News Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge - Historical Construction/Impressions

[Hatbox Ghostbuster]

“If you bring back all the loot and there’s not a scratch on the ship and Hondo is really happy when you bring it back, you might find yourself with some extra Galactic Credits in your account, but do a poor job, you lose the cargo, you smash up the ship, you might come back owing more money than you started with, the bossman might not be too happy and when you roll across to the local cantina the bartender might lean over and say ‘hey, word on the street is your name’s been put on the list of a local bounty hunter, I’d watch out if I were you’ so how well you do on this mission really does have an impact on your overall, land-wide story.”

This sounds equally hilarious and also confusing. I expect this to be handled very loosely.

 

[Hatbox Ghostbuster]

To many people, lands/environments are just as, if not more, important than ride experiences. SW:GE will deliver on that in ways putting a star wars ride in an existing tomorrowland wont. And I'm thirsty for a passionate land project in the wake of DCA.

Hey, I get all that. But when people say stuff like, "this is giving audiences what they want", I just don't see it. I'm sure people have wanted more Star Wars in the parks for a long time, but Disney did nothing. And I'm also sure people would have loved a new attraction regardless of its placement. All I'm saying is that the company is only acting on it now, for the previous reasons I stated, as well as other more "fiscally-minded" ones.

Also: I too am ready for some brand new WDI achievements not tied to the names Pixar or Superheroes...but I am NOT ready for the impact of that on the rest of the parks. And I think when I really boil down all my emotions and thoughts about SWL, that's what is most impactful.

 

[Rich T]

“If you bring back all the loot and there’s not a scratch on the ship and Hondo is really happy when you bring it back, you might find yourself with some extra Galactic Credits in your account, but do a poor job, you lose the cargo, you smash up the ship, you might come back owing more money than you started with, the bossman might not be too happy and when you roll across to the local cantina the bartender might lean over and say ‘hey, word on the street is your name’s been put on the list of a local bounty hunter, I’d watch out if I were you’ so how well you do on this mission really does have an impact on your overall, land-wide story.”

This sounds equally hilarious and also confusing. I expect this to be handled very loosely.

And I'm sure each and every guest in SWGE will experience this wonderful scenario....oh...wait...did I get a whiff of UPCHARGE?

 

[Hatbox Ghostbuster]

And I'm sure each and every guest in SWGE will experience this wonderful scenario....oh...wait...did I get a whiff of UPCHARGE?

I wouldn't be surprised if the whole land doesn't start out as an upcharge.

 

[nevol]

Hey, I get all that. But when people say stuff like, "this is giving audiences what they want", I just don't see it. I'm sure people have wanted more Star Wars in the parks for a long time, but Disney did nothing. And I'm also sure people would have loved a new attraction regardless of its placement. All I'm saying is that the company is only acting on it now, for the previous reasons I stated, as well as other more "fiscally-minded" ones.

We will see if/when the crowds descend on Disneyland and star wars land in a dramatic way, that this project is capturing and delivering on something from the collective imagination. This is what disneyland has always been about. Curating themes, aesthetics, experiences, and stories, fiction, nonfiction and literary, and presenting them as experiences that themselves are powerful but collectively are even stronger. If people show up for star wars land, regardless of the IP/non-ip balance in the park, it will be hard to argue that it is something people didn't/don't want.

And that isn't just because it is on the surface star wars. The IP draws people, sure. But underneath that, there are storytelling techniques/theme park design principles that can either be respected or abandoned, or built upon. M:BO and PP were abandonments of theme park design techniques that can create success with or without IP. I don't expect the same for this project, just because it is star wars.

 

[Hatbox Ghostbuster]

We will see if/when the crowds descend on Disneyland and star wars land in a dramatic way, that this project is capturing and delivering on something from the collective imagination. This is what disneyland has always been about. Curating themes, aesthetics, experiences, and stories, fiction, nonfiction and literary, and presenting them as experiences that themselves are powerful but collectively are even stronger. If people show up for star wars land, regardless of the IP/non-ip balance in the park, it will be hard to argue that it is something people didn't/don't want.

And that isn't just because it is on the surface star wars. The IP draws people, sure. But underneath that, there are storytelling techniques/theme park design principles that can either be respected or abandoned, or built upon. M:BO and PP were abandonments of theme park design techniques that can create success with or without IP. I don't expect the same for this project, just because it is star wars.

Crowds will descend. Dark days of attendance are approaching. Mark it.

I largely agree with you and honestly this is what WDI should have been doing regularly (not on this grand a scale of course). They need a "win" after their recent blunders, there's no doubt about that.

 

[nevol]

Crowds will descend. Dark days of attendance are approaching. Mark it.

I largely agree with you and honestly this is what WDI should have been doing regularly (not on this grand a scale of course). They need a "win" after their recent blunders, there's no doubt about that.

The profits from SW:GE will help pay for Journey into Imagination to come to Tomorrowland or DCA Always fun to get in debates around here. Watch the Youtube video I linked on the last page if you get a chance!

 

[Hatbox Ghostbuster]

The profits from SW:GE will help pay for Journey into Imagination to come to Tomorrowland or DCA Always fun to get in debates around here. Watch the Youtube video I linked on the last page if you get a chance!

Don't tease me with Figment coming to CA!!!! It's getting too expensive to keep flying to Florida!


I'll watch later. Though I actually had a conversation with Joe Rohde about IP earlier this year and his comments did make me see that they're not all bad...it just boils down to execution.

 

[nevol]

Don't tease me with Figment coming to CA!!!! It's getting too expensive to keep flying to Florida!


I'll watch later. Though I actually had a conversation with Joe Rohde about IP earlier this year and his comments did make me see that they're not all bad...it just boils down to execution.

Yea. I feel like publicly he downplays how disruptive they are. Saying things like ultimately everything is IP. If it is based on local folklore, mythology, themes, fairy tales, rarely are you creating something out of thin air. I say he is downplaying the IP thing because we see him really excel without relying on it (DAK). But Scott's comments in this video are really what surprised me and gave me some reassurance. I always knew that this team was obsessed with making star wars land as incredible as possible and have met some of the team, but to hear him acknowledge that Disneyland belongs to the public and that TWDC are merely the stewards of the place was powerful and flew in the face of this fan community's greatest fears.

 

[bshah365]

New information the article offers
1. Seats can rotate 360 degrees.
2. 200+ buttons. Every single one having a function.
3. Gunners are located in the center.
4. Engineers will be located in the back.
5. Explore the main chess room (in the queue I'm guessing?). Looking at the photos of the benches and seats, I cant help but wonder how people will hold their place in line or even form a queue... maybe its like Mickey's house where you would wait in an extended queue, board the falcon and explore the rooms on your own, then join the rest of the queue towards the end? The article states that guests will be able to push many buttons and soak it all up.. interesting..

 

[nevol]

(This is relevant because of the crowd modifications ahead of sw:ge) Just stumbled upon a video of Gilroy Gardens. Ultimately, this is the epitome of the type of "charm" people are afraid disneyland is losing right now as they engineer it for crowds. A victim of its own success. Fantasyland ought to be more like Gilroy Gardens (and the esplanade, please). But the only way to do that now would be through multileveling; rides are getting bigger, show buildings are getting bigger. Instead of divvying up the land as either environment/onstage and show building, they need to spend double the money to bury the ride buildings like Pirates, so that whenever they have the chance to, new square footage can be BOTH show building and onstage.

DLP's tom sawyer island equivalent is the swiss family robinson treehouse/pirate caves in adventureland. The main difference is that those caves/treehouses process thousands of people an hour, because there are small access points all over Adventureland. While TSI is a nice escape for those disneyland guests who use it, it does take a large footprint, and eventually Disney may have to consider awaking the Lafitte Caverns/catacombs project that Eddie Sotto proposed in the 90s to get more people onto the island and out of the rest of the park. Perhaps the path over by hungry bear can be the tunnel location, and another by big thunder where the mine train from natures wonderland tunnel sits unused since New Orleans Square is too crowded.

 

[SSG]

New information the article offers
1. Seats can rotate 360 degrees.
2. 200+ buttons. Every single one having a function.
3. Gunners are located in the center.
4. Engineers will be located in the back.
5. Explore the main chess room (in the queue I'm guessing?). Looking at the photos of the benches and seats, I cant help but wonder how people will hold their place in line or even form a queue... maybe its like Mickey's house where you would wait in an extended queue, board the falcon and explore the rooms on your own, then join the rest of the queue towards the end? The article states that guests will be able to push many buttons and soak it all up.. interesting..

Don't forget "seven pods carrying six seats each"

That's [checks calculator] 42 people. And there are four bays. That's [checks calculator] 168 people per ride. This doesn't sound like brilliant capacity.

 

[Hatbox Ghostbuster]

(This is relevant because of the crowd modifications ahead of sw:ge) Just stumbled upon a video of Gilroy Gardens. Ultimately, this is the epitome of the type of "charm" people are afraid disneyland is losing right now as they engineer it for crowds. A victim of its own success. Fantasyland ought to be more like Gilroy Gardens (and the esplanade, please). But the only way to do that now would be through multileveling; rides are getting bigger, show buildings are getting bigger. Instead of divvying up the land as either environment/onstage and show building, they need to spend double the money to bury the ride buildings like Pirates, so that whenever they have the chance to, new square footage can be BOTH show building and onstage.

Disney is already notoriously bad at budgeting, so giving them even MORE money seems like a bad idea...

 

[nevol]

New information the article offers
1. Seats can rotate 360 degrees.
2. 200+ buttons. Every single one having a function.
3. Gunners are located in the center.
4. Engineers will be located in the back.
5. Explore the main chess room (in the queue I'm guessing?). Looking at the photos of the benches and seats, I cant help but wonder how people will hold their place in line or even form a queue... maybe its like Mickey's house where you would wait in an extended queue, board the falcon and explore the rooms on your own, then join the rest of the queue towards the end? The article states that guests will be able to push many buttons and soak it all up.. interesting..

This is awesome. Word on the street is this was star tours on steroids. Why, exactly? Better graphics? Gamification? The ride system on star tours looked to be more dynamic and thus thrilling. But this is good news. 360 degrees, where, I wonder? are we talking about heartline rolls as we face forward? Up and down and thus backwards? Unless the screen we see is locked to our vehicle, moving with us, I imagine some of the motion has to be limited, and the heartline roll is allowable because it wouldn't take riders away from facing forward. (I would use x y and z to describe the direction of rotations but that would be meaningless without a drawing of the ride vehicle)

 

[nevol]

Don't forget "seven pods carrying six seats each"

That's [checks calculator] 42 people. And there are four bays. That's [checks calculator] 168 people per ride. This doesn't sound like brilliant capacity.

168 per 5 minutes. 168x20=3360. This has to be way off because that capacity would be incredible. If it takes 7 minutes to load/unload/cycle then we're looking at 168x8.5 or 1428 pph.

 

[Hatbox Ghostbuster]

Don't forget "seven pods carrying six seats each"

That's [checks calculator] 42 people. And there are four bays. That's [checks calculator] 168 people per ride. This doesn't sound like brilliant capacity.

I've been thinking that the two attractions will probably adopt a fastpass type ticket system. Otherwise the standby wait times are going to be...out of this world!...

OK...I'll show myself out.

 

[nevol]

Disney is already notoriously bad at budgeting, so giving them even MORE money seems like a bad idea...

The alternative is Disney has to buy land nearby, remove attractions every time they add one, or just remove all of the trees so that the park/environment experience is the worst in the world while the ride lineup is the best. I'm really impressed so far with what Disneyland has been able to cram into its footprint and how that actually makes the park better. Look alternatively at Shanghai DL and you see areas the size of pandora wasted on bodies of water and gardens that nobody uses, without any interesting sightlines/glimpsing, seemingly unusable now (I'm looking at you, everything between Gardens and Pirates).

 

[Hatbox Ghostbuster]

The alternative is Disney has to buy land nearby, remove attractions every time they add one, or just remove all of the trees so that the park/environment experience is the worst in the world while the ride lineup is the best.

OR, they could just level DCA and start over...again!

 

[SuddenStorm]

I

First: "Half its existence". Thanks for making me feel reeeeally old.
2nd: "Before that, Disneyland was a place parents took their kids because they had to. No one went there without children." Where did you get that????? That's just completely untrue. Thousands upon thousands of families, went to DL because they loved the park. They went on dates, they went with friends, they had a blast. Space Mtn. had a line going all the way down Main Street when it opened, and it wasn't mostly kids. Kids weren't the ones staying until 1:00 AM every night during the summer. Dude, I was there. My friends were there. And it was mobbed! Always!

I agree Star Tours and Indiana helped bring even *more* people in. And SWGE will bring even more. And more. And the overall experience will most likely get more and more unpleasant because of the increasing crowds. Disney really is in danger of killing its Golden Goose.

To back this up, Disneyland had the incredibly popular "Date Nite at Disneyland" promotion geared towards couples. Not to mention Grad Nite, Videopolis, and the many other non family focused events and entertainment geared towards giving adults stuff to do.

 

[SuddenStorm]

“If you bring back all the loot and there’s not a scratch on the ship and Hondo is really happy when you bring it back, you might find yourself with some extra Galactic Credits in your account, but do a poor job, you lose the cargo, you smash up the ship, you might come back owing more money than you started with, the bossman might not be too happy and when you roll across to the local cantina the bartender might lean over and say ‘hey, word on the street is your name’s been put on the list of a local bounty hunter, I’d watch out if I were you’ so how well you do on this mission really does have an impact on your overall, land-wide story.”

This sounds equally hilarious and also confusing. I expect this to be handled very loosely.

I expect this to last a month, then go away completely. The only way this works is if guests spend most of their time in the land. This makes Star Wars Land sound like a half day land, where you're supposed to spend a lot of time exploring and experiencing some sort of LARP experience.

How this works within the context of Disneyland? I have no idea. This kind of experience will operate independent from the rest of the park, further disjointing Galaxy's Edge from Disneyland instead of working to strengthen the entire product.