I know much has been said about the decision to set Galaxy's Edge in a specific era in Star Wars, but can we take a minute to talk about the real stupidity of picking the particular era they chose?
There was something fun to the idea of being able to walk into a living mid-quel between The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker . . . for about a few months before Rise of Skywalker came out and ended that trilogy. Now here we are 3 years later, and this new addition is still stuck in the limbo of events that happened prior to the last installation of the story . . . what??
Anyone with any real planning sense should have looked at a conceptual level and said "it would make WAY more sense for us to either move up the release of The Last Jedi or push back the opening of Galaxy's Edge so that we can open a place set in an era after the events of that trilogy. Having seen Rise of Skywalker it's decently clear why they chose not to do that . . . *cough* Kylo *cough* . . . but it would have given them SO much more leeway to create exciting things to happen that 1) Don't have to retroactively jibe with events that, like, could have secretly happened between films, and 2) aren't sending us back to a seemingly arbitrary period in the history of Star Wars. I get the idea of wanting to insert people into a moment of high-conflict in the galaxy, but why would I now, having seen The Rise of Skywalker, want to walk specifically into the moments before that movie happened, effectively being asked to pretend they haven't happened yet?
They couldn't have coordinated the writing of Rise of Skywalker with the plans for Galaxy's Edge and left off on a note that we would want to enter for ourselves? Wouldn't it make more sense long-term to say "you've seen the end of the new Trilogy, now step into that world on your own Star Wars adventure" and feel like a real continuation of the story? Then you have the freedom to conjure up some new conflict that's fun to step into as an audience, has the trappings of a Star Wars story, can still be written to be canon, but aren't weirdly landlocked by the release dates of 2 movies that are already years behind us.
It makes sense that the Halcyon is nestled in the same moment in time that Galaxy's Edge is . . . but it seems like they picked the single dumbest era to stick us in from here on out. It's totally crazy to have this opening years after the fact and have to ignore all the events of Rise of Skywalker, which was released 3 months after opening day of GE. The vast majority of its life will be in a world where most people who enter will have seen the whole trilogy, they should have put us in a moment where they can take full advantage of that. Set the Theme Park environments immediately AFTER the events of the new Trilogy and let us play out what happens then. It would have probably required some rewriting of Rise of Skywalker, but hey, it's not like the movie couldn't have used it.
I know lots of people hate the GE timeline for other reasons, some with more validity than others, but only after seeing this video did I realize how asinine it is that this new experience also has to fall within that same weird window between sequels. And presumably every expansion going forward. Silly. Set it in the "present" immediately after the end of the Trilogy and let us walk into a brave new world of Star Wars, where we can still feel the results of the conflict while also writing for ourselves what comes next. We should be embarking on the Halcyon's first voyage after the fall of the First Order, with the ship newly restored and celebration in the air, only to discover that peace hasn't fallen over the whole galaxy, and things can turn from there.
That took 5 minutes, Disney. Should have called me, could have saved you the "years" it took to write whatever this story is that you're going with.
…have already started to do about their gruesome 5 movies…