So what changes will we see at DHS GE based on DL GE?

[Bocabear]

I think in general this is the whole problem I have with Star Wars in the Disney parks... I enjoyed the movies alot, but this being a never ending galaxy at war, there is nothing truly fun about that...Everything is made of used parts and trash, You are immersed in a world under seige...It is not really the place I want to spend hours... Maybe I am the wrong demographic for this addition... I am certainly curious, like I was with Pandora, but I still would prefer to have had Carsland...which is just fun for everyone.

 

[999th Happy Haunt]

The only location in the movies I can think of that would make a pretty good stand alone land is Cloud City, but it would be hard to fit in a ride like RotR there since it’s important to the story that we start at a Resistance outpost. I still think the most likely reason Batuu was chosen is because it gave the Imagineers a good amount of creative freedom making stories for the land.

 

[RobWDW1971]

Actually, I've been meaning to ask about this. I've seen this complaint a lot, especially on the Disneyland forum. Not to be rude, but I just don't understand this at all.

Not rude at all, absolutely fair point. The issue (to me anyway) is not whether they Imagineers effectively captured the feel of a silent, deserted, war torn, rusted out outpost, the issue is whether that was the right creative choice to launch Star Wars in Disneyland.

Your comparisons to Harambe and Anandapur in AK are great examples of incredibly detailed theming that puts me in a place full of color, detail, and life. I often find myself standing there just taking it all in. The colors, open shops, atmosphere music, live entertainers, animals, etc. create a "real life" exciting, exotic experience that I want to be immersed in.

However, SWGE does none of that. It's like a static, brown backdrop that was designed for SOMETHING to happen to bring it to life, but then that entire part of the production never happened. If the land was overrun with music (including live performers like in AK), color, activity, droids, aliens, bounty hunters, etc you would be hearing very little criticism as the "backdrop" is great for telling that story.

The cantina is the best executed concept, but so few get to experience it and it is entirely closed off from the general audience, that even that has less impact then it could.

It's like they built a Renaissance Faire and then canceled all of the performers, artists, musicians, and jugglers leaving you with the sawdust, empty booths, and silence. If you haven't had the chance to see it in person, it is hard to describe the "abandoned" feel.

Star Tours (from 33 years ago) did an amazing job of putting me into the Star Wars universe and was filled with characters, music, fun and celebrated the brand, its planets, world, etc. Those were creative choices that were pure genius to bring the Star Wars universe to life in a theme park setting. SWGE, unfortunately, is just not.

 

[Bocabear]

Star Tours was also not a war ravaged troop transport... Which would have greatly affected the overall feel and scope of the attraction. The reason it is still popular 30 years later is because it is fun...it was zany...there are laughs...You are taking a vacation transport to somewhere in the glaxy! fun!
None of the Galaxy's Edge feels like laughs to me... And in a real world where war has been looming the last decade, I don't know that a battle ravaged planet is that much fun... I am open to experiencing it, but if this was their answer to Harry Potter, it certainly lacks joy and magic...things we expect from our Disney parks.

 

[SpoiledBlueMilk]

One of the key assumptions of the immersion concept is that one wants to be actually immersed in that location. I have no interest in being in a deserted, depressing, bombed out, rusted outpost I've never heard of nor care about. They captured a place nobody ever wanted to go to perfectly. Mission accomplished!!!

And herein lies the main problem with Disney's multi-media approach to the Star Wars properties. It used to be that if you saw the movies, you knew everything you needed to know. That's no longer the case due to synergy and the desire to cross-promote between LFL to Marvel and back.

Want the backstory on Snoke? Read the Marvel one shot coming out soon. Is there a connection between Doc Ondar, Savi's Workshop and Lor San Tekka? Yep - read the comic. Has any major character been to Batuu before the time Disney placed the land post TLJ? Yep - Padme, Anakin, Vader and Thrawn have all been there. Read Thrawn: Alliances for the story and then go into the cantina in the land to see the actual scorch marks on the walls from the firefight Vader and Thrawn had with local thugs in the book.

Super fans like me who consume all of the content will get the connections. To the vast majority of people who casually like Star Wars, the place will seem foreign and empty.

The second part of the problem is the promise Disney made to guests in the land. You will live your own Star Wars adventure. To do this, WDI chose a fairly blank slate so you wouldn't be tempted to follow Anakin or Luke's path on Tatooine or Endor. Instead, you'd be able to experience a fairly neutral land that you could use as the canvas for your own story. Of course, that presupposes the use of atmosphere characters to carry the narrative, which we haven't seen yet. Time will tell, I guess.

 

[999th Happy Haunt]

I bet this area would become 100% more “joyful” if they pumped in some music

 

[magicallactose]

The difference is that Oz is important to that story and well described. The planets of Star Wars are generally not well described. You don’t see or know about much except some basic description like desert or cold or swamp. The Mos Eisley Cantina is a perfect example, a place that so many say they want to visit but if you look, most of the walls are just plain, beige walls without ornament or decoration.

I think what most people, even casual fans like me (who have only seen the original movies once) remember about the Mos Eisley Cantina is the live music and zany alien patrons that filled the place? My cousin who has already visited was disappointed that the bar in Galaxy's Edge was lacking that vibe, and she left the land feeling largely underwhelmed due to the lack of familiar locations (and I don't just mean from the original trilogies. She would have been happy to see places from the new movies as well in the land) and echoed similar criticisms to others on this board. (She's a huge Disneyland fan and Star Wars fanatic, so admittedly she had pretty high expectations).

Also, I'm sort of surprised that Disney didn't have their cake and eat it too by adding a 'Mos Eisley' Cantina and explaining that the owner had relocated to Batuu. The sign outside the bar would say Mos Eisly Cantina, but with the word 'Mos Eisley' crudely crossed out and painted over shoddily with 'Batuu'.

I mean, when Universal opened a Ollivander's with Hogsmeade and explained it was a sort of 'franchise' location, none of the fans complained about the inaccuracy of the store existing there, because fans had always fantasized about visiting that shop. The Imagineers should have followed the path to joy and not necessarily the path to 'logic' in this instance, I'd say.

 

[RobWDW1971]

I think what most people, even casual fans like me (who have only seen the original movies once) remember about the Mos Eisley Cantina is the live music and zany alien patrons that filled the place? My cousin who has already visited was disappointed that the bar in Galaxy's Edge was lacking that vibe, and she left the land feeling largely underwhelmed due to the lack of familiar locations (and I don't just mean from the original trilogies. She would have been happy to see places from the new movies as well in the land) and echoed similar criticisms to others on this board. (She's a huge Disneyland fan and Star Wars fanatic, so admittedly she had pretty high expectations).

Also, I'm sort of surprised that Disney didn't have their cake and eat it too by adding a 'Mos Eisley' Cantina and explaining that the owner had relocated to Batuu. The sign outside the bar would say Mos Eisly Cantina, but with the word 'Mos Eisley' crudely crossed out and painted over shoddily with 'Batuu'.

I mean, when Universal opened a Ollivander's with Hogsmeade and explained it was a sort of 'franchise' location, none of the fans complained about the inaccuracy of the store existing there, because fans had always fantasized about visiting that shop. The Imagineers should have followed the path to joy and not necessarily the path to 'logic' in this instance, I'd say.

Exactly. It comes down to the Imagineers just being too above actually just entertaining the guest by giving them experiences they have always wanted to see vs boxing themselves into (and then immediately violating) these ridiculous immersion rules. It's an inherently flawed and poor creative choice.

Last time I went, a friend of mine's highest priority was to go to the cantina and have a drink while listening to the classic song. I then had to tell her they don't actually play the Star Was Cantina Song in the Star Wars Land Cantina and she looked at me like I was out of my mind. Then I sheepishly started muttering something about Batuu and immersion and she just rolled her eyes and walked away.

 

[Villains0501]

I hope eventually Disney relaxes the timeline canon restriction and lets in some prequel or OT characters. I can't help but think of how diminished WWoHP would be if Universal tried doing the same thing with the Harry Potter timeline. For example, if WWoHP were set after films 5 and 6 but before 7 and 8, it could feature most of the villains but would lose some of the best heroes, like Dumbledore and Sirius. If Disney keeps SWL tethered too closely to the events of the films, the pool of characters to draw from is likewise going to get smaller and smaller. I think they've just overthought this all a little too much. Or maybe I have...

 

[networkpro]

One of the key assumptions of the immersion concept is that one wants to be actually immersed in that location. I have no interest in being in a deserted, depressing, bombed out, rusted outpost I've never heard of nor care about. They captured a place nobody ever wanted to go to perfectly. Mission accomplished!!!

I've lived in quite a few places like that across the globe. I can hardly wait.

 

[TP2000]

Here's a fun one that they need to change at DHS; The extended queue for Millennium Falcon: Target Run.

At Disneyland when the line gets to about the 45 minute mark, they open up a back of house area for the queue. As I type this in mid-afternoon Pacific time with Anaheim weather that is sunny and 82 degrees, the line for the Falcon is currently 50 minutes (most other Disneyland E Tickets are currently in the 5 to 45 minute range because no one goes to Disneyland any more), but the Falcon has gotten as high as 75 minutes on the July 4th weekend. And when that happens they put the queue into the back of house area that is really just a CM parking lot behind the ride decorated with shipping containers and tarps with views of Disneyland's back area warehouses.

You are also behind the Star Wars Land facades themselves, and as you wait in that queue you look up and see stuff like this...

Suddenly, I'm not on Batuu any more.

This is at Disneyland where they have never used the Fastpass option for the Falcon ride, and only have a regular fast-moving queue to wait in. It rarely gets more than an hour long. We are all assuming that TDO is spending the summer doing everything they can with marketing and ticketing and logistics to assure that Star Wars Land at DHS is packed to the rafters, unlike Disneyland's underutilized version.

But if Disneyland has to use this horrible queue space for the Falcon without Fastpass and with only modest crowds, where will DHS managers put their Falcon queue? And will it be this ugly and ruin the "I'm on Batuu! Bob Chapek has immersed me!" experience? Anyone in TDO working on this problem right now I wonder?

 

[peter11435]

Here's a fun one that they need to change at DHS; The extended queue for Millennium Falcon: Target Run.

At Disneyland when the line gets to about the 45 minute mark, they open up a back of house area for the queue. As I type this in mid-afternoon Pacific time with Anaheim weather that is sunny and 82 degrees, the line for the Falcon is currently 50 minutes (most other Disneyland E Tickets are currently in the 5 to 45 minute range because no one goes to Disneyland any more), but the Falcon has gotten as high as 75 minutes on the July 4th weekend. And when that happens they put the queue into the back of house area that is really just a CM parking lot behind the ride decorated with shipping containers and tarps with views of Disneyland's back area warehouses.

You are also behind the Star Wars Land facades themselves, and as you wait in that queue you look up and see stuff like this...

Suddenly, I'm not on Batuu any more.

This is at Disneyland where they have never used the Fastpass option for the Falcon ride, and only have a regular fast-moving queue to wait in. It rarely gets more than an hour long. We are all assuming that TDO is spending the summer doing everything they can with marketing and ticketing and logistics to assure that Star Wars Land at DHS is packed to the rafters, unlike Disneyland's underutilized version.

But if Disneyland has to use this horrible queue space for the Falcon without Fastpass and with only modest crowds, where will DHS managers put their Falcon queue? And will it be this ugly and ruin the "I'm on Batuu! Bob Chapek has immersed me!" experience? Anyone in TDO working on this problem right now I wonder?

This is actually a problem that fastpass will solve. Once Disneyland’s Falcon offers fastpass the standby queue will be physically shorter even if the wait times stay the same or increase.

 

[TP2000]

This is actually a problem that fastpass will solve. Once Disneyland’s Falcon offers fastpass the standby queue will be physically shorter even if the wait times stay the same or increase.

Maybe. I'll leave the logistics of Fastpass vs. Standby queues and their lengths to another thread.

But Disney has already officially stated that Fastpass+ will not be offered on the Falcon at DHS when it opens August 29th, nor will Fastpass+ be offered on the Resistance ride when it opens December 5th. It appears that both coasts are going to not offer Fastpass or Fastpass+ for the Star Wars Land rides for at least the medium term.

 

[Bleed0range]

I think in general this is the whole problem I have with Star Wars in the Disney parks... I enjoyed the movies alot, but this being a never ending galaxy at war, there is nothing truly fun about that...Everything is made of used parts and trash, You are immersed in a world under seige...It is not really the place I want to spend hours... Maybe I am the wrong demographic for this addition... I am certainly curious, like I was with Pandora, but I still would prefer to have had Carsland...which is just fun for everyone.

After many years of anticipation I start seeing people say things like this and I sort of roll my eyes. To be immersed in the SW universe is to immersed in that sort of locale.

RoTR lets you be on the Star Destroyer which will be all sleek and in space.

 

[peter11435]

Maybe. I'll leave the logistics of Fastpass vs. Standby queues and their lengths to another thread.

But Disney has already officially stated that Fastpass+ will not be offered on the Falcon at DHS when it opens August 29th, nor will Fastpass+ be offered on the Resistance ride when it opens December 5th. It appears that both coasts are going to not offer Fastpass or Fastpass+ for the Star Wars Land rides for at least the medium term.

I was only speaking to the problem being alleviated once fastpass goes live at Disneyland. DHS will almost certainly have the same problem and also send guests backstage until fastpass eventually goes live there.

 

[WDWTrojan]

The place reminds me of a bombed out backlot set after production has wrapped. Yes you're walking through and seeing the amazing attention to detail, but the energy is not there. There's nothing "Disney" about it, from the drab bombed out decor, the lack of music, the cast members who are way too in character. Obviously it's VERY different thematically but its the same feeling you get walking (or driving) through the War of the Worlds set on the Universal Studios backlot tour. Eerie and creepy, not warm & fuzzy.

Harambe at DAK is also run down but it is a place you want to explore. There's lush greenery closer to the Safari - it feels thematically at home in a park about adventure. The cast members are smiling, the band is playing, there's upbeat African music playing. Imagine entering that same land without all of that and instead you just hear sound effects of bombs in the distance, a warlord with a weapon shows up and barks orders at you, while the cast members role play that there is a water shortage. Not so fun now, is it?

At the VERY least, they could start to play the iconic John Williams music, if not in the land itself, on the approach into the land at the various entry points. It's a bit of a walk from Critter Country into SWGE - how great would it be if as you approached suddenly the music transitioned to that iconic score? It would feel like you're stepping into a Star Wars movie.

 

[smile]

Last time I went, a friend of mine's highest priority was to go to the cantina and have a drink while listening to the classic song. I then had to tell her they don't actually play the Star Was Cantina Song in the Star Wars Land Cantina and she looked at me like I was out of my mind. Then I sheepishly started muttering something about Batuu and immersion and she just rolled her eyes and walked away.

!

 

[Herah]

I remember reading that streetmosphere, droids and so forth were going to be delayed because of the anticipated extreme crowds, and would be added when the initial crush began to die down. Now everyone is assuming it's permanent and talking about "cuts".

Has the promised entertainment actually been cut? Or is it possible that they were caught wrong-footed, and it's not ready yet because it wasn't expected to be practical yet?

 

[SpoiledBlueMilk]

This is actually a problem that fastpass will solve. Once Disneyland’s Falcon offers fastpass the standby queue will be physically shorter even if the wait times stay the same or increase.

I don't think this will be an issue with DHS. They will simply re-route the crowds a different way. DL is different given layout and space, or the lack thereof.

 

[peter11435]

I don't think this will be an issue with DHS. They will simply re-route the crowds a different way. DL is different given layout and space, or the lack thereof.

If this was a line to enter the land itself I would agree with you. But this line is within the land at the attraction. The lands themselves are very similar in layout and space.