TJJohn12
Well-Known Member
...I think this was more a strategic choice than an artistic one. The separation limits conflict with the still dynamic SW universe the company is developing elsewhere. It also allows them to do cross-overs where they chose... without having to try to retrocon the park stuff into old films, etc.
I'm seeing it as a strategic, artistic choice. It's a hard learned lesson by WDI too.
By keeping this as its own place - with largely self-contained stories and lore - it means they'll hopefully avoid the massive wet fart of a continuity destroyer that is Star Tours: The Adventure Continues. There's a case where being too integrated into the "ride the movies" mentality has created a muddled mess. Making a ride locked-in as a prequel severely hamstrung their choices and set them on a path to continuity failure. A ride set in between Episode III and Episode IV now has random scenes from Episode VII and Episode VIII because of the inevitable marketing integration of the newer films. So you leap forward and back in time in weird ways - you can leave Star Tours' terminal when Darth Vader is alive and land on Batuu sometime after the battle of Takodana...
Setting Batuu in the canon's "present" has also helped this greatly. It means Original Trilogy fanbois are angry that Han is dead and isn't telling you how to fly the Falcon. But it means that when there is inevitably a cross-promotion with a coming SW film, that integration can be organic and not shoehorned.