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News Star Wars Galaxy's Edge Disneyland opening reports/reviews
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
Cool. Let's do it!
britain
Well-Known Member
TROR
Well-Known Member
That's a piece of merchandise.
britain
Well-Known Member
So... we now see where you stand regarding droid rights!
He rolled a bit, he beeped. That's all we'd expect out of a meet-n-greet with R2.
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Um, how small do you think his kids are?
Yeah, I just wish he was out and about. But he's there!
ParkPeeker
Well-Known Member
I think you could legit buy the fully sized one though
RobWDW1971
Well-Known Member
Make sure you get the $25,000 price tag in the picture - they'll appreciate the Disney irony more when they're grown
RobWDW1971
Well-Known Member
Darn you, SWGE! I mean, come on!!!
tirian
Well-Known Member
Going back on-topic, and to the reason @wdwmagic started this thread...
I finally experienced SWGE yesterday. So much has been written that I don’t think anyone needs a massive essay from me, but here’s a list of pros and cons IMHO:
Pros
1. SWGE looks like a legit movie set, and the initial impression is WOW even when you already know about its faults.
2. The queue for Smuggler’s Run is impressively faithful to the movies, even though you can sense the layout has been tweaked for the theme park queue.
3. The Cantina’s theming is superb.
4. Kudos to Disney for trying something new. WDI tried and gets an A for effort on the conduct card.
Cons (you can see where this is going)
1. The faithfulness to a strict storyline/place/etc. sounds great on paper and makes online fanboys get goosebumps with excitement, but in reality, it’s silly and doesn’t work. Tourists in modern clothes are walking around because SWGE is a make-believe place in a theme park. The refusal to acknowledge this fact gives the land a sense of being a playground for neckbeard weirdos who live in their parents’ basements.
Chapek helped develop the rules for this, and they are strange. Don’t acknowledge the fireworks. Don’t sign autograph books (I saw some very upset kids). Use cutesy phrases instead of plain English for simple needs. We’ve been told this was intended to replace entertainment (my point #3), but as a day guest, you don’t know that. You only know it feels wrong. These factors don’t feel like you’re in a different world, because you already know you’re not; and there are enough thematic disconnects to stop you from suspending disbelief (more on that in point #2).
At times, SWGE felt like boring cosplay on an expensive movie set.
2. The land lacks Star Wars creativity because it is permanently locked to a depressing, war-torn, third-world location. Disney cannot add attractions from throughout the SW universe because they didn’t build an all-encompassing SW land like the traditionally vague, inclusive themes of typical Magic Kingdom lands. Fantasyland can hold anything from European storybooks, regardless whether the setting is England, France, Germany, Italy, or Holland.
WDI built Batuu. Period. If something doesn’t fit into the Batuu storyline, it doesn’t get built.
3. With no entertainment, no music, and few “realistic” (i.e. diagetic) sound effects, the land is curiously quiet and feels unfinished. Sure, we’ve heard the excuses that this is supposed to make the place feel more realistic, but in a land of tourists in shorts and tees, you already know you’re not really on Batuu. The entertainment, music, etc. HELP suspend disbelief because it gives your brain audio/visual cues to believe in. Sound effects sound like that and nothing more.
4. OT should’ve been used. People have already talked about this. Screw Disney’s plans for synergy, new movies, etc. The public knows and loves the OT, and has done so for over forty years. The OT has a nostalgic connection; Batuu does not. With its marketing machine, Disney will manufacture nostalgia for the new films over the coming years, but that doesn’t mean they’re more popular than the OT right now. And as toy sales have repeatedly proven, they’re not.
5. Every single complaint about the placemaking and physical aspects is right. Closed doors lead to nowhere, emphasizing you’re on a movie set. The Cantina (I got in!!!) is tiny. I asked my friend, “How many idiots approved this minuscule space for a theme park?” Once you know it was intended to be the lobby for a larger restaurant, the stupidity is even more frustrating. The stores are too small for comfort. The walkways are huge, and the land feels like it’s full of empty space. Speaking of stores...
6. The exclusive merch is far too overpriced for plastic junk. The build-your-own lightsabers and plastic droids cost too much for what they are. The lightsabers aren’t close to what you’d get for a similar price from existing replica shops. The droids are basic remote-controlled vehicles that probably cost $20 wholesale.
7. Blue milk is awful and the food was mediocre. I didn’t order anything alcoholic.
8. In Disneyland, the worst offense is that SWGE doesn’t feel like DL. The scale is wrong, the theme is depressing, the Batuu location is too specific. If this had been built at DCA or DAK, many of these issues wouldn’t be a problem; look at the poverty-stricken realism of Africa and Asia at DAK. They work in the park’s context; they’d be out of place in the MK.
Yet at Disney’s most charming theme park it’s ever built, SWGE has zero charm and feels like design by committee.
I’m sure this won’t be a problem at DHS in Florida because DHS isn’t the MK.
9. The interactive elements simply translate some crap that doesn’t matter and make lights blink. That is, that’s what they do if the app actually loads and connects to the network. The app sucks, btw.
10. Since I was not the pilot for two rides on Smuggler’s Run, I had a subpar experience, and I also asked my friend how this was never mentioned in any of the ride tests. Why make an attraction that only one rider can look forward and see from beginning to end? Again, this is one of those head-scratching decisions to make everything hyper realistic—but it’s stupid. The decision-makers drank the Kool-Aid through every planning, testing, and adjustment phase.
Bottom line: weird creative decisions, mostly made to shill the new movies and lock the entire land into a single storyline, make SWGE feel more like a movie set into a third-world country, and less like an exciting visit to a galaxy far, far away.
But I do think WDI can fix most of the problems! Add rooms to the Cantina. Add OT elements to get out of the silly, locked-down Batuu storyline. Add music and entertainment — FUN entertainment that doesn’t depend on Stormtroopers or Emo-Villain-Kylo’s threats.
It will never be the Tatooine, Bespin (Cloud City), or Ewok Village that fans wanted to visit, but Batuu can be better than it is.
After I left the land, I rode HM to cleanse my palate.
I finally experienced SWGE yesterday. So much has been written that I don’t think anyone needs a massive essay from me, but here’s a list of pros and cons IMHO:
Pros
1. SWGE looks like a legit movie set, and the initial impression is WOW even when you already know about its faults.
2. The queue for Smuggler’s Run is impressively faithful to the movies, even though you can sense the layout has been tweaked for the theme park queue.
3. The Cantina’s theming is superb.
4. Kudos to Disney for trying something new. WDI tried and gets an A for effort on the conduct card.
Cons (you can see where this is going)
1. The faithfulness to a strict storyline/place/etc. sounds great on paper and makes online fanboys get goosebumps with excitement, but in reality, it’s silly and doesn’t work. Tourists in modern clothes are walking around because SWGE is a make-believe place in a theme park. The refusal to acknowledge this fact gives the land a sense of being a playground for neckbeard weirdos who live in their parents’ basements.
Chapek helped develop the rules for this, and they are strange. Don’t acknowledge the fireworks. Don’t sign autograph books (I saw some very upset kids). Use cutesy phrases instead of plain English for simple needs. We’ve been told this was intended to replace entertainment (my point #3), but as a day guest, you don’t know that. You only know it feels wrong. These factors don’t feel like you’re in a different world, because you already know you’re not; and there are enough thematic disconnects to stop you from suspending disbelief (more on that in point #2).
At times, SWGE felt like boring cosplay on an expensive movie set.
2. The land lacks Star Wars creativity because it is permanently locked to a depressing, war-torn, third-world location. Disney cannot add attractions from throughout the SW universe because they didn’t build an all-encompassing SW land like the traditionally vague, inclusive themes of typical Magic Kingdom lands. Fantasyland can hold anything from European storybooks, regardless whether the setting is England, France, Germany, Italy, or Holland.
WDI built Batuu. Period. If something doesn’t fit into the Batuu storyline, it doesn’t get built.
3. With no entertainment, no music, and few “realistic” (i.e. diagetic) sound effects, the land is curiously quiet and feels unfinished. Sure, we’ve heard the excuses that this is supposed to make the place feel more realistic, but in a land of tourists in shorts and tees, you already know you’re not really on Batuu. The entertainment, music, etc. HELP suspend disbelief because it gives your brain audio/visual cues to believe in. Sound effects sound like that and nothing more.
4. OT should’ve been used. People have already talked about this. Screw Disney’s plans for synergy, new movies, etc. The public knows and loves the OT, and has done so for over forty years. The OT has a nostalgic connection; Batuu does not. With its marketing machine, Disney will manufacture nostalgia for the new films over the coming years, but that doesn’t mean they’re more popular than the OT right now. And as toy sales have repeatedly proven, they’re not.
5. Every single complaint about the placemaking and physical aspects is right. Closed doors lead to nowhere, emphasizing you’re on a movie set. The Cantina (I got in!!!) is tiny. I asked my friend, “How many idiots approved this minuscule space for a theme park?” Once you know it was intended to be the lobby for a larger restaurant, the stupidity is even more frustrating. The stores are too small for comfort. The walkways are huge, and the land feels like it’s full of empty space. Speaking of stores...
6. The exclusive merch is far too overpriced for plastic junk. The build-your-own lightsabers and plastic droids cost too much for what they are. The lightsabers aren’t close to what you’d get for a similar price from existing replica shops. The droids are basic remote-controlled vehicles that probably cost $20 wholesale.
7. Blue milk is awful and the food was mediocre. I didn’t order anything alcoholic.
8. In Disneyland, the worst offense is that SWGE doesn’t feel like DL. The scale is wrong, the theme is depressing, the Batuu location is too specific. If this had been built at DCA or DAK, many of these issues wouldn’t be a problem; look at the poverty-stricken realism of Africa and Asia at DAK. They work in the park’s context; they’d be out of place in the MK.
Yet at Disney’s most charming theme park it’s ever built, SWGE has zero charm and feels like design by committee.
I’m sure this won’t be a problem at DHS in Florida because DHS isn’t the MK.
9. The interactive elements simply translate some crap that doesn’t matter and make lights blink. That is, that’s what they do if the app actually loads and connects to the network. The app sucks, btw.
10. Since I was not the pilot for two rides on Smuggler’s Run, I had a subpar experience, and I also asked my friend how this was never mentioned in any of the ride tests. Why make an attraction that only one rider can look forward and see from beginning to end? Again, this is one of those head-scratching decisions to make everything hyper realistic—but it’s stupid. The decision-makers drank the Kool-Aid through every planning, testing, and adjustment phase.
Bottom line: weird creative decisions, mostly made to shill the new movies and lock the entire land into a single storyline, make SWGE feel more like a movie set into a third-world country, and less like an exciting visit to a galaxy far, far away.
But I do think WDI can fix most of the problems! Add rooms to the Cantina. Add OT elements to get out of the silly, locked-down Batuu storyline. Add music and entertainment — FUN entertainment that doesn’t depend on Stormtroopers or Emo-Villain-Kylo’s threats.
It will never be the Tatooine, Bespin (Cloud City), or Ewok Village that fans wanted to visit, but Batuu can be better than it is.
After I left the land, I rode HM to cleanse my palate.
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mickEblu
Well-Known Member
Great review. What did you think of the Falcon?
tirian
Well-Known Member
I realized I forgot to mention it and added it to my review! Thanks for the reminder!
KBLovedDisney
Well-Known Member
Wow! What if you walked into SWGE being naive on anything Star Wars and your kids wanted autographs?? This doesn't sound, well, Disney to me.
tirian
Well-Known Member
Luckily for Disneyland, the characters can walk around freely here and don’t require permanent Meet-and-Greet locations like Florida or Tokyo.
I want to know how this will go over in Florida.
Sadly, I’ve had Disney fanboys defend this practice to me by saying that of course characters wouldn’t be signing autographs because you’re REALLY THERE ON BATUU (squeal, gasp). But you’re also really in a theme park that has been selling autograph books for decades, and has created expectations that your moppets will take photos with characters and get autographs.
That’s the Magic, right? Those interactions are the Pixie Dust that cynical execs have been selling to families since the ‘90s-era commercial with that little girl and Mickey Mouse.
Kram Sacul
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- Yes
Excellent informative review. Movie set, sequel trilogy, 3rd world vibe, cantina size, prices, etc. You hit most of the same points that we’ve heard reposted in this thread since June, minus going up the ramp. Bonus points for throwing a few positive comments in there in the beginning and end. Less suspicious that way.
Figments Friend
Well-Known Member
Agree with everything.
Great review of the current situation.
Thank you for posting this.
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Old Mouseketeer
Well-Known Member
The "no autographs" rule is from Lucasfilm. TWDC lets the studio brands (mainly Lucas and Marvel) make their own rules (plus a few from the lawyers, especially how they handle Spiderman). For example, the only employees allowed in SWGE not in themed costume are management, security, guest relations (plaids), and the occasional person from facilities.
TROR
Well-Known Member
Bob Iger gets the final say. He's the one who decides what goes and what doesn't at the end of the day.
smooch
Well-Known Member
If they make a Jake style droid just don't make him so overly / fakely worn down. It is so obvious it is just paint, they should actually paint him like new then scratch him up / throw some dirt at him, or just keep him looking new. I'm sure there has to be someone in Batuu who takes care of their droids, not everything needs to look like it is about to break down (like ROTR does
)
tirian
Well-Known Member
Just posting because I finally saw it in person. And yes, most of the complaints so far are valid.
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