successful
Technically it does have a setting, it's just that no one cares about Avatar enough to realize or understand it lol. They obviously nailed the land though, maybe it's actually beneficial that it isn't a property that is deeply sentimental in completely different ways to a whole lot of people.

Just as someone who is way more of a Star Wars fan than a parks person (really only signed up here for advice on riding RotR) I'll weigh in a bit on the OT vs ST Galaxy's Edge debate: I think they'd be absolutely crazy to think about updating the land to OT and expect some kind of legion of fanboys to suddenly show up. It's really not that people don't want to go to Galaxy's Edge, it's way more that there is a huge price barrier to making a Disney trip and that a lot of us die-hard Star Wars nerds just aren't parks people. Visualize an extreme Star Wars nerd in your head right now and tell me that you could convince that guy to spend thousands of dollars to stand around in 90-degree weather in huge crowds so that he can talk to a brown-haired cast member who will say "I'm Han Solo and I'm the pilot of the Millennium Falcon."

I'll add something controversial: That die-hard Star Wars extremist is probably far more interested in the live-action and sequel-era debut of Hondo Ohnaka, a character spanning the two Dave Filoni animated series, than if they got Harrison Ford to record a pre-show spiel and on-ride dialogue. General Star Wars fans have no idea who Hondo is and would prefer Han Solo absolutely, but you can't tell me that Disney needs to appeal more to the die-hards by dumping a Clone Wars and Rebels favorite lol. (Among die-hards the Filoni animated series are about as sacred as the original trilogy, FYI, and boy are they sensitive to any perceived slight towards the shows.)

So where are the Star Wars fanboys? I would argue that they've been to Galaxy's Edge, and probably really enjoyed it. I can tell you that the Savi's lightsabers are extremely popular, hitting the perfect price and quality point that is above children's toy but below the thousand-dollar movie replicas. (If SW Celebration still happens in August those things are going to be everywhere.) They probably loved Rise because it is an incredible attraction. And I know people on here trash Smuggler's Run, but I do read comments from Star Wars fans all the time still that they break down into tears when they see the life-size Falcon and get to hang out in the holding area. The droid-building and cantina are fine. From what I can tell the food and merchandise in the marketplace area are the weak spots. And idk what happened with the blue milk but they've gotta re-do that lol.

To be quite honest this board is the only place where I see people not thrilled with Galaxy's Edge. Star Wars fans seem to really have fun with it, I just don't know what to tell people on here. I don't know what the answer is to underwhelming company numbers, other than perhaps Disney overestimated the number of people who will throw thousands of dollars on Star Wars merchandise and a vacation vs the general audience that will say "oh cool Star Wars is on" which is really how Star Wars is a billion dollar per movie franchise. And those people aren't going to drop thousands of dollars that they wouldn't otherwise have to meet a cast member claiming to be Luke Skywalker either. Just my opinion.
 

No Name

Well-Known Member
Technically it does have a setting, it's just that no one cares about Avatar enough to realize or understand it lol. They obviously nailed the land though, maybe it's actually beneficial that it isn't a property that is deeply sentimental in completely different ways to a whole lot of people.

Just as someone who is way more of a Star Wars fan than a parks person (really only signed up here for advice on riding RotR) I'll weigh in a bit on the OT vs ST Galaxy's Edge debate: I think they'd be absolutely crazy to think about updating the land to OT and expect some kind of legion of fanboys to suddenly show up. It's really not that people don't want to go to Galaxy's Edge, it's way more that there is a huge price barrier to making a Disney trip and that a lot of us die-hard Star Wars nerds just aren't parks people. Visualize an extreme Star Wars nerd in your head right now and tell me that you could convince that guy to spend thousands of dollars to stand around in 90-degree weather in huge crowds so that he can talk to a brown-haired cast member who will say "I'm Han Solo and I'm the pilot of the Millennium Falcon."

I'll add something controversial: That die-hard Star Wars extremist is probably far more interested in the live-action and sequel-era debut of Hondo Ohnaka, a character spanning the two Dave Filoni animated series, than if they got Harrison Ford to record a pre-show spiel and on-ride dialogue. General Star Wars fans have no idea who Hondo is and would prefer Han Solo absolutely, but you can't tell me that Disney needs to appeal more to the die-hards by dumping a Clone Wars and Rebels favorite lol. (Among die-hards the Filoni animated series are about as sacred as the original trilogy, FYI, and boy are they sensitive to any perceived slight towards the shows.)

So where are the Star Wars fanboys? I would argue that they've been to Galaxy's Edge, and probably really enjoyed it. I can tell you that the Savi's lightsabers are extremely popular, hitting the perfect price and quality point that is above children's toy but below the thousand-dollar movie replicas. (If SW Celebration still happens in August those things are going to be everywhere.) They probably loved Rise because it is an incredible attraction. And I know people on here trash Smuggler's Run, but I do read comments from Star Wars fans all the time still that they break down into tears when they see the life-size Falcon and get to hang out in the holding area. The droid-building and cantina are fine. From what I can tell the food and merchandise in the marketplace area are the weak spots. And idk what happened with the blue milk but they've gotta re-do that lol.

To be quite honest this board is the only place where I see people not thrilled with Galaxy's Edge. Star Wars fans seem to really have fun with it, I just don't know what to tell people on here. I don't know what the answer is to underwhelming company numbers, other than perhaps Disney overestimated the number of people who will throw thousands of dollars on Star Wars merchandise and a vacation vs the general audience that will say "oh cool Star Wars is on" which is really how Star Wars is a billion dollar per movie franchise. And those people aren't going to drop thousands of dollars that they wouldn't otherwise have to meet a cast member claiming to be Luke Skywalker either. Just my opinion.

On the first point, Pandora in Animal Kingdom has elements recognizable from the movie (like floating mountains, banshees, Navi), but the specific place, the Valley of Moara, is never actually seen in the movies. And the land is set 100ish years after the events of the first film.

As to the stuff about Stat Wars, glad to hear a new perspective and I largely agree. Attendance-wise though, many people were expecting Galaxy’s Edge to have a bigger impact than the Harry Potter lands at Universal, Cars Land at Disneyland, and Pandora, where attendance increased by maybe 2-3 million in the first year or three. I’m sure Disney is scratching their heads at how a bigger investment in a more popular franchise had lesser results.
 

UNCgolf

Well-Known Member
I'll add something controversial: That die-hard Star Wars extremist is probably far more interested in the live-action and sequel-era debut of Hondo Ohnaka, a character spanning the two Dave Filoni animated series, than if they got Harrison Ford to record a pre-show spiel and on-ride dialogue. General Star Wars fans have no idea who Hondo is and would prefer Han Solo absolutely, but you can't tell me that Disney needs to appeal more to the die-hards by dumping a Clone Wars and Rebels favorite lol. (Among die-hards the Filoni animated series are about as sacred as the original trilogy, FYI, and boy are they sensitive to any perceived slight towards the shows.)

I think this is true for your age group, but I think it's less true for the die-hard Star Wars fans in their late 30s and 40s (although of course there's overlap between age groups). I used to be a pretty hardcore Star Wars fan when I was younger (not really one at all anymore) but I still have contact with some people in that community and age group, and while they mostly like the Filoni series (a few don't, but the majority do), they don't really care about it that much. They care far more about the OT than anything else (some of them also really love the old EU) and have the disposable income to go to Disney just for a Star Wars land. Some of them specifically haven't been because they don't like the ST. I think that's an incredibly silly outlook (if nothing else, they can still see and board the Millenium Falcon), but some of them have it.

With all that said, there's absolutely no reason Disney should have attempted to cater to them. They're nowhere near being a large enough group to matter in the long run.
 

RobWDW1971

Well-Known Member
Which leads to the question, which group of fans IS large enough to matter?
Or.....simply cater to ALL Star Wars fans and not have a land that is time/period locked where you can celebrate ALL of Star Wars - Prequels, Rogue One, OT, Disney SW, Mandalorian, Clone Wars, upcoming Kenobi series, and all of the yet to be released movies, television, books, video games, etc.

I am dumbfounded how someone can argue that hyper-limited is a better long-term answer than wide open celebration of the brand past, present, and future. And yet they do....
 

Tom Morrow

Well-Known Member
Hot take: I don't want to see face characters portray Luke, Han, Leia, etc. They are pop culture tentpoles and seeing someone else portray them just takes me out of the moment and comes off as forced . Seeing a random girl portray Rey doesn't bother me because Rey is not an untouchable pop culture icon and has only existed for 4.5 years.
 

UNCgolf

Well-Known Member
Hot take: I don't want to see face characters portray Luke, Han, Leia, etc. They are pop culture tentpoles and seeing someone else portray them just takes me out of the moment and comes off as forced . Seeing a random girl portray Rey doesn't bother me because Rey is not an untouchable pop culture icon and has only existed for 4.5 years.

I agree with this. I think they should avoid having live action face characters in general; stick with cartoons or non-human/masked characters.

Although they don't have the long-term status of the aforementioned characters, even seeing someone like Starlord or Doctor Strange at Disney doesn't work. It feels like seeing a guy in costume outside the Chinese Theater in LA or in Times Square hoping people will take photos with them. They seem like random knockoffs.

On the other hand, those types of greetings are designed for kids anyways, and I'm not sure it matters to most of them.
 
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No Name

Well-Known Member
I am dumbfounded how someone can argue that hyper-limited is a better long-term answer than wide open celebration of the brand past, present, and future. And yet they do....

Because a wide open celebration of Star Wars isn’t an idea that has legs of its own and instead backs itself on the past success and popularity of the franchise. That’s actually incredibly short-term. Creating something that has creativity and unique storytelling of its own, rather than piggybacking off of the creativity and unique storytelling that people previously fell in love with, is a much smarter idea long-term. Pandora does this to an extent, albeit somewhat unintentionally, and it’s been very successful.

The problem with Galaxy’s Edge is execution. A dirty, depressing, war-torn, fascist area isn’t the most compelling idea, especially without the “frontier” story of hope and opportunity being expressed well. Beloved OT characters would not change that. They’d distract from it, maybe, but they wouldn’t solve the underlying issue. The Pixar Pier solution of adding things guests know and love to a foundationally lackluster area is not one we should be defending with our honor.
 

RobWDW1971

Well-Known Member
Because a wide open celebration of Star Wars isn’t an idea that has legs of its own and instead backs itself on the past success and popularity of the franchise. That’s actually incredibly short-term. Creating something that has creativity and unique storytelling of its own, rather than piggybacking off of the creativity and unique storytelling that people previously fell in love with, is a much smarter idea long-term. Pandora does this to an extent, albeit somewhat unintentionally, and it’s been very successful.

The problem with Galaxy’s Edge is execution. A dirty, depressing, war-torn, fascist area isn’t the most compelling idea, especially without the “frontier” story of hope and opportunity being expressed well. Beloved OT characters would not change that. They’d distract from it, maybe, but they wouldn’t solve the underlying issue. The Pixar Pier solution of adding things guests know and love to a foundationally lackluster area is not one we should be defending with our honor.

I didn't just say OT - I said ALL characters past, present, and future. Having Mandalorian and Baby Yoda as well as the upcoming Kenobi series and whatever is next would only make the land alive and vibrant.

You can't tell me we can't have different time periods and characters in the same land - Fantasyland has been doing it for over 60 years and have yet to hear any child scream:

"Wait! You can't have Gaston because he's dead!"
"Why is there Pinocchio and Snow White next to each other! They're in different countries!!!"
"Wait! Why is the Beast walking around as the beast when he's now back to being a prince?!"
"Why does the little mermaid have fins when she's now a princess?!?!"
"Why is Mary Poppins with Bert when she's now with the guy from Hamilton?!??!"

The idea that you couldn't make a Star Wars land with attractions, shows, and characters celebrating all past, present, and future aspects of the brand is ridiculous on its face.

I'm not saying do some cheap crappy overlay of the creative disaster that is Batuu, I was talking about an entirely different, better concept they should have built. Everything now is just lipstick on a Bantha.
 
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