Disneyland's Rise Of The Resistance - Reviews, Criticism, Deep Thoughts

[Stevek]

I thought it was a one time deal for the opening of ROTR.

Did they use them out here? I know they had them for the opening at DHS.

 

[Phroobar]

Would only be relevant to those of us that have read the books.

She needs an action figure.

 

[el_super]

So pre-RotR but full Ahora mode, Disney only saw a 2% increase in attendance?! That's gotta hurt.

DLR attendance was pretty much back to normal in Oct for Halloweentime. I don't believe they offered any significant discounting between Oct and Dec.

So that 2% attendance increase, and 92% hotel occupancy, was driven by only three weeks of Rise being open at WDW and no major changes from Q4 and no Rise at DLR.

It's possible that the three weeks of Rise at WDW was enough to bump the whole division 2% for the whole quarter, but unlikely. Iger indicated at the last call that their booking numbers were strong, so it really is starting to appear that the increases from SWGE were just taking a long time to get moving. Which makes sense if you are talking about expanding into a demographic that is not normally a parks visitor. Research, planning, saving and booking can take people months or years past opening so it takes time for visits to materialize.

And while I'm sitting here saying that nothing major changed at DLR and attendance was still up, that's all despite the massive price increases over the past year.

 

[Mickeyboof]

Did they use them out here? I know they had them for the opening at DHS.

I read and adored the books.

However, the Vi in the land is not the Vi in the books.

The actresses in the land often play the part as rude, unnecessarily scathing sassy sneak-about “spies”

 

[ProjectXBlog]

unnecessarily scathing sassy sneak-about “spies”

now say it fast five times

 

[SuddenStorm]

I want to say, I don't actually think Star Wars is easy. There are SO many perspectives and wants out there. In fact, it probably would have been easier for them to build the land they did as an original without any Star Wars reference and it would likely be a bigger success.

I do think they went a direction they thought would work, and they are likely evaluating what does and doesn't.

Star Tours did just fine in 1987 and again when they redid it. WDI can make good Star Wars. They have before.

 

[TP2000]

I finally rode the ride today! For my thoughts on the App/Boarding Group process, you can see my post in that dedicated thread here... https://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads...ding-groups-at-disneyland.962850/post-9056552

But here is my official review and some Deep Thoughts from today for...

International House of Pancakes Presents: TP2000 Immersed in Star Wars: Rise Before Dawn, Powered by Lyft

The Queue/Pre-Shows

• Very impressive! All of the queue looked like and felt something from Tokyo DisneySea circa 2001. Yes, it's a shame it took Disneyland two decades to catch up to the Tokyo standard of 20 years ago, but they finally made it.
• That said, so many of the props and things in the queue were so close and so touchable; cages with uniforms and guns, crates and cartons and barrels, light fixtures and tech equipment and various props, all within touching distance. In Tokyo that's not a problem, but with Southern California's far less respectful culture, this is going to be a problem for them. I can't imagine a year from now those props and that queue are going to look good.
• BB8! I like that guy, and his appearance in the first little theater room was fun and impressive. Just as good as the raccoon in Guardians of the Galaxy. Then a hologram of that very stern young British woman who wears gauzy linen outfits showed up and she told us "We need your help recruits, blah blah blah, the resistance, blah blah blah, bad guys and doom and recruits, blah blah blah, may the force be with you recruits!" Uh, okay honey, thanks. Apparently we are "recruits" for something.
• The shuttle craft! Another impressive bit of showmanship. It was simple and basic, but very well done. Shaking floors and rumbling sounds and an alien pilot and more reminders we are recruits. This little queue trick and pre-show joins the Haunted Mansion Stretching Room and the old Epcot Hydrolators and Tokyo's mine shaft elevators from Journey To The Center Of the Earth as a classic Disney pre-show gimmick that divides riders up, sets up the plotline (recruits!), and gets us from one space to another as an operational trick. Bravo WDI! Walt would love this concept.
• Entering the Bad Guys Star Destroyer. The thought here was nice, but the execution was a bit lacking. The bad guy Space Nazis that boarded our ship and escorted us out were... not believable. Their personalities and body types and elocution were unlike any bad guys seen in any Star Wars movie. Their accents were distinctly Southern California Suburbia, their BMI was off the charts huge, and their personalities and presentation seem more suitable to a Brazilian Blowout Bar in Laguna Beach instead of a First Order Star Destroyer. I mention this because after the elaborate queue and very effective shuttle craft hijacking, to be met by these types of CM's brought it all crashing back to Orange County, California circa 2020. And things were going so well.

Getting You To The Ride Vehicle

• Much like the queue and initial pre-shows, very impressive aesthetically!
• As when our shuttle arrived, it kind of falls apart with many CM's who were trying but just don't fit the part. They were strutting around trying to look authoritarian and mean, but they just weren't pulling it off and the audience wasn't buying it. A few other folks in my jail cell holding area were commenting on it rather crudely, which isn't my style, but the point remains that the CM's can make or break this. And the current crop of Anaheim CM's just don't seem to be able to pull off the Space Nazi look and act at all.
• Wall gets cut open and... Hurry, hurry, we're here to rescue you recruits! Uh, okay, where do we go again? I was a single and in the frenzy somehow ended up in the front row with a couple and an empty seat. I felt bad because there were little kids sitting behind me and they should have been put in the front row.

The Ride Itself

• Good, but somehow not great. Maybe because the queue and pre-shows are so elaborate and well done you expect more?
• Droid driving us in front. Clever! Again, reminded me of something Tokyo does. I'm surprised Mr. Chapek didn't cut this out of the budget.
• Oddly placid and mild ride experience. There's a heckuva lot going on, and I credit WDI for not yelling at us the whole time on this thing, but I'm not sure what all the dialogue was about. Bad guys want to kill us, we're in space and at war, which makes sense for Star Wars, but why are we just kind of drifting and gliding around so smoothly? I'm not sure this mild trackless ride system was the way to go for this one. The ride path felt too tame and too calm and too effortlessly smooth for how exciting it was supposed to be.
• Drop back to Batuu. A clever effect, but again it seemed just a tad too mild. And us recruits need to keep the secret base hidden. So can't they just track us back to this allegedly secret base? Is it really that secret? What was the point again?
• Welcome Back Recruits! Exit To Your Left Recruits! Oh, okay, it's over. Well, that was nice. I'm a recruit!

Overall, I'm giving this new ride an 8 out of 10. The queue and pre-shows were ambitious and impressive, but the ride itself left me just a bit flat. The on-ride effects were mostly well done, but then some of the moving props and robots were a tad hokey or simple. The CM's were trying hard, God bless 'em, but the overall effect was much less successful than I think WDI had hoped for with the Anaheim crew. It definitely feels like some of these CM positions should be staffed with real actors or animatronics instead of ride operators.

I'm glad I did it. I'm glad I won the Boarding Group lottery this morning. I'm glad Disneyland has another E Ticket and more acreage to soak up crowds with. But unlike Radiator Springs Racers or even Guardians of the Galaxy, I'm not dying to get back on and do this again.

As I walked into the land this morning about 10:30am as they got closer to my Boarding Group number, Millennium Falcon: Target Run had only a 30 minute wait. But after riding it three times last summer, I still don't need to do that one again so I skipped it. I could ride Star Wars: Rise Before Dawn again if it fell in my lap, but I'm not needing to get to the park at rope drop again for that experience.

Leaving the land before 1:00pm after my successful Rise Before Dawn ride, the Falcon had gone up to a 35 minute wait and I still just walked on by without any pangs of regret.

I strolled over to Tomorrowland, got on a Monorail to Downtown Disney, and by 1:15pm I was walking out of the Disneyland Hotel like I owned the joint. I summoned a Lyft to come pick me up at the Disneyland Hotel to take me home, I extended a Fiver in an outsretched hand as I asked a bellman where I should stand for a Lyft which meant he never hassled me about not being a guest of the hotel, and 25 minutes later I was walking up the front walk to my house.

Done! 8 out of 10! Good but not Great! Pirates and Racers and Indy all still beat it comfortably.

 

[SuddenStorm]

The CM's were trying hard, God bless 'em, but the overall effect was much less successful than I think WDI had hoped for with the Anaheim crew. It definitely feels like some of these CM positions should be staffed with real actors or animatronics instead of ride operators.

Absolutely loved your review and commentary, and this part stood out to me- since it's an issue found in Jungle Cruise and Storybookland as well.

Some attractions cast members get Jumpin' Jellyfish in DCA- which is arguably an easier job than entertaining a group of bored guests on a 10 minute Jungle Ride. Or pretending to arrest a group of tired and possibly irritated AP's that have been in the park since the crack of dawn.

Makes me wonder why Disney doesn't hold separate hiring auditions for these rolls- students who are studying acting might get something out of Rise, and aspiring comedians might enjoy the opportunity to hop on the Cruise.

The best reason I can figure why Disney doesn't is the union contracts and different pay rates between roles. Entertainment CM's have different pay rates and requirements than attractions CM's- which could cause an issue if Disney starts treating Cruise and similar roles as more 'entertainment' than 'attraction'. Someone more educated on this stuff could probably add more, since the answer may be as simple as Disney doesn't care.

 

[RobWDW1971]

Absolutely loved your review and commentary, and this part stood out to me- since it's an issue found in Jungle Cruise and Storybookland as well.

Some attractions cast members get Jumpin' Jellyfish in DCA- which is arguably an easier job than entertaining a group of bored guests on a 10 minute Jungle Ride. Or pretending to arrest a group of tired and possibly irritated AP's that have been in the park since the crack of dawn.

Makes me wonder why Disney doesn't hold separate hiring auditions for these rolls- students who are studying acting might get something out of Rise, and aspiring comedians might enjoy the opportunity to hop on the Cruise.

The best reason I can figure why Disney doesn't is the union contracts and different pay rates between roles. Entertainment CM's have different pay rates and requirements than attractions CM's- which could cause an issue if Disney starts treating Cruise and similar roles as more 'entertainment' than 'attraction'. Someone more educated on this stuff could probably add more, since the answer may be as simple as Disney doesn't care.

Agreed - and also the “BMI” of the cast is pretty important when you are trying to sell me that you’re a First Order officer. Using the attraction hosts as anything other than groupers and dispatch is always a recipe for a letdown thematically.

 

[SuddenStorm]

Agreed - and also the “BMI” of the cast is pretty important when you are trying to sell me that you’re a First Order officer. Using the attraction hosts as anything other than groupers and dispatch is always a recipe for a letdown thematically.

Wasn't there a time when Disneyland hired off looks, trying to keep things thematically consistent? This was obviously back when Cast members were actually treated as a 'cast' and being a CM had meaning beyond a corporate buzzword.

This would obviously never fly today, and I can only imagine the negative PR that would come if Disney started hiring off of weight. I actually think this is a positive- I'll take a small hit on the show if it means someone gets the opportunity to work at Disneyland and have a decent job with excellent opportunity for growth. It's a weird area where the roles aren't truly theatrical, so Disney can't get away with being as selective as they would an actual stage production.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

I saw some First Order guys who had the "neckbeard" gamer look as you people refer to it. Imperial officers occasionally had moustaches, which are villainous by nature and seemed restricted to older guys with higher ranks, but they tended to be clean-shaven and Gestapo-like, yeah?

 

[mickEblu]

I finally rode the ride today! For my thoughts on the App/Boarding Group process, you can see my post in that dedicated thread here... https://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads...ding-groups-at-disneyland.962850/post-9056552

But here is my official review and some Deep Thoughts from today for...

International House of Pancakes Presents: TP2000 Immersed in Star Wars: Rise Before Dawn, Powered by Lyft

The Queue/Pre-Shows

• Very impressive! All of the queue looked like and felt something from Tokyo DisneySea circa 2001. Yes, it's a shame it took Disneyland two decades to catch up to the Tokyo standard of 20 years ago, but they finally made it.
• That said, so many of the props and things in the queue were so close and so touchable; cages with uniforms and guns, crates and cartons and barrels, light fixtures and tech equipment and various props, all within touching distance. In Tokyo that's not a problem, but with Southern California's far less respectful culture, this is going to be a problem for them. I can't imagine a year from now those props and that queue are going to look good.
• BB8! I like that guy, and his appearance in the first little theater room was fun and impressive. Just as good as the raccoon in Guardians of the Galaxy. Then a hologram of that very stern young British woman who wears gauzy linen outfits showed up and she told us "We need your help recruits, blah blah blah, the resistance, blah blah blah, bad guys and doom and recruits, blah blah blah, may the force be with you recruits!" Uh, okay honey, thanks. Apparently we are "recruits" for something.
• The shuttle craft! Another impressive bit of showmanship. It was simple and basic, but very well done. Shaking floors and rumbling sounds and an alien pilot and more reminders we are recruits. This little queue trick and pre-show joins the Haunted Mansion Stretching Room and the old Epcot Hydrolators and Tokyo's mine shaft elevators from Journey To The Center Of the Earth as a classic Disney pre-show gimmick that divides riders up, sets up the plotline (recruits!), and gets us from one space to another as an operational trick. Bravo WDI! Walt would love this concept.
• Entering the Bad Guys Star Destroyer. The thought here was nice, but the execution was a bit lacking. The bad guy Space Nazis that boarded our ship and escorted us out were... not believable. Their personalities and body types and elocution were unlike any bad guys seen in any Star Wars movie. Their accents were distinctly Southern California Suburbia, their BMI was off the charts huge, and their personalities and presentation seem more suitable to a Brazilian Blowout Bar in Laguna Beach instead of a First Order Star Destroyer. I mention this because after the elaborate queue and very effective shuttle craft hijacking, to be met by these types of CM's brought it all crashing back to Orange County, California circa 2020. And things were going so well.

Getting You To The Ride Vehicle

• Much like the queue and initial pre-shows, very impressive aesthetically!
• As when our shuttle arrived, it kind of falls apart with many CM's who were trying but just don't fit the part. They were strutting around trying to look authoritarian and mean, but they just weren't pulling it off and the audience wasn't buying it. A few other folks in my jail cell holding area were commenting on it rather crudely, which isn't my style, but the point remains that the CM's can make or break this. And the current crop of Anaheim CM's just don't seem to be able to pull off the Space Nazi look and act at all.
• Wall gets cut open and... Hurry, hurry, we're here to rescue you recruits! Uh, okay, where do we go again? I was a single and in the frenzy somehow ended up in the front row with a couple and an empty seat. I felt bad because there were little kids sitting behind me and they should have been put in the front row.

The Ride Itself

• Good, but somehow not great. Maybe because the queue and pre-shows are so elaborate and well done you expect more?
• Droid driving us in front. Clever! Again, reminded me of something Tokyo does. I'm surprised Mr. Chapek didn't cut this out of the budget.
• Oddly placid and mild ride experience. There's a heckuva lot going on, and I credit WDI for not yelling at us the whole time on this thing, but I'm not sure what all the dialogue was about. Bad guys want to kill us, we're in space and at war, which makes sense for Star Wars, but why are we just kind of drifting and gliding around so smoothly? I'm not sure this mild trackless ride system was the way to go for this one. The ride path felt too tame and too calm and too effortlessly smooth for how exciting it was supposed to be.
• Drop back to Batuu. A clever effect, but again it seemed just a tad too mild. And us recruits need to keep the secret base hidden. So can't they just track us back to this allegedly secret base? Is it really that secret? What was the point again?
• Welcome Back Recruits! Exit To Your Left Recruits! Oh, okay, it's over. Well, that was nice. I'm a recruit!

Overall, I'm giving this new ride an 8 out of 10. The queue and pre-shows were ambitious and impressive, but the ride itself left me just a bit flat. The on-ride effects were mostly well done, but then some of the moving props and robots were a tad hokey or simple. The CM's were trying hard, God bless 'em, but the overall effect was much less successful than I think WDI had hoped for with the Anaheim crew. It definitely feels like some of these CM positions should be staffed with real actors or animatronics instead of ride operators.

I'm glad I did it. I'm glad I won the Boarding Group lottery this morning. I'm glad Disneyland has another E Ticket and more acreage to soak up crowds with. But unlike Radiator Springs Racers or even Guardians of the Galaxy, I'm not dying to get back on and do this again.

As I walked into the land this morning about 10:30am as they got closer to my Boarding Group number, Millennium Falcon: Target Run had only a 30 minute wait. But after riding it three times last summer, I still don't need to do that one again so I skipped it. I could ride Star Wars: Rise Before Dawn again if it fell in my lap, but I'm not needing to get to the park at rope drop again for that experience.

Leaving the land before 1:00pm after my successful Rise Before Dawn ride, the Falcon had gone up to a 35 minute wait and I still just walked on by without any pangs of regret.

I strolled over to Tomorrowland, got on a Monorail to Downtown Disney, and by 1:15pm I was walking out of the Disneyland Hotel like I owned the joint. I summoned a Lyft to come pick me up at the Disneyland Hotel to take me home, I extended a Fiver in an outsretched hand as I asked a bellman where I should stand for a Lyft which meant he never hassled me about not being a guest of the hotel, and 25 minutes later I was walking up the front walk to my house.

Done! 8 out of 10! Good but not Great! Pirates and Racers and Indy all still beat it comfortably.

Nice review! I agree with a lot of it but thought the First Order CM’s last Sunday night were pretty good. I completely agree about the ride experience. I think the pre shows over shadow it. If not overshadow it then at least create high expectations that aren’t met.

I’d give the sets/ atmosphere an 8 out of 10 even if it’s not my cup of tea. The pre shows get an 8 out of 10. And the ride experience gets a 5 out of ten. So overall ROTR gets about a 7 from me.

 

[mickEblu]

It’s still hard for me to fathom that the first drop on POTC is more thrilling than any moment in either brand new Star Wars ride.

 

[SuddenStorm]

It’s still hard for me to fathom that the first drop on POTC is more thrilling than any moment in either brand new Star Wars ride.

Or the Stretching Room... Which I think has yet to be topped as a preshow.

 

[mickEblu]

Or the Stretching Room... Which I think has yet to be topped as a preshow.

That will never be topped. The beauty of it is we never even referred to it as a pre show until recently. It was just a beautiful and organic intro to a great attraction. That’s how well it works.

 

[SuddenStorm]

That will never be topped. The beauty of it is we never even referred to it as a pre show until recently. It was just a beautiful and organic intro to a great attraction. That’s how well it works.

I think it's beauty is that it was built in as a logistical necessity, instead of a creative endeavour. This limited WED's options, and forced them to think outside the box a bit.

I think the BB8 animatronic and Rey hologram is my favorite part of Rise, so at least WDI got that part mostly right.

 

[BubbaQuest]

Sparkly doesn't mean lies, untruths, or ignorance.

Never said it was. Thanks for the pixie dust.

The numbers in question are for the domestic parks, Orlando's 4 and Anaheim's 2.

Thanks for the numbers!

For me, a billion dollar investment for 2% ROI sounds like a Six Flags problem, not an untouchable theme park problem. I know, I know, attendance and ROI are not directly related and it's still very early for SW:GE and overall profit increases are much higher than 2%. I'm just wondering Disney's next move to increase growth in CA, or if CA price increases and cost cutting are all they have left.

Hopefully the RotR capacity issues solve themselves.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

It’s still hard for me to fathom that the first drop on POTC is more thrilling than any moment in either brand new Star Wars ride.

Star Wars shouldn't be physically thrilling.

 

[TP2000]

I’d give the sets/ atmosphere an 8 out of 10 even if it’s not my cup of tea. The pre shows get an 8 out of 10. And the ride experience gets a 5 out of ten. So overall ROTR gets about a 7 from me.

I would give the queue/pre-show a 9 out of 10, and I would give the ride itself a 7 out of 10. That's how I landed on an 8 out of 10 for the whole thing. The queue and lead up to the actual ride raises your expectations too high I'm afraid.

And to think a year ago we all assumed this ride would be an 11 out of 10. Wha' happened?

It’s still hard for me to fathom that the first drop on POTC is more thrilling than any moment in either brand new Star Wars ride.

No kidding. When we did that little drop thing after our escape pod got released from the ship I thought "Uh, was that it?" and so I waited as that scene played out and we shook around and got shot at by bad guys and crashed back into the planet and landed at our secret base that everyone can clearly see us using and... yup, that was it.

A real let down, recruits.

This ride seems too mild physically to have a 40 inch height requirement, when you realize 40 inches is the same height as Splash Mt. and Space Mt. and Matterhorn and Radiator Racers and Guardians of the Galaxy.

 

[Californian Elitist]

It’s still hard for me to fathom that the first drop on POTC is more thrilling than any moment in either brand new Star Wars ride.

I went on Goofy’s Sky School after Rise and had a much more thrilling experience with the drop on that ride. Pretty sure I came off saying it was more fun than Rise lol.