Star Wars Land announced for Disney's Hollywood Studios

[marni1971]

I completely disagree that Disney will go this direction. They haven't made any attempts to hype up that this will be a main feature of the land and as Potter has proved, if you have a good enough product and a strong enough brand, you don't need to dilute it down by throwing poorly cast look-a-likes everywhere.


If they do end up going the character route, firstly they need to cast absolutely with perfection. Also, I could see a Poe meeting alongside BB-8. Especially if they're going to stick with the immobile BB-8... it's kind of awkward doing a M&G with BB-8 right now whereas Poe could add some life to that M&G.

Poorly cast look a likes will be an issue for the home grown characters too. Maybe I should reiterate; I don’t expect to see Luke or Lando walking around, but I would expect reference to them and to see R2 and C3PO, Chewie and maybe an Ewok or Jawa. Things easier to cast when someone calls in sick.

 

[Next Big Thing]

Poorly cast look a likes will be an issue for the home grown characters too. Maybe I should reiterate; I don’t expect to see Luke or Lando walking around, but I would expect reference to them and to see R2 and C3PO, Chewie and maybe an Ewok or Jawa. Things easier to cast when someone calls in sick.

I can agree with that more

 

[GoofGoof]

Poorly cast look a likes will be an issue for the home grown characters too. Maybe I should reiterate; I don’t expect to see Luke or Lando walking around, but I would expect reference to them and to see R2 and C3PO, Chewie and maybe an Ewok or Jawa. Things easier to cast when someone calls in sick.

Agreed. Robots and aliens are much easier to pull off. Almost all of the most popular villains could be done too with costumes: Darth Vader, Darth Maul, Bobba Fett, Emperor, etc...

I don’t necessarily think they need to be standard meet and greets but any of those characters could/should appear in the Land even if it’s just in a “show” or marching by like the thing they have been running in front the Chinese theater.

 

[sedati]

I had heard that a major player in the Falcon ride would be Hondo Ohnaka:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hondo_Ohnaka

 

[BlindChow]

 

[Master Yoda]

We stopped by the entrance the other day. Interesting seeing a Christmas tree and America flag on top of the mountain.

That is from the topping out ceremony.

 

[AEfx]

Poorly cast look a likes will be an issue for the home grown characters too. Maybe I should reiterate; I don’t expect to see Luke or Lando walking around, but I would expect reference to them and to see R2 and C3PO, Chewie and maybe an Ewok or Jawa. Things easier to cast when someone calls in sick.

So you think they are going to stop doing the character greets they already done with those characters? Because they already have had Luke's, Leia's, etc.

In general reading some of these other posts I am just baffled, TBH - I have almost never heard Star Wars fans complaining about stuff like this in regards to characters. This is one of those things that is complaining on behalf of those who aren't really complaining themselves, IMO. And let's not forget, among all theme park things - character meet and greets are mostly aimed at kids...telling kids they can't meet their heroes because it will spoil some adult's notion of immersion is silly as heck.

 

[marni1971]

So you think they are going to stop doing the character greets they already done with those characters? Because they already have had Luke's, Leia's, etc..

Sorry, I wasn’t aware they had these. In that case I’d hope they continue in the new land.

 

[AEfx]

Sorry, I wasn’t aware they had these. In that case I’d hope they continue in the new land.

I don't know about at the moment, but they definitely did for Star Wars Weekends in the past. I just can't imagine them not continuing them as they will be such people-eaters.

 

[marni1971]

I don't know about at the moment, but they definitely did for Star Wars Weekends in the past. I just can't imagine them not continuing them as they will be such people-eaters.

I’d hope they would, unless it upsets the time frame of the purists of the franchise.

 

[AEfx]

I’d hope they would, unless it upsets the time frame of the purists of the franchise.

That's just it...the "purists" aren't going to complain about this, IMO. I mean, especially for ones like others here are complaining about. I just cannot imagine a reality where any number of even the most massive Star Wars fans on the planet are going to say, "I don't want to meet Darth Vader because...canon." Just thinking about it makes me laugh, LOL, because most of them will be giddy like little schoolgirls over it.

 

[marni1971]

That's just it...the "purists" aren't going to complain about this..

They already seem to be a few pages back.

Maybe SWL phase two will balance things out.

 

[bclane]

That's just it...the "purists" aren't going to complain about this, IMO. I mean, especially for ones like others here are complaining about. I just cannot imagine a reality where any number of even the most massive Star Wars fans on the planet are going to say, "I don't want to meet Darth Vader because...canon." Just thinking about it makes me laugh, LOL, because most of them will be giddy like little schoolgirls over it.

Guilty of being giddy like a school girl right here.

 

[FerretAfros]

I don't know about at the moment, but they definitely did for Star Wars Weekends in the past. I just can't imagine them not continuing them as they will be such people-eaters.

Approximate people-eater capacity: thousands of guests per hour
Approximate meet & greet capacity: dozens of guests per hour

I'm sure M&Gs would be popular, but let's not mix up our terminology here. For a location where people are already concerned about long-term crowding, having M&Gs as a major component would be a massive misstep. Even when they use locations with multiple rooms for increased capacity, M&Gs have lower hourly throughput than the slowest-loading spinners. A true people-eater like Pirates or Spaceship Earth can process more guests in an hour than a M&G will do all day

Meet & greets may be popular and they may be necessary. But people-eaters they are not.

 

[AEfx]

They already seem to be a few pages back.

Maybe SWL phase two will balance things out.

TBH, they sound more like theme park purists, versus Star Wars.

I mean, even the comparisons they use are poor and don't show much knowledge about Star Wars - "well, Potter-land shows you don't need characters" - which is bantha-poo in terms of themes. The point of the Harry Potter Lands are to make you feel like Harry Potter (or at least one of his classmates). There really aren't many "heroes" in Harry Potter aside from the most major few characters - and meet and greets with them would be logistically odd since they would have to be played by children or teenagers, and their costumes are all rather generic school uniforms for the most part. I'm sure that's why Rowling outlawed them.

Star Wars is so much larger and more expansive - it means so many different things to so many people, and the characters are what tie it all together. They are what people get passionate about. There is no singular Star Wars storyline (being a student at Hogwarts) or single handful of major focus characters (Harry, Hermione, that ginger kid) - there are a couple dozen "top tier" Star Wars characters across time frames who have massive followings on their own.

To be honest, I'm kind of confused how based on what Disney chose to do with it, and the kinds of things the Imagineers have directly said about SWL, that folks don't get that they created a new Star Wars location precisely for this reason. The Emperor could land there for some reason one time, the First Order another. Han Solo and Leia come to do a secret mission. Boba Fett is there chasing some bounty. Jabba's crew comes by to claim some shipments. By creating a new location versus using an existing SW location, they have the flexibility to play around quite a bit.

It's all about the character possibilities. The entire land was designed to accommodate the widest breadth of characters and timelines possible.

 

[AEfx]

Approximate people-eater capacity: thousands of guests per hour
Approximate meet & greet capacity: dozens of guests per hour

I'm sure M&Gs would be popular, but let's not mix up our terminology here. For a location where people are already concerned about long-term crowding, having M&Gs as a major component would be a massive misstep. Even when they use locations with multiple rooms for increased capacity, M&Gs have lower hourly throughput than the slowest-loading spinners. A true people-eater like Pirates or Spaceship Earth can process more guests in an hour than a M&G will do all day

Meet & greets may be popular and they may be necessary. But people-eaters they are not.

I'm not mixing anything up - yes, versus some major attraction which costs 100's of millions of dollars, no, they are not going to be comparable - but they are cheap, can be placed nearly anywhere, can be easily scaled upon demand, and people are willing to stand in very long lines for them. In terms of giving people in the land something to do, more Star Wars things to stand in line for, etc. are what I am talking about.

 

[EricsBiscuit]

i just think that if we want to take the medium of themed design seriously they should stick to canon. And heck, just like it has been pointed out, they have flexibility in which characters can be spotted on this planet because it's new and controlled. Just because you can't meet Leia doesn't mean you won't be able to meet Kylo. To today's younger audience it might be Kylo they prefer to meet over Leia. If they want to stick to canon and still have places you can meet characters that fit the canon they should build more SWLs. I hope they do. You could probably treat the Star Wars IP to fit DAK and MK. Anyways, I think they can make a great land while sticking to canon.

 

[Movielover]

I would be totally fine if they had a meet & greet dedicated building in the new land. Then they could swap out as many characters as they wanted throughout the day. This way it would be closed off out of sight of the rest of the in-universe land and they could swap out as many characters as they want.

 

[GoofGoof]

TBH, they sound more like theme park purists, versus Star Wars.

This^^^

The average Star Wars fan will be confused and disappointed if the classic characters don’t appear in Star Wars Land. Most hard core SW fans probably would be disappointed too. Disney has to make the call of either making this land fun and entertaining for the masses or making it pure and “fully immersive” for a niche fanboy group. If they follow the chosen backstory to the letter and the planet is set in the time of the new trilogy there are no jedis left so no selling the make your own lightsabers or other classic merchandise either. It would be a big miss both from a guest enjoyment point of view and from a profitability standpoint for Disney.

IMHO they can make a very well themed land which makes you feel like you were transported to a planet in the SW Universe without regard to a timeline or a known story. The land and the attractions within will not be a retelling of the plots of any of the movies which is a good thing. Leaves things open to whatever they imagine. That’s much more exciting to me.

 

[GoofGoof]

I would be totally fine if they had a meet & greet dedicated building in the new land. Then they could swap out as many characters as they wanted throughout the day. This way it would be closed off out of sight of the rest of the in-universe land and they could swap out as many characters as they want.

I would have also added an area for a larger, indoor Jedi Training Academy. I can tell you from experience that one of the hottest and most miserable experiences is waiting in the blazing sun for that show to start. It was also hard to get into with limited capacity.