What I love about Disneyland and its Americana/hard facts ingredient can sort of be summed up the following way: The park builds out a linearity of ideas and national myths and identity through these environments. They are the basis for the entire disneyland experience. Main street is turn of the century optimistic victorian america. To the left you see how this white america and its european ancestry viewed/fetishized/made exotic the rest of the world through their limited understanding of them. In frontierland you see where manifest destiny and all of that optimism brought us to the frontier, where white people held this belief that everything belonged to them and they battled both natives and the wilderness. To the right of the hub you have tomorrowland, where this trajectory of western thought and western civilization will take us. Tomorrowland is where main street, and frontierland, eventually arrive with newer technology but the same logic, ambition, premise to society. Behind the castle you have the european stories that we brought to the US from Europe. While the park is secular, and fantasyland dark rides arent religious, it is true that the castles play the same role in the center of the park that christian churches played in medieval cities, not to mention thta main street has the same layout as a standard christian/catholic basilica plan church with its roof ripped off. We approach the altar in a church during ritual/ceremony and we understand that it is a significant, transcendent moment. We are drinking the blood of christ, getting married, saying goodbye to a loved one, for example. When we walk down main street, subconsciously, we are transcending, we are engaging something important, we just don't realize that the familiarity of the progression through the arrival sequence and entrance mimics the church so accurately. This is all important not because disneyland is or needs to be american propaganda; but because it is the logical foundation of our american, western, and now 21st century global frame of mind. The fact that it isn't historically accurate is irellevant, because what matters most is that this is our narrativized story and identity. We understand it. All stories leverage, recycle, and reference ideas, symbols, images, aesthetics from reality. Disneyland's lands are the language we need to know in order to be able to understand any of the stories being told in the rides. So for IP attractions to work, and to feel more provocative and important, we can place them in a thematic context. Disneyland doesn't just blur the line between Abe lincoln and George Lucas's characters; it DRAWS the lines, just as it draws those connections between main street, frontierland, and tomorrowland. We see the same heroes/anti-heroes, conflicts, journeys, both fantasy and fiction, repeated over and over again, and we can contextualize them and relate to them that way.
Star wars is a cowboy and indians story, and as much as our society roots for the good guys, our country behaves a lot more like the empire/first order. Placing star wars land on the northern edge of the rivers of america makes a ton of sense to me because of the coincidental recycling of american history, conflict, and themes in the IP and in the land's orientation, and how it aligns perfectly with the orientation of frontierland. On the eastern edge of galaxy's edge, the city/marketplace has been occupied by the first order. This is directly north of frontierland's town. On the western edge of galaxy's edge, the resistance is hiding in the wilderness, not far from where native americans are keeping watch over the river on the rivers of america. It makes far more sense to me now that this land is located here rather than tomorrowland because despite what everybody assumes, the relationship between star wars and tomorrowland is very weak. The only thematic glue holding it together is a shared manifestation theme of outer space. Otherwise, tomorrowland is supposed to be peaceful, and star wars is stuck in the violence of america's history. (this is also why I think Star wars isn't resonating well with chinese audiences; not just because the new movies aren't as good, but because the cultural lens with which to understand these stories isn't there; it's too western/american. Its too frontierland.) Disney would never tell us which team to root for, or point out the relationship between star wars fiction and our own national story. But the proximity of the lands does allow some visitors to realize these parallels, and see their own history and identity through a new light. In other words, Star Wars IN disneyland near frontierland allows disneyland to answer to its dedication to the hard facts that have created America. Yes, I said it, and I mean it. IP done right can be sophisticated, historical, inspiring, meaningful. Whether innate or on purpose, this project in this location makes a ton of sense and it will do more to answer to Walt's dedication speech than anything since IASW or Carousel of Progress. Shoot me for it.
Newer disneylands (really just the newest) and the third gates and the competition are completely missing this. I don't believe the company appreciates how truly significant a role this plays. People might not know they want new orleans square or main street or even a frontierland anymore, but without it framing the narrative and guests' perspective, we can't fully appreciate the surrealism or the meaning of the IP juggernauts either. DCA can try all it wants to compete on the basis of IP with disneyland, but if the park isn't about anything deeper, isn't saying anything profound or relatable about the california identity and state of mind, all we'll have are unrelated rides floating in space and a lot of boring meaninglessness as we traverse the park from big moment A to big moment B. People forget that disneyland is just as entertaining when you walk off of Pirates into the streets of new orleans as it is on the boat.
Disneyland is still the best theme park on the planet. Nothing new has come close to topping it. EPCOT was admirably ambitious but where it missed its mark was being a ride-the-6th-grade-textbook park rather than a surreal fantasy version of itself. It doesn't draw the connections or make personal why we should care about communication, culture, mobility, space, the land, energy. The ideas are all separated and depersonalized. Compare this with disneyland, where every ride/narrative is a brush with death, a reassuring survival story. We pay attention because our senses don't want us to die. We know its fake but we don't trust the technology enough to trust that we won't still die. Nothing in epcot understands how disneyland tells stories successfully, or tries to apply the same thrills and evolutionary sensory manipulation to its edutainment/pedagogy. Imagine if universe of energy and horizons/mission space were rolled into one, and narrativized instead of narrated, so that an energy crisis on earth warranted this space exploration for the sake of ensuring our species preservation/survival, which is what motivates space-x/elon musk and ultimately the new shared mythology of the 21st century. It would be the 21st century's answer to Disneyland, which captured the decades of optimism and the potential of endless expansion that we felt after ww2. Until then, Disneyland will still be number one and everything else will just exist to sell IP merchandise. I've come to enjoy other parks less upon really getting to the root of what I love about Disneyland.
