It’s missing droids walking around, Also you buy a lightsaber and can’t use it on the land? When I buy my Hp expensive wand at least I can use it in the land
Yep, that was a HUGE mistake. Using wands around WWOHP has massive appeal. Who wouldn't love that? Heck, the arm bands in Nintendo World aren't laden with nostalgia or anything, but they made that tiny little place interactive. Galaxy's Edge is just there, cold, static.
You are more than allowed to use your lightsabers in the park, dueling might be a no no but I do it all the time with my brother and nobody came to us or anything
"You stood on the shoulders of geniuses and before you even knew what you had, You packaged it, patented it, slapped it on a plastic lunchbox and now your selling it! Your selling it! "
I visited Galaxy’s Edge at Hollywood Studios for the first time on August last year. The level of detail and immersion is incredible. It truly feels like another planet. I still felt like something was missing though. When it comes to the attractions Rise of the Resistance is amazing. It’s like being in a movie. The Millennium Falcon ride was cool, but nothing extraordinary it’s like a modernized version of Mission Space in Epcot. But if I compare to other lands like Pandora and The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I found that these last two give a more emotional feel and make you feel more welcome and give the feel that you’re part of it instead of being a “tourist.” At least that’s how I felt in Galaxy’s Edge.
it's aliens, aliens are what's missing. it's supposed to be a spaceport, and as such should be crawling with aliens. currently the only alien walking around galaxies edge is Chewbacca (if you are lucky) what they need is a hand full of cast members dressed up as generic aliens walking around and manning the shops in the "bazzar" area. there are several aliens that could be achieved with clever costuming and/or facepaints such as: Bothan, Trandoshan, Mon Calamari, Rodian, Twi’lek, and Tusken Raiders. a few of these weirdos walking around would complete the experience.
You said it in your post - the detail is amazing, and it feels like you're on another planet... but you don't feel like you're in Star Wars - and for a Star Wars land, that's a big, big problem!
@@aarondesch While aliens would help, I don't think that'd fix everything. Star Wars isn't just aliens. It's droids, spaceships. And at one point Disney made an object that looks like a spaceship fly above the land (I think ut was only for a day), so it was possible. And if you can't have droids roaming in the park for safety reasons, have them in controlled environments. Or have the cast-members as the owners of the droids, so they control them. Or have specialized tech-people controlling the droids remotely with cameras, to make sure there aren't problems.
In addition to all those issues, how about zero kinetics in the land? Just a big set of buildings sitting there. Go anywhere in the Magic Kingdom, and you’ll see something moving.
I actually think this is the biggest issue compared to all of the other lands at Disneyland and WDW. Except for Disneyland’s Tomorrowland... nothing moves there other than the outdoor attractions. Batuu should have had ships leaving and arriving somehow.
Brando43770 jenny nicholson talks abt this in her star wars video, using rides as forms of ornamentation is something walt disney really liked to do and it seems disney has forgotton about it while they try to imitate universals style of theme park lands
@@dozer11 I heard they have plans for a speeder bike roller coaster as part of a Galaxy’s edge expansion down the line. I’d rather have that at Disneyland instead of another carbon copy of Tron.
@@SalivatingSteve I'm not even a massive Star Wars fan, but a speeder bike ride is something that'd make me want to go there (even if it's not in Endor).
In Wizarding world you can buy and wear costumes. It's an interactive immersive experience. You can be in the world Harry Potter fans have seen and fell in love with in the movies. Two large themed restaurants (in Orlando). A wand is between $20-$40. Galaxy's Edge you can buy jedi robes but not wear them. You have no interactive experiences really. It's in a land you're not familiar with. Half the land is wasted with nothing to do but walk through it to get on Rise of the Resistance. That makes the other half cramped with no place to sit to enjoy a drink or meal. Lightsaber are $200 and the paint comes off if you handle it too much. I'm jealous of HP fans and wish we had an experience like they do. What idiot thought only 50 year olds would like to see an original trilogy themed land? The original movie came out before I was born. I fell in love with them because me 50 sometimes parents showed them to me and I showed my kids. That's at least 3 generations that would want to live that Star Wars. Never in the history of Hollywood has anyone failed as completely as Kathleen Kennedy and Disney Star Wars.
Are you serious? Disney STILL bans people from dressing like Jedis?! That's unforgivable. Universal is quite lenient and I saw a LOT of kids AND adults dressed in their favorite house robes.
It’s what the concept art had. Such a shame. Biggest miss for me was the lack of the bar staff knowing how well you side on Smugglers Run. That was meant to be one of the biggest USPs - experiencing your own story
@@karlydoc roller coasters are fun though... and well themed ones really enhance the experience. Velocicoaster looks lit, and Hagrid Motorbike Adventure is awesome.
@@karlydoc disney doesn't bring in tens of millions of people into florida every year because it is artificial crap. It does it because it is amazing and transformative. The entire point of disney is to totally forget the real world.
The land is missing a kinetic element. Right now it's more like a museum of Star Wars than an immersive experience. As far as the attendance boost between universal and dianey theme parks, I think it is because disney parks are at theur peak level of attendance and can't go anywhere from there whereas universal theme parks have the room to be able to grow being at such a low point in attendance vs disney prior to harry potter coming into the picture.
Yet if the MCU land reopened before the pandemic, I'm sure the park attendance would've been given a boost. And as the video said, Avatar land also brought the park a boost, and that's on Disneyland.
To be fair, the Harry Potter lands at Universal are WAY better than Galaxys Edge. Galaxys Esge could and should have been way better, but the change to a new original planet theme, and the constant budget cuts limited it. They'd rather spend more money on a hotel that few would experience than the land itaelf.
disney is almost nowhere near its, "peak level of attendance." The only time that ever happened was New Years week. Even the busiest in the summer the only park that ever had to stop letting people in was the Magic Kingdom.
The thing I hate the most is that for the only quick service restaurant in the land, the absolute best idea they had was to shove us into shipping containers. Shipping containers. Out of all the cool things you could do with a star wars restaurant. Shipping containers.
I completely agree. Galaxy’s Edge is set on the wrong planet and during the wrong time period. Disney tried to replace the classic star wars characters with its new wave of Star Wars characters. It’s not working.
That was their most incredible mistake: NEVER mess with the plot if it's something all fans are familiar with AND expect to see. What Disney did is like trying to build Diagon Alley only with things that exist in our muggle world, not Wizarding Britain. You know it's not going to turn out well...
I've said this so many times, the biggest mistake they made was to make a custom location for this land... one reason why people love WWoHP so much is because you're basically put right into the movies. Walking through the brick wall into Diagon Alley in Studios is almost a religious experience. Exploring Galaxy's Edge is fun, but it's nowhere near that same feeling you get when walking into WWoHP. Tatooine would've honestly been perfect, and it's such a shame that they went in another direction...
I also wish they did Tatooine, Kathleen Kennedy is just wrong due to the fact that the parents showed their children the movies they grew up with. As someone with that experience as the younger gens
Even if they thought the sequel trilogy would be super popular, why did they make a new location? They could've used a location from The Force Awakens, like Takodana or Starkiller Base.
@@danshull1331 1) True, but the planet they eventually created for Galaxy's Edge (Battu) is also just a wasteland from how it sounds. Not as much as Tatooine, but it doesn't sound exciting anyway. 2) It's about the familiarity to the planet. If you don't want to go with Tatooine, there are enough other options- Takodana, Naboo, Cloud City...
Everything I've said from the get-go. Create Harry Potter at Universal outside of the seven books, a place we never visited in the stories in a timeline where Harry and Ron are already dead and you have anything but a Harry Potter land. And there you have, Galaxy's Edge.
Yes. What if they based it on The Cursed Child instead and ignored the original HP? Worse, they declared it wasn’t canon and just made up stuff and ignored JK Rowling.
It’d be like if they were going to make an iconic classic Harry Potter wizard school and got everyone hyped up with “Yeah! You finally get to explore BEAUXBATONS! The classic location you all know and love, finally brought to life!”
Yes, and more specifically: The biggest (and most expensive) land addition ever, only boosts 2 attractions. For sure, one big attraction, and one superlative big "F-ticket" :-) .... but it does not give a feeling of 'continuation' in attractions, in that huge land. Compare : Adventureland, at 3/4 of the technical size of G'sE, offers 4 attractions. However, the built up visitor's appeal of Adventureland is only 1/10 of the built up visitor's appeal of G'sE , it's nothing more then one street. (Most of the technical size goes to the Jungle Cruise, later the I.Jones showbuilding.) Visitors however compare the VISUAL-size of the built up walkthough environment of a land, = that part you can SEE while walking through. Then fitting in 4 attractions "on just one street" seems outstanding, while fitting in only 2 in a quite huge alien planet city, feels like an absence of "action". It's basic perceptual psychology !!! If G'sE giant walktrough size would have fitted in with an equally perceptive way regarding the attractions, the visitor would expect to find 8-10 !! There is not even need to have all big attractions. Rise ot Resistance run is "the best ever", perfect, but the cost and size of Smugglers run, could have been much more succesfully exchanged for at least 5 small attractions of all different storylines and attraction types. And, add 2 more small ones at the land part of RotR. The PERCEPTUAL value of the Star Wars land would rocket. The perceptive value of "the biggest" shrinks after you experienced them, and the perceptive value of "many" lacks out completely. The total dwelltime in the land goes down, because there are not enough individual experiences related to the size. I believe, the project was too much in the hands of both "top imagineers" (who were on competition with each other for the best and the biggest product), and marketeers who were planning the extra sales profit making. They lacked out a leading perception psychologist , to build up the master plan. (SAME error with Pandora) (My viewpoint on this is professional and accademic, being a conceptualist, but not with Disney :-) )
It's funny kennedy said tattoonie was the past yet Mandalorian visited there several times and the sequel trilogy never visited Batuu that I know of is. They really need to deanchor the land from the timelock of between ep 8&9. It is a Smugglers planet perfect for say a bounty hunter or two. Aliens wandering the land and make it feel more immersive. We went Thanksgiving 2019 sadly before rise was open but my kids cared less for Kylo or Rey . Building a lightsaber was a moving experience and well worth the money. Hopefully disney realizes the Mandalorian Filoni verse is where the interest is and they can rebrand the land. Mainly rise needs rework to be Gideon and dark troopers.
If KK thought Tatooine would was in the past, why did the new trilogy end there, with Rey calling herself a Skywalker? Isn’t that a name and place stuck in the past?
We need to cool it on “Mandalorian is the future of the franchise” because we truly have no idea yet. We won’t find out the answer to the question of “is Mandalorian actually that popular because of the entire package or do people just love the baby” which we won’t find out for a few more years. I’m in the camp that the ratings are going to tank if Grogu doesn’t come back. He was the singular reason that brought casuals into the universe, and with him gone there’s pitifully little to actually engage with and be excited for that isnt just a spin-off series.
Honstely they should just have all eras in the theme park. Some people hate the sequels. And some people just like a certain series of films. And we that the star wars fan base can get divided sometimes so why not make everyone happy and not limit the theme because it wouldn't make sense It doesn't have to fit in any complicated story Line I mean the first star tours isn't cannon but people still had fun with it.
@@TheOriginalPoon I don't think that is correct at all. You can't just have one popular character to have a movie or series that is this overwhelmingly popular and successful. Is he adorable? Sure. And did it get some non- star wars fans to tune in? I'm sure it probably did. But in the end, the Mandalorian is a fantastic show by any measure. Everything is done so well and it FEELS like the original star wars that spawned the love of the universe that has persisted so long.
Honestly, I’d love to see them move Star Tours to Galaxy’s Edge. Maybe give it a new queue or something but as it is, it feels weird to have a Star Wars land and a separate Star Wars ride elsewhere in the same park.
So basically Disney just *_assumed_* the movies and land would be a success cause what? "they're Disney"? I'm glad they got a healthy dose of reality...
At this 18:25 mark is basically the biggest concern many Disney fans have with Chapek as CEO: he’s a amazing retail leader (arguably better than Paul Pressler), but his more natural instinct is monetary experiences over quality show/stories
I went and rode both rides and ate some food there, I even got to interact with the storm troopers. But most of the time it felt kinda static. Like I was just in a movie set open to the public. More moving things would have significantly improved this land. I mean look at Super Nintendo World. Everything is moving there and it makes it more immersive. Honestly there just needed to be more going on
Disney's nightmare is far from over. A drone flew over a huge tract of land to the south of Universal and released pics all over the Internet. They are indeed pushing ahead with Super Nintendo World there, a THIRD Harry Potter land and the classical movie monsters universe. I have no idea how successful it will be but I feel that it won't be a flop.
Awesome video, sums up many of my thoughts. For me, they tried to replicate Wizarding World, but made most aspects worse. Guest have no affinity to Batuu, but at Wizarding World you can step inside Gringotts, the Three Broomsticks, Leaky Cauldron etc. Wizarding World has Butterbeer... Galaxy's Edge has Blue Milk 🤢 I also hate the 'fremium' model they used. Anyone can enjoy Ollivanders at Wizarding World, but you have to sell a kidney to experience Savi's Workshop. Also, I feel Galaxy's Edge is just more of the same Disney rockwork, foliage, weathered buildings etc - Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade were just something different (and Nintendoland something different again). Finally, people always mock Universal for their late announcements, but I prefer that to Disney promising the sun and delivering the moon. All the things that were announced that could truly given this land character never really happened. Having said all that, Rise of the Resistance is frigging incredible.
I know what you mean - I am in no way a "food wanker" but when we visited HP in Universal Osaka, I HAD TO buy butterbeer and eat at the Three Broomsticks. In fact, I've visited twice now on two separate times and have done that twice. I've also bought heaps of merch and clothing. That's because I have an affinity with HP. I have been a SW fan since I saw the original in a cinema at age seven, in 1977 but Batuu does NOTHING for me.
@@tulinfirenze1990 Haha, 'food wanker' 😂 Conversely, I like but don't love HP - in fact, when I fist visited Wizarding World I hadn't even seen the films in full, yet things like Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, Butterbeer etc are just so iconic you don't even need to have watched the movies to recognise them.
@@marcussheen I actually felt the same way about HP that you describe about Galaxy's Edge... My wife is more the Harry Potter fan, though I can appreciate the charm of the story, the movies, and the theme park. I think they nailed the look of the park, and the merchandising, but there's only, like, four rides. With the exception of the train, they're only thrill rides too. Other than the shopping, there's very little do actually DO in HPland. It's a very flat experience.
@@asudevil316 I can't say I enjoyed the Hogwarts ride very much. I feel like that would have done better as a dark ride tour of the castle instead of a disorienting thrill ride/centrifuge. And a roller coaster with screens is still a roller coaster.
So, in short, here are my suggestions for improving the land: -- Commit to making the land feel more dangerous and adventurous with more atmosphere cast members, or else make it feel more safe and welcoming like a traditional Disneyland land, leaving the adventure for the attractions. Note that Pandora and Universal's Wizarding World are both set in relatively safe and welcoming parts of their respective universes. -- On Smuggler's Run, less yapping from Hondo and/or add chances to disobey him. -- Play more Star Wars music and/or original compositions. I watched a Galaxy's Edge walkthrough with Luke's theme playing in another tab and it helped.
I went to galaxy's edge in October 2019 at Hollywood Studios. The millennium falcon ride was cool, it felt wrong not having the pilot han solo even referenced. The land had almost nothing to do, and I had a much better time on the the Tower of Terror, and Star Tours. The day after I went to Pandora, and I enjoyed it much more than Galaxies Edge. It felt like you where exploring an alien planet and was much more immersive.
As someone who had an AP at Disneyland when the land opened, I got firsthand experience of how guests reacted. Galaxy's Edge was consistently the emptiest land of the park, even on extremely busy days. I never waited more than half an hour for Smugglers Run, and sometimes it was even a walk-on. There were even times when Disney California Adventure was packed while Disneyland was empty. On a personal level, my friends and I never found any of the land's experiences, including the rides, to be worth more than one or two rides. After my first three times on Smuggler's Run I really had no desire to go again, and the shops and dining were equally easy to gloss over. The only reason I regularly returned to the land was my love of droids, and even those short walks through the area lasted only a few minutes. I, my friends, and the majority of park guests, became quickly bored with the experience, and instead spent our times on older and better rides like Pirates of the Caribbean and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
@@jacesears3874 It definitely takes more time to get over it, but it happens. To be fair though, it wasn’t open very long so it hasn’t had much time to become tired.
I believe I understand why that would happen: you go there to secure a time for RotR, browse the shops a bit, ride Smugglers, and then unless you're paying to create a light saber or droid (which are essentially shows you pay a lot to experience) or want to eat something, you're basically _done_ until you return for Resistance... I believe in their effort to improve traffic flow, they've avoided placing benches and tables and places to relax and people-watch and enjoy the atmosphere. There's nowhere to linger and increase chances of seeing atmospheric performers, so unless you're in a line or in a restaurant, there's no reason to stand around.
@@jacesears3874 I loved it the first time, second time though i was bored the whole way through. Its a real one and done, I do sadly have to agree with the sentiment its just a bunch of cheap gags. Looks like a large toy set too.
Galaxy's Edge is a marvellous example of Disney's Imagineers skill and craftsmanship... but it has one monumental flaw... it just isn't recognisably Star Wars! Walk into Diagon Alley and you're their in the movie...in GE, you're in an unknown sci-fi village. They also gambled to early on the sequel trilogy! If they had stuck to the original plans, it would have been a smash hit... Imagine sering Vader in Rise instead of Kylo... Han and Chewie on the Falcon... or even Lando or Nien Numb... or the cantina featuring Figrin D'an and his band. Also with the success of the Mandalorian, Tattooine would have been a perfect backdrop for character appearances by Mando etc... hell, even Rey would fit into Tattooine.
I have a feeling theyre going to revamp galaxy’s edge to be on tatooine now that they’ve shifted focus away from The Last Jedi’s dumb plot choices and are gearing things more toward nostalgia with The Mandalorian. All of those changes you mention are 100% doable and easy to change with minimal extra spending. It would make the whole thing more enjoyable, memorable, and would definitely help their word-of-mouth advertising.
@@taffysaur And his family's movie series. The nine films are now The Palpatine Saga. It's disgusting and, as far as I'm concerned, the last three are not canon, don't exist.
But wait, what about Disney's Hollywood Studios?! You haven't mentioned that park, sneaky TH-cam man! ( typing in violence ) ...oh wait, you addressed that. Damn.
I think the new Disney trilogy has an effect on why the land didn't do great cause so many hate episode 8 and 9 that they may have been put off that they went new trilogy and not something like tattoine or hoth which people would much rather have
Yes, this cannot be ignored. The characters and settings in the newest trilogy just aren't that popular. Disney's decision to ignore the original trilogy and its extremely popular characters and settings is a huge mistake. People of all ages still enjoy those movies. They have staying power and to not have them represented in the new land is, quite frankly, a stupid move made by arrogant, out-of-touch executives.
Yeah - A lot of us found episodes 8 and 9 to be a big downer and even dampen our feelings towards the original, since we're now shown how these heroes end up, according to Disney. I personally had no enthusiasm for going to a Disney park to see Star Wars things after viewing these dreary affairs.
Had to do with the fact that Kathleen Kennedy told Iger that the new films would be more popular than the old film, and not to cater to old fans in favor of a new more "diverse" (less white and male) audience. Seriously, the man who designed Galaxy's Edge did an interview where he talked about the creation of the land, this isn't some rumor from an "alt right" youtuber as some have said, but actually from the horses mouth from the person who designed it.
@@keiichimorisato98 I'm convinced they could've still made their desired goals of diversity and reaching new fans and at the same time come up with way better movies than we got. But this is also the company who puts Star Wars stuff in "Tomorrowland" even though it clearly says at the beginning of every single Star Wars movie that this happened a long time ago, so I may be wrong.
@@danandtab7463 and I would agree, but the ideology that Kethleen Kennedy and much of Hollywood disagrees. They are trying to fight the white male patriarchy, and all it represents, and from her perspective, Luke Skywalker is complicit, so he had to be replaced, he wasn't the chosen one, Rey is.
They'll build Naboo or Coruscant in California Adventure and you'll take a “space ship” ride to the other area with a park hopper pass. Disney is very original.
For real though, It’d be super easy to convert the land to the original trilogy. Kylo Ren’s animatronic could easily be switched to Darth Vader. They should keep Florida the sequel trilogy and convert California to the original trilogy and see which one people love more.
Endor would go well in California Adventure... they could make an Ewok Village similar to the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House or a Speeder Bile chase ride similar to Flight of Passage
The Problem was the Sequels failed. That's why. If they were successfull and if the land was present in the sequels its likely the land would be successful. The land is not that successful cause the sequels were crap. Oh and Kennedy royally screwed up the whole thing.
@@jonathantrevino6994 Oh I'm not referring to money. from a financial standpoint they were successful films. I'm referring to the near destruction they caused to many fans views on the movies and series in general. When you look at the Harry Potter land in Universal its from a very successful series of films that had a large fan base. Star Wars had a impressive large willing to pay fanbase up until the Last Jedi came out. After that anything Disney created with star wars was treated as garbage up until Mandalorian. Bentu in Disneyland was meant to be a world where we get a opportunity to be characters in SW. It would have worked too. If the other 2 SW movies hadn't divided the fanbase so much. Hell even having Bentu in the sequels would have worked as well but since it didnt appear or even was mentioned, to many fans it seems out of place. This might change with Mandalorian however. We may get a oppurtunity for Bentu to actually appear in the series. If it does, it will be reconized as a cannon planet and perhaps will get more fans to go to it. However yes In its current form right now. Its a failure.
Their strategy of theming makes absolutely no sense. If they couldn't make up their mind, they could have just split it in to three sections: the middle would be of course, the Death Star base, then maybe Naboo on one side and Yavin-4 on the other. It didn't have to be "add Coruscant, Dagobah, Alderaan and all the other lands OR we just don't do it." Just put in two or three recognizable lands and stick to the plot. I don't get it. They butchered the theming so badly that it resembles nothing from the SW universe. Meanwhile, Universal took no chances and listened to Rowling. The corporate bigwigs, at first, were appalled that she wanted Diagon Alley to retain its cramped layout, which almost guaranteed crowds. They decided they couldn't risk angering die hard fans and followed her advice, having faith that she knew her fans better than they did. That gamble paid off big time. I have never been there in the peak of summer season but even in off-season, there were crowds on late Sundays and it didn't feel claustrophobic. Nobody got upset and started shoving or shouting at people. The bumps and jostles are part of the fun because I see what they were trying to do. They wanted you to feel like you were following Harry's footsteps when he first entered DA. It also is important to note that they didn't make up anything. Everything you see is from the books and movies such as Fortescue's, which does serve ice cream. They have Ollivander's where you can buy an interactive wand. The only thing I wished they had was the ability to use currency like Harry's such as knuts and galleons. But the point still stands: Universal realized they couldn't risk losing touch with the guests and made sure everything was like it appeared in the books and movies. And they experimented for months on how to make butterbeer and got Rowling's approval. It sold like CRAZY. The butterbeer carts always had a line wherever I went. I can't believe Disney totally lost the plot with GE...
@@jeremiahsanto555 yeah but the whole land is about full immersion in its ST time line, unless they suddlenty have millions they love to spend just to change the time period of the land (given the situation were in.....they don't) there stuck with what they have, that being said i felt like adding a few more land events like kylo rens arrivial can go a LONG way
But Smuggler's Run *does* have different stories. I rode it twice in October 2019 and each 'mission' was totally different. Plus, depending on how you perform -- how badly you bang up the Falcon -- the ending egress experience changes. For example, during one mission we pretty much trashed the ship and exited through smoke and sparking panels. And that was 2019, shortly after the WDW opening. Since then I think they've added even more missions and changed up the motion platform behaviors within each, making each experience 'more unique'. The ride system has a tremendous amount of flexibility, should they choose to exercise it.
So many cool things behind a fence...... droids..... Static...... Tucked up against a wall..... Behind a fence...... a speeder.... you guessed it, behind a fence. An x wing..... just sitting there.... We thought we’d spend days just in that land. Didn’t even spend all of 1 day. It was a great vacation tho. The park wasn’t very busy
Star wars land is a Billion Dollar "not familiar" star wars land. It looks like it could be a generic star port at the county fair. Should've done planet of Tatooine! Could you imagine going to the Cantina and ordering a real blue milk? While the white head dudes are playing music on stage (animatronics). And Chewy and Han sitting in the back with greedo? lastly, they got the Millennium Falcon. But I want to see it blast off from "docking bay 94!!" Would that be too much to ask for?!
You nailed what the problem is. The SW fans arriving at Galaxy's Edge noticed immediately that something was missing. It called familiarity. They didn't see anything that linked it with the SW universe. I saw countless videos of GE and can't think of a single land that it's based on. It isn't the Death Star for sure! It isn't Alderaan or Hoth. It isn't Coruscant or Yavin-4. It's just a fictional version of a Star Wars land, if you get my drift. It's impossible to imagine Han, Luke and Leia walking through this made-up SW land. No wonder the fans were disappointed...
I spent an entire week trying to get in to Rise back in October and never came close. You're right. It can be the best ride ever, but if you can't get on it, who cares?
As a massive Star Wars fan I absolutely loved the idea of experiencing a world we hadn't seen before. I felt it added to having your own Star Wars story rather than just experiencing the canon like at The Wizarding World (which I also adore btw). I really feel it's only downfall was the phased opening and the fact that it was set during the sequel trilogy. Set the story of Batuu during the OG trilogy and I feel like it would have been perfect.
I feel like it definitely put all its eggs in the sequel basket before seeing true audience reception. I do enjoy being on another planet that is a new place to explore, but I would trade it all away for the return of Star Wars Weekends if only to be allowed to meet characters like Luke, Leia, and Ahsoka again. It celebrated the whole saga, but now we’re trapped in a corner with the new trilogy everywhere except the Darth Vader meet and greet. We’ll likely never see theme park content for wild successes like The Mandalorian such as attractions or meet and greets because of this pinning down a point in time for continuity idea.
I went to Galaxy's Edge back on January 4, 2020. Overall, it was a horrible experience. It was so crowded and you had no choice but to move with the crowd or else you would be squashed. It was impossible to get into the shops and the Smuggler's Run ride had a wait for over 100 minutes. I went into the single rider line to cut the wait down to 10 minutes, but I ended up as an engineer. That role is the worst on the ride. To top everything off, I learned the hard way that I couldn't ride Rise of the Resistance because I did not have a boarding pass.
Wow, interesting coincidence. On Jan. 4, 2020 I was on the other side of Orlando at Wizarding World of Harry Potter! I'm surprised you said it was crowded. Universal had very few crowds at the time and I didn't wait longer than 30-45 minutes for most rides in any area of the parks.
In 2016 Knotts Berry Farm open Ghost Town Alive, an immersive experience in the west with performers and adventures. I played the town's bounty hunter. Think Westworld for families. Disney heard this and had planned the exact same thing for Galaxy's Edge. At the last second they pulled the budget. I honestly think a cast of droids, Aliens and smugglers to visit with and interact as a hero in star wars would have been amazing. Hopefully the star wars hotel can do this properly and maybe they will bring it back.
Thats what I've been saying! It's like a generic space port from a syfy channel TV show. They might as well change the Indiana Jones ride to "scary tomb we found in Australia" ride.
At Disneyland, I went before the second ride opened. What me and my buddy noticed was the interaction with people in the land in relation to the gams on the app you can play. Get enough points and someone came up to us with a secret mission. After we completed it, we were escorted to the yet-to-be-opened Fast Track line for Falcon.
I have to agree with "Sneaky TH-cam Man". I finally visited the land at both parks. While the Rise and Smugglers rides are mind-boggling achievements, the land itself feels empty and more like a shopping mall. While it was awesome to build my own saber (I BUILT ONE AT EACH PARK CAUSE IM A NERD), and drink at Organas, the land felt devoid of the charm that made star wars so popular. Instead of a Galaxy far far away, it well...feels way down to earth. The area where Rise sits is devoid of the stunning theming that the other part of the land has. It's like they just dropped a ride in the middle of a city park. Creating a new world, Batuu, was I think, the biggest mistake. For me, it doesn't hold a special place as Tatooine or Coruscant does. We, star wars fans, have visited those places many times, and we have come to love them. While the idea seems cool, it just feels like they tried to merge Tatooine and other known star wars worlds. It feels unoriginal. While I loved the rides, I GOT TO FLY THE MILLENNIUM FALCON!, it's doesn't have the awe about it that the Wizarding World has. Now, I'm not a huge fan of the Harry Potter movies, I have watched them all, but the lands Universal has created feel like you are in that Harry Potter world, you're immersed in the experience of the boy who lived. I just didn't feel that at Galaxies edge, I just felt like I was at a theme park. I hope if there is a phase 2 that many of the issues are fixed, but at this point, I have moved on and am now foaming at the mouth for Super Nintendo World!
I think where Harry Potter as a premiere franchise land worked so well and where Star Wars as a premiere franchise land didn't work is that the Wizarding World is a lot easier to be immersed into, contrary to the very specific world building of star wars. Harry Potter has the iconic settings like Hogwarts, Hogsmeade and Diagon alley that are universal to the main film franchise which are only a few years apart, with mostly human characters. Star wars has DOZENS of unique planets and locations across over 70 YEARS of galactic history with only one even somewhat central location, Coruscant, with hundreds if not thousands of alien/droid characters. Star Tours worked as a stand-alone ride because you visited multiple planets, being confined to Batuu with a journey to Corellia with Hando and a mission to a star destroyer with the Resistance doesn't let much creative freedom expand from there. On top of that Galaxy's edge was based on the trilogy that completely messed up. The only way to fix it is to rewrite the continuity, set it in the vast amount of time between the 2nd and 3rd trilogies where the Mandalorian and the news shows will take place.
1) I think you can take central locations from the original trilogy and it'd work: Tatooine (was in episode 4 and episode 6), Cloud City (had the most iconic scenes of episode 5) and death star (either one). Out of 11 Star Wars films, 6 movies had a death star in one way or another. 2) If you want to have all the famous locations from the different eras, have multiple missions in the Millenium Falcon ride. They'll all still be in the era Galaxy's Edge is in, but the planets mostly change the same. So the missions can be to Tatooine, Corosaunt, Hoth, Takodana... endless options. It'd take some work to add that variety, but not as much as making a new land for each location.
I agree the problem is that Disney wanted to shove down our throats there garbage movies and thought we would care. I like galaxies edge been there over 20 times to ride Rise but that’s it. It’s to static and I wish they had old characters even Jaba the hut or something g
Just like DCA 1.0, Disney got really cheap at the end and cut anything unique from the new land and will have to invest even more now to get people to flood in. If the land had droids, Bounty hunters, the Falcon ride had more than one mission and ships flying above the land at night at certain time then I think the land would be much much more loved and a must see.
They promised something a lot more immersive than what they delivered. It had elements of live action role playing originally, where characters would interact with you based on what you’d experienced so far, and there was a story framing the whole thing.
as a ex cast member, who was working there during the opening of star wars land, i got cast presentation before the land was ready and later got a preview of the land, was very disappointed and its interesting how so many ppl are starting to realize, a star wars land in disneyland park was a bad idea from the start and pretty much ruined the foundation of disneyland parks story and any other opportunity to add new original attractions into disneyland park, Disneyland wasnt made for “grand scale movie themed lands” the way universal does, that has never been their brand, the fact that they’re now trying to imitate something else is why they are losing
YES I agree! As impressive as the land is, Disneyland wasn’t meant to be on the “grand” scale such as Disney world. Tony Baxter said it best that Disneyland is the most “charming” park.
@@itzjoshh93 The way I see it, Disneyland is basically the Magic Kingdom at Disney World, granted WDW has much more space to expand, but they would never put this in the Magic Kingdom, instead what they did is the expanded Fantasyland, and now it's better. This really did not need to happen at all in California. Disneyland has no problem getting guests, they should have spent more money into making California adventure a place people want to go more than just a single day,. Removing all the remnants of Eisner's era of incompetence with that park, Jumping Jellyfish, Chair swings, flying zephyr, and abomination that is Goofy Ski School, all those rides just scream "cheap"
Mike B its true thats exactly how i would put it too i dont really have any interest in going to disneyland anymore star wars land is too much of a thematic imbalance for me personally it was clearly put in due to wizarding worlds debut in hollywood... which is better lol how sad, i agree california adventure is always in need of improvement but they had something really good going up until after they finished grizzly airfield it became a more historic celebration of california rather than a celebration of modern day california, marvel and pixar pier were terrible additions the pier has never looked worse one side is pixar which just looks tacky and the other side is still paradise pier... and do i even need to comment on mission breakout lol i was all for a bugs land and paradise pier being replaced but not with the additions being downgrades and single handedly ruining dca’s skyline 🤢
@@Mike__B Agree and Agree. They didn't need to put a star wars land into Disneyland. It's already basically at full attendance. If only there was another park nearby that needed an extra attraction, lol.
Totally Agree! They should’ve pushed back the opening until ROTR was fixed. They should give priority passes to those who purchased a full-fare admission ticket to ride ROTR 🎟 and then open it to any extra slots to Annual Pass Holders. I am (was) an annual pass holder at Disneyland. Hyping it up and blacking out dates for the opening set the image of how crazy opening would be. All my friends said that they’ll wait until things die down. that screwed Disney over. The park was a ghost town.
Disney needs to "bite the bullet" IMO and put it back in the original trilogy era setting. It really wouldn't be difficult to do at all, just modify a few of the existing pieces. I honestly wonder if that has been set up as a backup plan anyway. Books could be written about the flaws with this land. ROTR was absolutely mind-blowing, but such limited capacity and break downs makes it very troublesome. Most of Batuu is sorta like you know sorta blue milk, sorta a cantina, sorta tattooine, sorta millennium falcon pilot, etc. etc.
Having been to both HP and GE lands. I have to say that I've returned to HP lands three times for each expansion at Universal. Each time, I felt like I was returning back "home" to something. And at the end of each trip, I felt sad that I was leaving the HP lands. While I only visited GE once, Smuggle Run just felt like another Star Tours with less recognizable IP. RoR was good but extremely stressful for getting a pass in December 2019. It made the experience less enjoyable. And unfortunately, the land won't prompt me return back anytime soon.
As cool as galaxys edge was when I went this past november it was very forgettable and I only remember how much of a pain it was to get on rise of the resistance. Without that ride the land is a 6/10 for me
Here's a thought: Make a Death Star using the exact same engineering as the shell of Spaceship Earth. Have the interior ride system of Tower of Terror and have it be a RESCUE ON THE DEATHSTAR ride. You're a group of Rebels trying to rescue Mon Mothma, who's held captive on the deathstar. You travel up and down getting into scuffles with Storm Troopers, Imperial officers, etc. You free Mon Mothma, and all of a sudden, the ride vehicle begins to quake(with the force) you are shot upwards and end up in the Emperor's throne room, firmly in his force grip. Your ride vehicle travels across the floor of his thrown room as he's monologuing about the pesky rebels daring to come aboard his space station. He then moves the vehicle over the pit and proceeds to throw the ride vehicle down the shaft(maybe even shooting a bit of force lightning at the riders just before they fall. The riders think they're falling to their deaths when they are "caught" at the bottom by the one and only Luke Skywalker, straining with all of his might through the force. This would be an exciting ride using already existing tech and engineering to thrill Star Wars fans. It wouldn't necessarily fit in any canon timeline, but would give fans exactly what they dreamed about when they were children!
the difference between Harry Potter and Star Wars is the love for the story. Universal loves and respects Harry Potter and its story telling, so the rides and the lands feel authentic and genuine. However, Disney has treated Star Wars like something they need to change and fix and make their own. They don't love the source material. That quote you mentioned from Kathleen Kennedy proves that they don't value the history of the Star Wars galaxy the way they would need to in order to tell genuine and authentic stories the way that Universal does with their lands.
They should really scrap making galaxy’s edge canon... split up the land into three sections that take place during the prequels sequels and original movies.... that way everything can be represented and Mando and grogu can even wander between the original and sequel areas... you should be able to walk through galexy’s edge and get to meet all the characters... not just limit it to one point in time.
Julia, wow, EXACTLY my thoughts too! They should have picked three lands and just themed them as closely as possible. That's why GE is unfamiliar. Remove the TiE fighter and Millennium Falcon and it doesn't look like anything from the Star Wars universe. They could have just made the center look like a command center in the Death Star. Then have one land such as Naboo on one side and a second land on the other side such as Yavin-4. The two lands are just suggestions. They instead made up a whole new land. That's why nobody recognizes it. I still shake my head and wonder what the hell they were thinking making up a totally unfamiliar land for GE.
The thing about attendance increase is not really comparable. Galaxys edge wasnt even opened a full year before parks were closed for COVID, and not to mention that its signature attractions was literally only opened for 3 and 2 months before the parks were closed for COVID. Also, Disneyland already has so much more visitors per year where it would be very difficult to increase 22%, while Islands of adventure had less than 5 million visitors in 2009. In comparrison for the same year, hollywood studios had nearly 10 million visitors and Disneyland had nearly 16 million visitors. You absolutelly cannot compare the same numbers, its not how it works, you have to put everything into context. Galaxys Edge may not be perfect, and I absolutelly prefer Harry Potter over star wars, like a BILLION times more, but Galaxys edge is absolutelly a better land in pretty much every aspect, so is Pandora.
I love your channel so much! So informative and very interesting to hear the detailed breakdown from different perspectives (consumer, the business etc)
The problem during roaming droid testing I saw in videos wasn't "popularity"... it was people who kept physically touching the droid too much and preventing it from actually getting around. It was meant for roaming, not for meet and greet photo ops.
Drab is the perfect description to how I felt in Galaxy's Edge. I'm not a Disney person at all, but I preferred every other section of Disneyland, which all had more life and color.
Galaxy's edge can be summed up easily: Kathleen Kennedy's failure. Had they stuck with the original plan to theme it around the OT of Star Wars, it would have been the massive hit they were expecting. Instead, Kennedy tried to reinvent the wheel and based it on the sequel trilogy that will soon be forgotten. She continues to prove how underqualified she is for the position of president of lucasfilm. She's a glorified producer and that's where she belongs. Jon Favreau should be president of lucasfilm once her contract is up this year or #FireKathleenKennedy.
What about Disneyland being Endor, Hollywood Studios being Tatooine (Florida is probably the hottest, but if it comes to humidity maybe switch them around), and Disneyland Paris's Walt Disney Studios being Hoth (it can actually get cold enough there)? You could also choose to make each park cover a different era: Age of the Republic, Age of Rebellion and Age of Resistance. A possible fourth iteration could be the High Republic.
We’ve been a few times now. I’m less impressed each time I go. We went in Jan. 2021 and road Rise of the Resistance for a second time. It was much less impressive, but that could have been because of CoVid restrictions. I (35yo) and my daughter (12yo) would have preferred a land centers around the original trilogy.
Seems like a fairly easy fix.. don’t constraint into the timeline. Have mando and baby yoda walking around in the morning. Vader and Luke in the evening. And kylo and Rey at night
I think this is the best bet. Maybe to make it not too weird have alternating blocks in the day where characters can come out based on the trilogy/show they’re in. Mando in the afternoon, Last Jedi stuff in the morning, original Trilogy early evening - and just randomize it a little
They should have just built a Star Wars themed hotel. I think people would way rather stay in a hotel room that looks like the Millennium Falcon and get a wake up call from Darth Vader, than walk around some dirty looking alien market.
They actually did make a hotel about Star Wars. I don't know what actually happened with it, because it probably hasn't opened yet due to the pandemic. Or mabye it did and I forgot hearing about it, who knows.
@@magic75450 galactic starcruiser, supposed to be some space cruise, with screen instead of windows, idk why construction photos show spaces for _real_ windows
@@thetheatreorgan168 I'm just disappointed that they removed stuff from the Disneyland land just so they can have it in the hotel. That's very greedy if you ask me.
@@thetheatreorgan168 What I mean that they removed from Galaxy's Edge things that they promised, just so they can sell the hotel- role-playing, interactive adventures, lightsabers that look real (I'm not sure if that was promised or not, but still)... they basically split Galaxy's Edge into two, so they can sell it two times.
I think another one of Galaxy's Edge's huge issues is the lack of interactivity. I get that you can use your phone to scan things, but that's not nearly on the same level as the wand magic within the Wizarding World. Even then, Super Nintendo World seems to have taken that a step further with the interactivity having users play minigames to win coins and causing kinetic figures and animatronics to move. Disney really over promised and under delivered on Galaxy's Edge. It's a symptom of the Iger/Chapek era attitude of "It's IP, that'll be good enough, we don't have to do anything beyond the minimum".
The biggest things missing are classic characters, droids and costumed "citizens" walking around, and an actual atmosphere. Everything feels like a museum and shopping mall. It needs a landspeeder attraction or something. There's just not enough there to keep guests attention unless you really, really, really like buying expensive Star Wars merch. Star Tours should have been part of the land as well. I imagine with Fast Passes to both rides I would likely spend an hour at most in that section, which is a shame, because I've wanted a Star Wars theme park or land at Disney for about 30 years now. The Millennium Falcon could have been part of a cool walk through attraction liked "Escape from the Death Star" or something. This land and characters no one knows is hard to get emotional or excited about.
Fun Fact: The original theme for Galaxy's Edge was supposed to be based off the Original Trilogy. Due to The Force Awakens being a huge success and was the highest grossing Star Wars movie at the time, CEO Bob Iger decided to change the overall theme to the Sequel Trilogy at the last minute.
Let me just say, I loved going to Batuu East, as cast members call Galaxy's Edge at Hollywood Studios. I did the Droid building experience, which was a hoot. I also went on both rides. As a disabled person who uses a wheelchair some of the time -- here because of all the walking -- they handled it well. I was doing my part as well to get into the environment. Maybe it's not a LARP, (Live-Action Role Playing game) but I could have spent the day there happily. I am an OG Star Wars fan. I saw "Episode IV" aka just Star Wars on 5/25/77. At the Mann's Chinese Theater, no less. My mother was dating a prop man at Paramount, so his influence made this an outing for all 3 of us. I was 14. It changed my life. If WDW wants to do right by the land, I have an idea. You know the Starcruiser, which was such a dismal fail for WDW? Make it into a dinner theater and LARP experience. Nobody stays there. The decks would just be part of the LARP. It wouldn't be cheap, but if people will pay big bucks to build a clunky lightsaber, they can pay the same amount for dinner and a LARP. You're welcome, Disney.
I’d trade galaxy’s edge away to get Star Wars weekends at dhs back. I miss being able to celebrate the whole saga. This continuity thing feels so limiting. If you don’t like these new characters, you’re out of luck.
That argument against Tatooineland is the funniest thing in retrospect-from both fan _and_ company perspectives Disney has completely abandoned “The new stories to tell for a new generation”-there’s a reason every single expanded Star Wars story has taken place within ten years of the Original Trilogy
They made a big mistake with setting the land within the sequel trilogy, lets be honest, who really likes rey, plo whats his name, and finn (I dont fully hate finn but they just ruined his character in rise of skywalker, they didn’t even try to complete his character ark, they just tossed him to the side). Those characters aren’t memorable or lovable (except for finn). When I want to go into a star wars land I want to be able to meet luke skywalker, darth vader, obi-wan, ashoka tano, darth maul, ezra bridger, R2-D2, C3PO, and leia organa. I dont want to meet random blue haired lady. This is what they should have done. They could have separated the land into different trilogy’s, one slice of the land could cover the original trilogy (along with rebels), the other can cover the prequal trilogy (along with the clone wars because ashoka is life), and the other can cover the sequel trilogy. That would have been a win win win win for every star wars fan (including the normies). It feels like disney used this land for marketing and marketing only, it doesn’t have that disney feel, it’s beautiful but it’s lifeless, its one giant shopping mall with two attractions lazily slapped on it. Its wasted potential and nothing more.
Amazing report! Back in 2006 I travel to disneyworld for two weeks like a Dream come true, but reserved two days into Universal Studios because it has some free days.. and as a Disney fan my favourite atraction was, universal’s spiderman ride… (tower of terror just second) for some reason I found disney more nostalgic and universal more innovative. Both are great but once again.. Harry Potter ride in LA 2017 was incredible like any other disney ride. Maybe is because im older but Universal at the moment has all my attention for the following years, most than disney.
I say this as an old school Star Wars nerd: Wizarding World was built with love; it inspired me to buy things to remember the experience and can't wait to return. Galaxy's Edge was built to sell me things; I bought nothing, don't really remember many details, and don't care to return.
I think the biggest difference here is that Disney wasn’t using the original creator aka George Lucas for advices and even planning for Galaxy Edge. Sure the new land looks good and Rise of the Residence is next level of the dark ride general but it’s missing that one thing that makes people invest with the franchise. Disney is excellent with theming like with Cars land, Avatar Land, Toy Story Land, some parts of Epcot, and a lot of more. They’re able to achieve that by having the original creators to be involved with the land, because they understand what the fans and visitors wanted. Harry Potter lands was in charge by the original creator and did an excellent job. Even if some of the actors look like they’re in there 30s or 40s, the land feel timeless. While Galaxy Edge sorta feel like it set at a certain time frame instead of being all the timelines
So WWoHP was co-created by JK Rowling, the creator of Harry Potter. It has her stamp on it which is why it's full of charm, character and magic. This is the same reason why Disneyland in CA has a charm and magic about it that other Disney parks lack, because Walt disney Himself helped create the park, it is his baby and has his touch. But this is why SWGE lacks charm, character or magic. George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars had 0 imput on the land. It's nobody's baby, and It lacks the touch and stamp of the creator. It just feels like something a soulless greedy corporation bought and is trying desperately to cash in on, which is exactly what it is.
For as contravertial as JK is, her strictness on the quality and accuracy of Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley are the reason the two lands are so good today.
@10 9 5 1 3 4 7 8 6 2 Gods no! The prequels are our example of what happens when you put George Lucas fully in charge. The man HATED the original Star Wars(a new hope) because other people messed up his "vision". He literally bet Stephen Spielberg that it would flop hard and still pays up for that bet to this day. George and his protégé are the biggest problems the Star Wars franchise has faced.
I 1000000% agree what you said. I went for my birthday and it sucked. It was basically all shops that nobody could get into, no characters, no interactment, no way to get on Rise of the Resistance, it rained which made the floor super slippery and there's no cover for rain there at all. As a MEGA Star Wars fan I was crushed and dissapointed. I didn't recognize almost anything there. It should have been somewhere recognizable.
Here’s what should be added/fixed into the land. 1. With the Mandalorian and more upcoming Disney+ content for Star Wars. It is the perfect time to integrate it into the land. Maybe the missions on Smugglers Run could have appearances of Mando and Grogu trying to help you on the mission! And maybe they could add the same Star tours concept where they have multiple different missions to help with re rideablility. They could have Mando walk around. I think Disney could leave the concept of keeping it within a certain time frame. Even Wizarding World isn’t very consistent. 2. Add the dinner show dining area. It would relieve pressure off of Oga’s Cantina and would be an extra thing for guests to do. 3. A stunt show. They literally have h th e space for it and we saw them do it during media previews. It would create more energy within the land. 4. Add the credit system they talked about. 5. Add droids. I think for testing they could always have a cast member escorting it and after a few months they could ease restrictions.
I agree with everything you said in this video. I have been lucky enough to visit Galaxy's edge at Disneyland and I didn't know what it was about the land that made it feel off until you pointed it out in this video. The fact that it's an entirely new land that nobody has seen in any move or franchise it was makes (for me at least) feel disconnected. Because the land is "made up" from the star wars universe it doesn't make me feel like the land is a real place in the star wars universe. Another thing you pointed out which I have always thought from the beginning was that Disney scared everyone away with Project stardust. It even scared me away from wanting to go to the parks the summer it opened and was okay to wait for the crowds to die down before visiting. Disney should have just let everyone in without a reservation and especially with rise of the resistance, they should just drop the boarding pass all together and just let everyone wait in line. Yes it sucks to have to wait, but it's also what people are expecting to have to do when they visit a brand new attraction that Disney unveils.
The biggest issue of dropping the boarding pass system is just how frequently Rise goes down. If you have a massive 3 hour line waiting and the ride goes down for hours (which it has at least once a week, if not more) with people in it, that is a ton more people dissatisfied with their overall experience. The boarding pass system counters the popularity but more importantly makes sure the people who can get on with a pass aren't waiting 5 hours to get on with no guarantee it runs the whole day.
@@gotabonetopick2942 yeah I understand that to be the main issue and it’s very thoughtful of them to not have us have to wait in such a long line. But if you think about it, when radiator springs racers opened it had at least a 3 hour wait that whole summer and it too had its breakdowns at least once a week. There are positives and negatives to the boarding pass.
The whole boarding group situation really puts a stressor on the whole situation. If they weren't ready to open the attraction, they could've just said that
I feel terrible for vacationing parents back in Dec. 2019 and Jan. 2020 who had the added stress of starting their Disney Days basically with a lottery to see if their family was going to get a pass for Rise of the Resistance
Sounds about right to my experiences. Once you’ve done the ride, or I guess rides now, it just becomes a Star Wars themed shopping mall unless you really enjoyed the ride. Shows were unscheduled as far as I could tell, so unless I wanted to bask in the Star Wars at the expense of valuable theme park time, I didn’t see a point in being there. As an experience the Star Wars landing bay in tomorrow land was actually better as a Star Wars attraction than Disneyland oddly enough. Mostly because you could easily find the characters, and it at the time was in proximity to three Star Wars themed attractions. Star tours, hyper space mountain, and some Star Wars experience theater thing. Granted they were all of varying quality but you felt less stagnant exploring the Star Wars stuff in tomorrow land. For sake of keeping things cannon and immersive disney really sacrificed the iconography and theme park experience. I like what’s in galaxies edge but it needed more even if it was smaller rides with less technologically going on to serve as distractions to maybe ease lines for the bigger rides. Or some kind of outdoor ride to marvel at as it goes by like what radiator springs racers does for that park. Imagining the scrapped bantha riding attraction or some kind of land speeder attraction really gets me going. Or better yet, why isn’t there a character meet and greet. Like a Jedi or sith temple where they can have characters from beyond the time period appear. Also I feel like the land could have midway style Star Wars themed games, where the cast members are encouraged to act sleazy and out for money. I mean not too many of them but having one or two would really liven up the outdoors more and provide more for guests to do. Just my thoughts on the land though. I do think the fully immersive land idea is flawed to start though so perhaps my original ideas go against that concept a little too much or perhaps it would all be just out of the time and financial budget the land was on.
You nailed it!! They over promised and under delivered. The average guest knows they will spend a lot of money, and doesn't want to have it wasted with a half baked idea. I am a huge Star Wars fan which is proved by my being a member of the 501st Legion since 2002. I have also never been to Galaxies Edge even though I went to Orlando with my wife over Christmas 2020. If you tell me I will be "IN STAR WARS" that's a high bar. I expect everything you said. Droids roaming around. Chewie yelling at me for the damage to his ship, and lots of aliens to interact with. Its just not there yet. Most importantly, its placed in the middle of the Star Wars timeline which I hate. I saw Episode 8, once, and it was so bad I refuse to see that pile of trash ever again. This creates a problem for Galaxies Edge. Everyone loves The Mandalorian, and until Galaxies Edge is paired up with it. This tepid response will continue. On a side note. I have seen video and youtube channels that show everything in Galaxies Edge. Even the rides. I have talked with friends who have been there. It looks and sounds amazing. However, until the high bar I have is met, I will hold my visit. On a side note. I have heard they plan to make a Star Wars Land at Disneyland Paris. My one suggestion would be don't make Batu. Make a different land. Every Star Wars Land should have been different. I go to Ca, I get one experience. Go to Fl? Get a second. Go to Paris find a different destination to travel to. You get my point. It should have been different, and would have made me want to travel to all of them. If I experienced Endor in Paris, Tatooine in Ca, and Naboo in Florida. WOW, now that would have been amazing.
Well, Galaxy's Edge would be different at Walt Disney Studios in Disneyland Paris to begin with, as they will get firstly a smaller version and secondly only one ride, probably Rise as in the concept art we don't see the Falcon on a landing pad but an X-Wing. It'll also boarder a lake. Your different settings idea is great, though. It wouldn't make it feel so mass produced then, and it could definitely play into the different climates.
One thing you didn't mentioned was that both locations for the longest time only allowed people into the land via reservation, and a lot of unsuspecting park goers would miss out on the new land for over a year. For Disney world it was a terrible idea because a majority of guests there are tourists, and for DisneyLand even though the parks in California are usually filled with locals the outrage there was felt as well. And speaking of ROTR, they function the same way as the land used to work. Even now during Covid, you have a very small window to go to Disney's Hollywood Studios in the morning to HOPEFULLY get onto the attraction! Overall these left a bad taste in many's mouths
Why'd it now be impossible to get into the ride? Does it have low capacity or are there technical issues? And why couldn't they fix the problem while the park was closed for a full year?!
@@magic75450 from what I’ve come to understand yes the ride does have a low capacity but a really high demand. As for technical issues I’m not sure about the one in Florida but in California there were frequent evacuations though I’m not sure what the cause were but they’d always get it up and running within the day
@@minidwarf4266 It still sounds weird that during a pandemic, when the park runs at 25% capacity at best, you have to be lucky to get on a ride. Unless it's due to new protocols to keep it safe, and then it's acceptable.
@@magic75450 even on the app they have an advertisement and quote “Request Access with Virtual que” where you’d request to get into the ride. Your only times to join the que is 7:00 AM before Hollywood studios opens and 1:00 PM if any spots are still available or open up. It’s been like this at both parks since the beginning
The mistake was not reading the pop culture. The sequels were not well received, yet they kept pushing it. Now they should change it to Mando and tatooine 7:38 That is why you fail.
10:00 What Disney during Operation Stardust with the AP block out dates is a mistake they did not learn from with Euro Disneyland and Club Disney: Never. Ever. tell the public to stay away because of Overcrowding. That just leads to Not Enough guests showing up on Opening Day. I watched this Defunctland gag many times, and it's still gets a chuckle from me every time.
I think the question is simple, if you think about star wars what do you think? A unknown future land or Tatoine? We need something that will connect us the galaxy far far away. I wanna see the location of the movie, not an anonymous maze of buildings.
I attended a major convention in June 2019, just one week after Galaxy's Edge opened. Disney is a major sponsor of this convention and the opening night we had access to half park, including Galaxy's Edge. It was good, but I didn't feel anything special about it. I still don't understand why Star Tours wasn't relocated either. It makes more sense to have it in Galaxy's Edge and another reason to go there, and then free up space for redesign of Tomorrow Land.
It’s missing droids walking around,
Also you buy a lightsaber and can’t use it on the land? When I buy my Hp expensive wand at least I can use it in the land
Yep, that was a HUGE mistake.
Using wands around WWOHP has massive appeal. Who wouldn't love that?
Heck, the arm bands in Nintendo World aren't laden with nostalgia or anything, but they made that tiny little place interactive. Galaxy's Edge is just there, cold, static.
For legal reasons they say you can't engage in swordplay but my experience was that people just do it anyway.
You are more than allowed to use your lightsabers in the park, dueling might be a no no but I do it all the time with my brother and nobody came to us or anything
Because, it's a lightsaber lmao. The only stuff you can do with it is reflect stuff and slice stuff.
Like chucklenuts said you can carry them just not duel
In Jeff Goldblum voice: "Now, now, you do plan on eventually having Star Wars in your Star Wars land, right? Uh, hello?"
:breathes on camera:
@@matthewbowen5841 "I really do hate that man." :)
lol
"You stood on the shoulders of geniuses and before you even knew what you had, You packaged it, patented it, slapped it on a plastic lunchbox and now your selling it! Your selling it! "
They were so preoccupied with if they could create Star Wars land, they never questioned if they should.
I visited Galaxy’s Edge at Hollywood Studios for the first time on August last year. The level of detail and immersion is incredible. It truly feels like another planet. I still felt like something was missing though. When it comes to the attractions Rise of the Resistance is amazing. It’s like being in a movie. The Millennium Falcon ride was cool, but nothing extraordinary it’s like a modernized version of Mission Space in Epcot. But if I compare to other lands like Pandora and The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I found that these last two give a more emotional feel and make you feel more welcome and give the feel that you’re part of it instead of being a “tourist.” At least that’s how I felt in Galaxy’s Edge.
Same. I loved galaxy’s edge but I didn’t like it near as much as Harry Potter world.
it's aliens, aliens are what's missing. it's supposed to be a spaceport, and as such should be crawling with aliens. currently the only alien walking around galaxies edge is Chewbacca (if you are lucky)
what they need is a hand full of cast members dressed up as generic aliens walking around and manning the shops in the "bazzar" area. there are several aliens that could be achieved with clever costuming and/or facepaints
such as: Bothan, Trandoshan, Mon Calamari, Rodian, Twi’lek, and Tusken Raiders. a few of these weirdos walking around would complete the experience.
You said it in your post - the detail is amazing, and it feels like you're on another planet... but you don't feel like you're in Star Wars - and for a Star Wars land, that's a big, big problem!
Daz Blue ,
I feel like I’m in Morocco with a streampunk edge and more plants. Another planet....no
@@aarondesch While aliens would help, I don't think that'd fix everything. Star Wars isn't just aliens. It's droids, spaceships. And at one point Disney made an object that looks like a spaceship fly above the land (I think ut was only for a day), so it was possible.
And if you can't have droids roaming in the park for safety reasons, have them in controlled environments. Or have the cast-members as the owners of the droids, so they control them. Or have specialized tech-people controlling the droids remotely with cameras, to make sure there aren't problems.
In addition to all those issues, how about zero kinetics in the land? Just a big set of buildings sitting there. Go anywhere in the Magic Kingdom, and you’ll see something moving.
I actually think this is the biggest issue compared to all of the other lands at Disneyland and WDW. Except for Disneyland’s Tomorrowland... nothing moves there other than the outdoor attractions.
Batuu should have had ships leaving and arriving somehow.
Brando43770 jenny nicholson talks abt this in her star wars video, using rides as forms of ornamentation is something walt disney really liked to do and it seems disney has forgotton about it while they try to imitate universals style of theme park lands
@@dozer11 I heard they have plans for a speeder bike roller coaster as part of a Galaxy’s edge expansion down the line. I’d rather have that at Disneyland instead of another carbon copy of Tron.
@@dozer11 Yeah. For now, the only thing they have are sound effects that do trick you into thinking ships are flying above you.
@@SalivatingSteve I'm not even a massive Star Wars fan, but a speeder bike ride is something that'd make me want to go there (even if it's not in Endor).
In Wizarding world you can buy and wear costumes. It's an interactive immersive experience. You can be in the world Harry Potter fans have seen and fell in love with in the movies. Two large themed restaurants (in Orlando). A wand is between $20-$40. Galaxy's Edge you can buy jedi robes but not wear them. You have no interactive experiences really. It's in a land you're not familiar with. Half the land is wasted with nothing to do but walk through it to get on Rise of the Resistance. That makes the other half cramped with no place to sit to enjoy a drink or meal. Lightsaber are $200 and the paint comes off if you handle it too much. I'm jealous of HP fans and wish we had an experience like they do. What idiot thought only 50 year olds would like to see an original trilogy themed land? The original movie came out before I was born. I fell in love with them because me 50 sometimes parents showed them to me and I showed my kids. That's at least 3 generations that would want to live that Star Wars. Never in the history of Hollywood has anyone failed as completely as Kathleen Kennedy and Disney Star Wars.
Are you serious? Disney STILL bans people from dressing like Jedis?! That's unforgivable. Universal is quite lenient and I saw a LOT of kids AND adults dressed in their favorite house robes.
Ogas cantina should have been waaaaay bigger and have way more animatronics and people in costumes.
It’s what the concept art had. Such a shame. Biggest miss for me was the lack of the bar staff knowing how well you side on Smugglers Run. That was meant to be one of the biggest USPs - experiencing your own story
They moved the budget to the special star wars hotel, the one that is 2k a night per person and requires you to commit to a 3 night stay.
You are missing one big point about this......................Theme parks are artificial crap.
@@karlydoc roller coasters are fun though... and well themed ones really enhance the experience. Velocicoaster looks lit, and Hagrid Motorbike Adventure is awesome.
@@karlydoc disney doesn't bring in tens of millions of people into florida every year because it is artificial crap. It does it because it is amazing and transformative. The entire point of disney is to totally forget the real world.
The land is missing a kinetic element. Right now it's more like a museum of Star Wars than an immersive experience. As far as the attendance boost between universal and dianey theme parks, I think it is because disney parks are at theur peak level of attendance and can't go anywhere from there whereas universal theme parks have the room to be able to grow being at such a low point in attendance vs disney prior to harry potter coming into the picture.
Yet if the MCU land reopened before the pandemic, I'm sure the park attendance would've been given a boost. And as the video said, Avatar land also brought the park a boost, and that's on Disneyland.
To be fair, the Harry Potter lands at Universal are WAY better than Galaxys Edge. Galaxys Esge could and should have been way better, but the change to a new original planet theme, and the constant budget cuts limited it. They'd rather spend more money on a hotel that few would experience than the land itaelf.
@@keiichimorisato98 Love Disney, but I agree.
disney is almost nowhere near its, "peak level of attendance." The only time that ever happened was New Years week. Even the busiest in the summer the only park that ever had to stop letting people in was the Magic Kingdom.
The thing I hate the most is that for the only quick service restaurant in the land, the absolute best idea they had was to shove us into shipping containers. Shipping containers. Out of all the cool things you could do with a star wars restaurant. Shipping containers.
I completely agree. Galaxy’s Edge is set on the wrong planet and during the wrong time period. Disney tried to replace the classic star wars characters with its new wave of Star Wars characters. It’s not working.
That was their most incredible mistake: NEVER mess with the plot if it's something all fans are familiar with AND expect to see. What Disney did is like trying to build Diagon Alley only with things that exist in our muggle world, not Wizarding Britain. You know it's not going to turn out well...
I've said this so many times, the biggest mistake they made was to make a custom location for this land... one reason why people love WWoHP so much is because you're basically put right into the movies. Walking through the brick wall into Diagon Alley in Studios is almost a religious experience. Exploring Galaxy's Edge is fun, but it's nowhere near that same feeling you get when walking into WWoHP. Tatooine would've honestly been perfect, and it's such a shame that they went in another direction...
I also wish they did Tatooine, Kathleen Kennedy is just wrong due to the fact that the parents showed their children the movies they grew up with. As someone with that experience as the younger gens
@@littlemrh I just don't get it... if they wanted to compete with WWoHP, why didn't they follow that mold? Oh well...
Even if they thought the sequel trilogy would be super popular, why did they make a new location? They could've used a location from The Force Awakens, like Takodana or Starkiller Base.
Tatooine is just a boring sandy wasteland.....There I said it
@@danshull1331
1) True, but the planet they eventually created for Galaxy's Edge (Battu) is also just a wasteland from how it sounds. Not as much as Tatooine, but it doesn't sound exciting anyway.
2) It's about the familiarity to the planet. If you don't want to go with Tatooine, there are enough other options- Takodana, Naboo, Cloud City...
Everything I've said from the get-go. Create Harry Potter at Universal outside of the seven books, a place we never visited in the stories in a timeline where Harry and Ron are already dead and you have anything but a Harry Potter land. And there you have, Galaxy's Edge.
Yes. What if they based it on The Cursed Child instead and ignored the original HP? Worse, they declared it wasn’t canon and just made up stuff and ignored JK Rowling.
Absolutely Agree! It would be like opening a marvel land without Iron Man, spiderman, etc.
@@SacTownLions0 spider man is honestly the only character I could see that has no chance of being excluded
It’d be like if they were going to make an iconic classic Harry Potter wizard school and got everyone hyped up with “Yeah! You finally get to explore BEAUXBATONS! The classic location you all know and love, finally brought to life!”
The issue with Galaxy's Edge is pretty simple: in their quest for immersion, they forgot what makes theme parks fun
I disagree respectfully
@@kiwikiwi2483 I disagree disrespectfully
@@lilt4229 You didn't say thing to be disrespectful so I guess it's still respectful 😂
Yes, and more specifically: The biggest (and most expensive) land addition ever, only boosts 2 attractions. For sure, one big attraction, and one superlative big "F-ticket" :-) .... but it does not give a feeling of 'continuation' in attractions, in that huge land.
Compare : Adventureland, at 3/4 of the technical size of G'sE, offers 4 attractions. However, the built up visitor's appeal of Adventureland is only 1/10 of the built up visitor's appeal of G'sE , it's nothing more then one street. (Most of the technical size goes to the Jungle Cruise, later the I.Jones showbuilding.)
Visitors however compare the VISUAL-size of the built up walkthough environment of a land, = that part you can SEE while walking through. Then fitting in 4 attractions "on just one street" seems outstanding, while fitting in only 2 in a quite huge alien planet city, feels like an absence of "action".
It's basic perceptual psychology !!!
If G'sE giant walktrough size would have fitted in with an equally perceptive way regarding the attractions, the visitor would expect to find 8-10 !! There is not even need to have all big attractions. Rise ot Resistance run is "the best ever", perfect, but the cost and size of Smugglers run, could have been much more succesfully exchanged for at least 5 small attractions of all different storylines and attraction types. And, add 2 more small ones at the land part of RotR.
The PERCEPTUAL value of the Star Wars land would rocket.
The perceptive value of "the biggest" shrinks after you experienced them, and the perceptive value of "many" lacks out completely. The total dwelltime in the land goes down, because there are not enough individual experiences related to the size.
I believe, the project was too much in the hands of both "top imagineers" (who were on competition with each other for the best and the biggest product), and marketeers who were planning the extra sales profit making. They lacked out a leading perception psychologist , to build up the master plan. (SAME error with Pandora)
(My viewpoint on this is professional and accademic, being a conceptualist, but not with Disney :-) )
It's funny kennedy said tattoonie was the past yet Mandalorian visited there several times and the sequel trilogy never visited Batuu that I know of is. They really need to deanchor the land from the timelock of between ep 8&9. It is a Smugglers planet perfect for say a bounty hunter or two. Aliens wandering the land and make it feel more immersive. We went Thanksgiving 2019 sadly before rise was open but my kids cared less for Kylo or Rey . Building a lightsaber was a moving experience and well worth the money. Hopefully disney realizes the Mandalorian Filoni verse is where the interest is and they can rebrand the land. Mainly rise needs rework to be Gideon and dark troopers.
If KK thought Tatooine would was in the past, why did the new trilogy end there, with Rey calling herself a Skywalker? Isn’t that a name and place stuck in the past?
@@choreomaniac cause the whole sequel trilogy had no plan and was made up as they went along.
We need to cool it on “Mandalorian is the future of the franchise” because we truly have no idea yet. We won’t find out the answer to the question of “is Mandalorian actually that popular because of the entire package or do people just love the baby” which we won’t find out for a few more years.
I’m in the camp that the ratings are going to tank if Grogu doesn’t come back. He was the singular reason that brought casuals into the universe, and with him gone there’s pitifully little to actually engage with and be excited for that isnt just a spin-off series.
Honstely they should just have all eras in the theme park. Some people hate the sequels. And some people just like a certain series of films. And we that the star wars fan base can get divided sometimes so why not make everyone happy and not limit the theme because it wouldn't make sense
It doesn't have to fit in any complicated story Line
I mean the first star tours isn't cannon but people still had fun with it.
@@TheOriginalPoon I don't think that is correct at all. You can't just have one popular character to have a movie or series that is this overwhelmingly popular and successful.
Is he adorable? Sure. And did it get some non- star wars fans to tune in? I'm sure it probably did. But in the end, the Mandalorian is a fantastic show by any measure. Everything is done so well and it FEELS like the original star wars that spawned the love of the universe that has persisted so long.
Honestly, I’d love to see them move Star Tours to Galaxy’s Edge. Maybe give it a new queue or something but as it is, it feels weird to have a Star Wars land and a separate Star Wars ride elsewhere in the same park.
I felt the same way...how weird, right?
Same!
That would make the timeline wonkier than it already is.
@@SirBlackReeds except when you factor that there's already a star speeder from that era in the timeline that flies by in smugglers run
I’ve been saying this for years
So basically Disney just *_assumed_* the movies and land would be a success cause what? "they're Disney"?
I'm glad they got a healthy dose of reality...
That and Star Wars was still printing money at the time.
@@SirBlackReeds OT and PT were, ST I have my doubt, plus the fans of ST were clearly less devoted.
At this 18:25 mark is basically the biggest concern many Disney fans have with Chapek as CEO: he’s a amazing retail leader (arguably better than Paul Pressler), but his more natural instinct is monetary experiences over quality show/stories
I went and rode both rides and ate some food there, I even got to interact with the storm troopers. But most of the time it felt kinda static. Like I was just in a movie set open to the public. More moving things would have significantly improved this land. I mean look at Super Nintendo World. Everything is moving there and it makes it more immersive. Honestly there just needed to be more going on
Disney's nightmare is far from over. A drone flew over a huge tract of land to the south of Universal and released pics all over the Internet. They are indeed pushing ahead with Super Nintendo World there, a THIRD Harry Potter land and the classical movie monsters universe. I have no idea how successful it will be but I feel that it won't be a flop.
Awesome video, sums up many of my thoughts. For me, they tried to replicate Wizarding World, but made most aspects worse. Guest have no affinity to Batuu, but at Wizarding World you can step inside Gringotts, the Three Broomsticks, Leaky Cauldron etc. Wizarding World has Butterbeer... Galaxy's Edge has Blue Milk 🤢 I also hate the 'fremium' model they used. Anyone can enjoy Ollivanders at Wizarding World, but you have to sell a kidney to experience Savi's Workshop.
Also, I feel Galaxy's Edge is just more of the same Disney rockwork, foliage, weathered buildings etc - Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade were just something different (and Nintendoland something different again).
Finally, people always mock Universal for their late announcements, but I prefer that to Disney promising the sun and delivering the moon. All the things that were announced that could truly given this land character never really happened.
Having said all that, Rise of the Resistance is frigging incredible.
I know what you mean - I am in no way a "food wanker" but when we visited HP in Universal Osaka, I HAD TO buy butterbeer and eat at the Three Broomsticks. In fact, I've visited twice now on two separate times and have done that twice. I've also bought heaps of merch and clothing. That's because I have an affinity with HP. I have been a SW fan since I saw the original in a cinema at age seven, in 1977 but Batuu does NOTHING for me.
@@tulinfirenze1990 Haha, 'food wanker' 😂 Conversely, I like but don't love HP - in fact, when I fist visited Wizarding World I hadn't even seen the films in full, yet things like Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, Butterbeer etc are just so iconic you don't even need to have watched the movies to recognise them.
@@marcussheen I actually felt the same way about HP that you describe about Galaxy's Edge... My wife is more the Harry Potter fan, though I can appreciate the charm of the story, the movies, and the theme park. I think they nailed the look of the park, and the merchandising, but there's only, like, four rides. With the exception of the train, they're only thrill rides too. Other than the shopping, there's very little do actually DO in HPland. It's a very flat experience.
@@asudevil316 I can't say I enjoyed the Hogwarts ride very much. I feel like that would have done better as a dark ride tour of the castle instead of a disorienting thrill ride/centrifuge. And a roller coaster with screens is still a roller coaster.
Are you apart of PETA?
So, in short, here are my suggestions for improving the land:
-- Commit to making the land feel more dangerous and adventurous with more atmosphere cast members, or else make it feel more safe and welcoming like a traditional Disneyland land, leaving the adventure for the attractions. Note that Pandora and Universal's Wizarding World are both set in relatively safe and welcoming parts of their respective universes.
-- On Smuggler's Run, less yapping from Hondo and/or add chances to disobey him.
-- Play more Star Wars music and/or original compositions. I watched a Galaxy's Edge walkthrough with Luke's theme playing in another tab and it helped.
I went to galaxy's edge in October 2019 at Hollywood Studios. The millennium falcon ride was cool, it felt wrong not having the pilot han solo even referenced. The land had almost nothing to do, and I had a much better time on the the Tower of Terror, and Star Tours. The day after I went to Pandora, and I enjoyed it much more than Galaxies Edge. It felt like you where exploring an alien planet and was much more immersive.
Guessing you mean 2019? GE wasn’t open in 2018 haha
@@edsgaming5513 Oh my mistake!
As someone who had an AP at Disneyland when the land opened, I got firsthand experience of how guests reacted. Galaxy's Edge was consistently the emptiest land of the park, even on extremely busy days. I never waited more than half an hour for Smugglers Run, and sometimes it was even a walk-on. There were even times when Disney California Adventure was packed while Disneyland was empty.
On a personal level, my friends and I never found any of the land's experiences, including the rides, to be worth more than one or two rides. After my first three times on Smuggler's Run I really had no desire to go again, and the shops and dining were equally easy to gloss over. The only reason I regularly returned to the land was my love of droids, and even those short walks through the area lasted only a few minutes. I, my friends, and the majority of park guests, became quickly bored with the experience, and instead spent our times on older and better rides like Pirates of the Caribbean and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
Did you guys get bored of Rise? 😳
@@jacesears3874 It definitely takes more time to get over it, but it happens. To be fair though, it wasn’t open very long so it hasn’t had much time to become tired.
@@MatecaCorp i feel like that ride is timeless personally but I only rode it twice before the close ….so idk.
I believe I understand why that would happen: you go there to secure a time for RotR, browse the shops a bit, ride Smugglers, and then unless you're paying to create a light saber or droid (which are essentially shows you pay a lot to experience) or want to eat something, you're basically _done_ until you return for Resistance... I believe in their effort to improve traffic flow, they've avoided placing benches and tables and places to relax and people-watch and enjoy the atmosphere. There's nowhere to linger and increase chances of seeing atmospheric performers, so unless you're in a line or in a restaurant, there's no reason to stand around.
@@jacesears3874 I loved it the first time, second time though i was bored the whole way through. Its a real one and done, I do sadly have to agree with the sentiment its just a bunch of cheap gags. Looks like a large toy set too.
Galaxy's Edge is a marvellous example of Disney's Imagineers skill and craftsmanship... but it has one monumental flaw... it just isn't recognisably Star Wars!
Walk into Diagon Alley and you're their in the movie...in GE, you're in an unknown sci-fi village. They also gambled to early on the sequel trilogy!
If they had stuck to the original plans, it would have been a smash hit... Imagine sering Vader in Rise instead of Kylo... Han and Chewie on the Falcon... or even Lando or Nien Numb... or the cantina featuring Figrin D'an and his band. Also with the success of the Mandalorian, Tattooine would have been a perfect backdrop for character appearances by Mando etc... hell, even Rey would fit into Tattooine.
Especially since she stole Luke's house.
@@tulinfirenze1990 Exactly 😂
I have a feeling theyre going to revamp galaxy’s edge to be on tatooine now that they’ve shifted focus away from The Last Jedi’s dumb plot choices and are gearing things more toward nostalgia with The Mandalorian. All of those changes you mention are 100% doable and easy to change with minimal extra spending. It would make the whole thing more enjoyable, memorable, and would definitely help their word-of-mouth advertising.
@@tulinfirenze1990 And his lightsabre, surname, and dignity.
@@taffysaur And his family's movie series. The nine films are now The Palpatine Saga. It's disgusting and, as far as I'm concerned, the last three are not canon, don't exist.
I liked the land, but I’m not crazy about it. Honestly, I prefer Pandora.
But wait, what about Disney's Hollywood Studios?! You haven't mentioned that park, sneaky TH-cam man! ( typing in violence ) ...oh wait, you addressed that. Damn.
I think the new Disney trilogy has an effect on why the land didn't do great cause so many hate episode 8 and 9 that they may have been put off that they went new trilogy and not something like tattoine or hoth which people would much rather have
Yes, this cannot be ignored. The characters and settings in the newest trilogy just aren't that popular. Disney's decision to ignore the original trilogy and its extremely popular characters and settings is a huge mistake. People of all ages still enjoy those movies. They have staying power and to not have them represented in the new land is, quite frankly, a stupid move made by arrogant, out-of-touch executives.
Yeah - A lot of us found episodes 8 and 9 to be a big downer and even dampen our feelings towards the original, since we're now shown how these heroes end up, according to Disney. I personally had no enthusiasm for going to a Disney park to see Star Wars things after viewing these dreary affairs.
Had to do with the fact that Kathleen Kennedy told Iger that the new films would be more popular than the old film, and not to cater to old fans in favor of a new more "diverse" (less white and male) audience. Seriously, the man who designed Galaxy's Edge did an interview where he talked about the creation of the land, this isn't some rumor from an "alt right" youtuber as some have said, but actually from the horses mouth from the person who designed it.
@@keiichimorisato98 I'm convinced they could've still made their desired goals of diversity and reaching new fans and at the same time come up with way better movies than we got. But this is also the company who puts Star Wars stuff in "Tomorrowland" even though it clearly says at the beginning of every single Star Wars movie that this happened a long time ago, so I may be wrong.
@@danandtab7463 and I would agree, but the ideology that Kethleen Kennedy and much of Hollywood disagrees. They are trying to fight the white male patriarchy, and all it represents, and from her perspective, Luke Skywalker is complicit, so he had to be replaced, he wasn't the chosen one, Rey is.
They'll build Naboo or Coruscant in California Adventure and you'll take a “space ship” ride to the other area with a park hopper pass. Disney is very original.
For real though, It’d be super easy to convert the land to the original trilogy. Kylo Ren’s animatronic could easily be switched to Darth Vader.
They should keep Florida the sequel trilogy and convert California to the original trilogy and see which one people love more.
real talk though I'd give my left arm to go to a Disney-funded Coruscant Land that concept rips
Endor would go well in California Adventure... they could make an Ewok Village similar to the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House or a Speeder Bile chase ride similar to Flight of Passage
@@tedsowards Vader and Tarkin on the bridge, Han in the loading bay - proper Stormtroopers in the hanger and Luke or Leia instead of Rey
They lowkey cancelled the galaxy's edge for disneyland paris and it seems like they are completely redoing the concept
the land is not based on the original SW. that's the problem.
The Problem was the Sequels failed. That's why. If they were successfull and if the land was present in the sequels its likely the land would be successful. The land is not that successful cause the sequels were crap. Oh and Kennedy royally screwed up the whole thing.
@@Quetzalcoatl_Feathered_Serpent The sequels didn’t fail, where are you getting this idea from? They billions back, when they all released🤨
@@jonathantrevino6994 Oh I'm not referring to money. from a financial standpoint they were successful films. I'm referring to the near destruction they caused to many fans views on the movies and series in general. When you look at the Harry Potter land in Universal its from a very successful series of films that had a large fan base. Star Wars had a impressive large willing to pay fanbase up until the Last Jedi came out. After that anything Disney created with star wars was treated as garbage up until Mandalorian. Bentu in Disneyland was meant to be a world where we get a opportunity to be characters in SW. It would have worked too. If the other 2 SW movies hadn't divided the fanbase so much. Hell even having Bentu in the sequels would have worked as well but since it didnt appear or even was mentioned, to many fans it seems out of place. This might change with Mandalorian however. We may get a oppurtunity for Bentu to actually appear in the series. If it does, it will be reconized as a cannon planet and perhaps will get more fans to go to it. However yes In its current form right now. Its a failure.
When I went Rey was walking through the land and nobody gave a crap. Now it that was Luke or Leia people would have gone nuts.
Their strategy of theming makes absolutely no sense. If they couldn't make up their mind, they could have just split it in to three sections: the middle would be of course, the Death Star base, then maybe Naboo on one side and Yavin-4 on the other. It didn't have to be "add Coruscant, Dagobah, Alderaan and all the other lands OR we just don't do it." Just put in two or three recognizable lands and stick to the plot. I don't get it. They butchered the theming so badly that it resembles nothing from the SW universe. Meanwhile, Universal took no chances and listened to Rowling. The corporate bigwigs, at first, were appalled that she wanted Diagon Alley to retain its cramped layout, which almost guaranteed crowds. They decided they couldn't risk angering die hard fans and followed her advice, having faith that she knew her fans better than they did. That gamble paid off big time. I have never been there in the peak of summer season but even in off-season, there were crowds on late Sundays and it didn't feel claustrophobic. Nobody got upset and started shoving or shouting at people. The bumps and jostles are part of the fun because I see what they were trying to do. They wanted you to feel like you were following Harry's footsteps when he first entered DA. It also is important to note that they didn't make up anything. Everything you see is from the books and movies such as Fortescue's, which does serve ice cream. They have Ollivander's where you can buy an interactive wand. The only thing I wished they had was the ability to use currency like Harry's such as knuts and galleons. But the point still stands: Universal realized they couldn't risk losing touch with the guests and made sure everything was like it appeared in the books and movies. And they experimented for months on how to make butterbeer and got Rowling's approval. It sold like CRAZY. The butterbeer carts always had a line wherever I went. I can't believe Disney totally lost the plot with GE...
Doesn't help that disney made the worst star wars movie in history. The damage cannot be undone.
Disney had nothing to do with "Attack of the Clones"
I believe simple fixes like changing the stories around in smugglers run, starting phase 2 of new experiences, adding characters from the mandalorian
I think it will be way more profitable if they added original characters like Luke skywalker darth Vader those are the most well known
@@jeremiahsanto555 yeah but the whole land is about full immersion in its ST time line, unless they suddlenty have millions they love to spend just to change the time period of the land (given the situation were in.....they don't) there stuck with what they have, that being said i felt like adding a few more land events like kylo rens arrivial can go a LONG way
But Smuggler's Run *does* have different stories. I rode it twice in October 2019 and each 'mission' was totally different. Plus, depending on how you perform -- how badly you bang up the Falcon -- the ending egress experience changes. For example, during one mission we pretty much trashed the ship and exited through smoke and sparking panels.
And that was 2019, shortly after the WDW opening. Since then I think they've added even more missions and changed up the motion platform behaviors within each, making each experience 'more unique'. The ride system has a tremendous amount of flexibility, should they choose to exercise it.
That would make the timeline even wonkier.
I'm about to turn 22 and there was 2 places I wanted to go as a kid. Hogwarts and Tatooine. I have been to one and I all most got to go to the other
So many cool things behind a fence...... droids..... Static...... Tucked up against a wall..... Behind a fence...... a speeder.... you guessed it, behind a fence. An x wing..... just sitting there....
We thought we’d spend days just in that land. Didn’t even spend all of 1 day. It was a great vacation tho. The park wasn’t very busy
Star wars land is a Billion Dollar "not familiar" star wars land. It looks like it could be a generic star port at the county fair. Should've done planet of Tatooine! Could you imagine going to the Cantina and ordering a real blue milk? While the white head dudes are playing music on stage (animatronics). And Chewy and Han sitting in the back with greedo? lastly, they got the Millennium Falcon. But I want to see it blast off from "docking bay 94!!" Would that be too much to ask for?!
You nailed what the problem is. The SW fans arriving at Galaxy's Edge noticed immediately that something was missing. It called familiarity. They didn't see anything that linked it with the SW universe. I saw countless videos of GE and can't think of a single land that it's based on. It isn't the Death Star for sure! It isn't Alderaan or Hoth. It isn't Coruscant or Yavin-4. It's just a fictional version of a Star Wars land, if you get my drift. It's impossible to imagine Han, Luke and Leia walking through this made-up SW land. No wonder the fans were disappointed...
All I hear is Kathleen Kennedy once again failed to grasp what makes Star Wars appealing.
It's not all on her. There's almost certainly a civil war of sorts going on at Lucasfilm, and by extension, Disney.
I enjoyed micky and Minnie’s runaway railroad more than this whole land
Same here, I wish they would have done Monstropolis instead of galaxy’s edge.
Agree...
I spent an entire week trying to get in to Rise back in October and never came close. You're right. It can be the best ride ever, but if you can't get on it, who cares?
As a massive Star Wars fan I absolutely loved the idea of experiencing a world we hadn't seen before. I felt it added to having your own Star Wars story rather than just experiencing the canon like at The Wizarding World (which I also adore btw). I really feel it's only downfall was the phased opening and the fact that it was set during the sequel trilogy. Set the story of Batuu during the OG trilogy and I feel like it would have been perfect.
I feel like it definitely put all its eggs in the sequel basket before seeing true audience reception. I do enjoy being on another planet that is a new place to explore, but I would trade it all away for the return of Star Wars Weekends if only to be allowed to meet characters like Luke, Leia, and Ahsoka again. It celebrated the whole saga, but now we’re trapped in a corner with the new trilogy everywhere except the Darth Vader meet and greet. We’ll likely never see theme park content for wild successes like The Mandalorian such as attractions or meet and greets because of this pinning down a point in time for continuity idea.
In a parallel universe, we would have Atlantis (from Atlantis: The Lost Kingdom) and "The Grid" (Tron Land), instead of Pandora and Galaxy's Edge
Please don't..it hurts too much to know that we're in the bad timeline.
In a better timeline, we would have Treasure Planet
Atlantis would be cool! Ooh I wanna big simulator of the sub bridge with that leviathan
I went to Galaxy's Edge back on January 4, 2020. Overall, it was a horrible experience. It was so crowded and you had no choice but to move with the crowd or else you would be squashed. It was impossible to get into the shops and the Smuggler's Run ride had a wait for over 100 minutes. I went into the single rider line to cut the wait down to 10 minutes, but I ended up as an engineer. That role is the worst on the ride. To top everything off, I learned the hard way that I couldn't ride Rise of the Resistance because I did not have a boarding pass.
Wow, interesting coincidence. On Jan. 4, 2020 I was on the other side of Orlando at Wizarding World of Harry Potter! I'm surprised you said it was crowded. Universal had very few crowds at the time and I didn't wait longer than 30-45 minutes for most rides in any area of the parks.
In 2016 Knotts Berry Farm open Ghost Town Alive, an immersive experience in the west with performers and adventures. I played the town's bounty hunter. Think Westworld for families. Disney heard this and had planned the exact same thing for Galaxy's Edge. At the last second they pulled the budget. I honestly think a cast of droids, Aliens and smugglers to visit with and interact as a hero in star wars would have been amazing. Hopefully the star wars hotel can do this properly and maybe they will bring it back.
Wonder if they ever thought about going with the prequels on it. That would’ve been dope.
And before you say "They aren't as popular as OG or sequels!", may point out all the Prequel Memes?
It's like universal getting the harry potter license and building their own wizarding school 😂
Thats what I've been saying! It's like a generic space port from a syfy channel TV show. They might as well change the Indiana Jones ride to "scary tomb we found in Australia" ride.
@@SacTownLions0 Temple of Doom can't be Australia, not nearly deadly enough
At Disneyland, I went before the second ride opened. What me and my buddy noticed was the interaction with people in the land in relation to the gams on the app you can play. Get enough points and someone came up to us with a secret mission. After we completed it, we were escorted to the yet-to-be-opened Fast Track line for Falcon.
I have to agree with "Sneaky TH-cam Man". I finally visited the land at both parks. While the Rise and Smugglers rides are mind-boggling achievements, the land itself feels empty and more like a shopping mall. While it was awesome to build my own saber (I BUILT ONE AT EACH PARK CAUSE IM A NERD), and drink at Organas, the land felt devoid of the charm that made star wars so popular. Instead of a Galaxy far far away, it well...feels way down to earth. The area where Rise sits is devoid of the stunning theming that the other part of the land has. It's like they just dropped a ride in the middle of a city park. Creating a new world, Batuu, was I think, the biggest mistake. For me, it doesn't hold a special place as Tatooine or Coruscant does. We, star wars fans, have visited those places many times, and we have come to love them. While the idea seems cool, it just feels like they tried to merge Tatooine and other known star wars worlds. It feels unoriginal.
While I loved the rides, I GOT TO FLY THE MILLENNIUM FALCON!, it's doesn't have the awe about it that the Wizarding World has. Now, I'm not a huge fan of the Harry Potter movies, I have watched them all, but the lands Universal has created feel like you are in that Harry Potter world, you're immersed in the experience of the boy who lived. I just didn't feel that at Galaxies edge, I just felt like I was at a theme park.
I hope if there is a phase 2 that many of the issues are fixed, but at this point, I have moved on and am now foaming at the mouth for Super Nintendo World!
I think where Harry Potter as a premiere franchise land worked so well and where Star Wars as a premiere franchise land didn't work is that the Wizarding World is a lot easier to be immersed into, contrary to the very specific world building of star wars. Harry Potter has the iconic settings like Hogwarts, Hogsmeade and Diagon alley that are universal to the main film franchise which are only a few years apart, with mostly human characters. Star wars has DOZENS of unique planets and locations across over 70 YEARS of galactic history with only one even somewhat central location, Coruscant, with hundreds if not thousands of alien/droid characters. Star Tours worked as a stand-alone ride because you visited multiple planets, being confined to Batuu with a journey to Corellia with Hando and a mission to a star destroyer with the Resistance doesn't let much creative freedom expand from there. On top of that Galaxy's edge was based on the trilogy that completely messed up. The only way to fix it is to rewrite the continuity, set it in the vast amount of time between the 2nd and 3rd trilogies where the Mandalorian and the news shows will take place.
1) I think you can take central locations from the original trilogy and it'd work: Tatooine (was in episode 4 and episode 6), Cloud City (had the most iconic scenes of episode 5) and death star (either one). Out of 11 Star Wars films, 6 movies had a death star in one way or another.
2) If you want to have all the famous locations from the different eras, have multiple missions in the Millenium Falcon ride. They'll all still be in the era Galaxy's Edge is in, but the planets mostly change the same. So the missions can be to Tatooine, Corosaunt, Hoth, Takodana... endless options. It'd take some work to add that variety, but not as much as making a new land for each location.
I agree the problem is that Disney wanted to shove down our throats there garbage movies and thought we would care. I like galaxies edge been there over 20 times to ride Rise but that’s it. It’s to static and I wish they had old characters even Jaba the hut or something g
Just like DCA 1.0, Disney got really cheap at the end and cut anything unique from the new land and will have to invest even more now to get people to flood in.
If the land had droids, Bounty hunters, the Falcon ride had more than one mission and ships flying above the land at night at certain time then I think the land would be much much more loved and a must see.
They promised something a lot more immersive than what they delivered. It had elements of live action role playing originally, where characters would interact with you based on what you’d experienced so far, and there was a story framing the whole thing.
That's not entirely true. They spent over a billion dollars on Galaxy's Edge. It's a weird mixture of cheaping out and going big or going home.
as a ex cast member, who was working there during the opening of star wars land, i got cast presentation before the land was ready and later got a preview of the land, was very disappointed and its interesting how so many ppl are starting to realize, a star wars land in disneyland park was a bad idea from the start and pretty much ruined the foundation of disneyland parks story and any other opportunity to add new original attractions into disneyland park, Disneyland wasnt made for “grand scale movie themed lands” the way universal does, that has never been their brand, the fact that they’re now trying to imitate something else is why they are losing
YES I agree! As impressive as the land is, Disneyland wasn’t meant to be on the “grand” scale such as Disney world. Tony Baxter said it best that Disneyland is the most “charming” park.
@@itzjoshh93 The way I see it, Disneyland is basically the Magic Kingdom at Disney World, granted WDW has much more space to expand, but they would never put this in the Magic Kingdom, instead what they did is the expanded Fantasyland, and now it's better. This really did not need to happen at all in California. Disneyland has no problem getting guests, they should have spent more money into making California adventure a place people want to go more than just a single day,. Removing all the remnants of Eisner's era of incompetence with that park, Jumping Jellyfish, Chair swings, flying zephyr, and abomination that is Goofy Ski School, all those rides just scream "cheap"
Mike B its true thats exactly how i would put it too i dont really have any interest in going to disneyland anymore star wars land is too much of a thematic imbalance for me personally it was clearly put in due to wizarding worlds debut in hollywood... which is better lol how sad, i agree california adventure is always in need of improvement but they had something really good going up until after they finished grizzly airfield it became a more historic celebration of california rather than a celebration of modern day california, marvel and pixar pier were terrible additions the pier has never looked worse one side is pixar which just looks tacky and the other side is still paradise pier... and do i even need to comment on mission breakout lol i was all for a bugs land and paradise pier being replaced but not with the additions being downgrades and single handedly ruining dca’s skyline 🤢
@@1TSS0FLVFFY I couldn’t have said it better myself! I could type a whole 15+ page essay on why Pixar pier alone is a horrible idea.
@@Mike__B Agree and Agree. They didn't need to put a star wars land into Disneyland. It's already basically at full attendance. If only there was another park nearby that needed an extra attraction, lol.
Totally Agree! They should’ve pushed back the opening until ROTR was fixed. They should give priority passes to those who purchased a full-fare admission ticket to ride ROTR 🎟 and then open it to any extra slots to Annual Pass Holders. I am (was) an annual pass holder at Disneyland. Hyping it up and blacking out dates for the opening set the image of how crazy opening would be. All my friends said that they’ll wait until things die down. that screwed Disney over. The park was a ghost town.
Disney truly thought it was invincible and too big to fail
Next up, the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
@@SirBlackReeds they been swinging and missing ever since end game lol
The trend of Kathleen Kennedy taking a giant steaming dump on everything she touches continues, nothing surprising there.
Disney needs to "bite the bullet" IMO and put it back in the original trilogy era setting. It really wouldn't be difficult to do at all, just modify a few of the existing pieces. I honestly wonder if that has been set up as a backup plan anyway. Books could be written about the flaws with this land. ROTR was absolutely mind-blowing, but such limited capacity and break downs makes it very troublesome. Most of Batuu is sorta like you know sorta blue milk, sorta a cantina, sorta tattooine, sorta millennium falcon pilot, etc. etc.
The biggest mistake was Kathleen Kennedy getting her wish to build GE after the Disney Sequels.
That wouldn't have been a problem if the sequel trilogy hadn't been garbage
Having been to both HP and GE lands. I have to say that I've returned to HP lands three times for each expansion at Universal. Each time, I felt like I was returning back "home" to something. And at the end of each trip, I felt sad that I was leaving the HP lands.
While I only visited GE once, Smuggle Run just felt like another Star Tours with less recognizable IP. RoR was good but extremely stressful for getting a pass in December 2019. It made the experience less enjoyable. And unfortunately, the land won't prompt me return back anytime soon.
I think setting it on tatooine but still during the sequel trilogy could’ve been a good compromise.
As cool as galaxys edge was when I went this past november it was very forgettable and I only remember how much of a pain it was to get on rise of the resistance. Without that ride the land is a 6/10 for me
Here's a thought: Make a Death Star using the exact same engineering as the shell of Spaceship Earth. Have the interior ride system of Tower of Terror and have it be a RESCUE ON THE DEATHSTAR ride. You're a group of Rebels trying to rescue Mon Mothma, who's held captive on the deathstar. You travel up and down getting into scuffles with Storm Troopers, Imperial officers, etc. You free Mon Mothma, and all of a sudden, the ride vehicle begins to quake(with the force) you are shot upwards and end up in the Emperor's throne room, firmly in his force grip. Your ride vehicle travels across the floor of his thrown room as he's monologuing about the pesky rebels daring to come aboard his space station. He then moves the vehicle over the pit and proceeds to throw the ride vehicle down the shaft(maybe even shooting a bit of force lightning at the riders just before they fall. The riders think they're falling to their deaths when they are "caught" at the bottom by the one and only Luke Skywalker, straining with all of his might through the force. This would be an exciting ride using already existing tech and engineering to thrill Star Wars fans. It wouldn't necessarily fit in any canon timeline, but would give fans exactly what they dreamed about when they were children!
That sounds awful 👎
Thanks for an honest review free of either fringe agenda or company-approved PR spin! Keep up the good work.
Hey, a new land with higher capacity but the same amount of guests? Sounds like a win to me.
the difference between Harry Potter and Star Wars is the love for the story. Universal loves and respects Harry Potter and its story telling, so the rides and the lands feel authentic and genuine. However, Disney has treated Star Wars like something they need to change and fix and make their own. They don't love the source material. That quote you mentioned from Kathleen Kennedy proves that they don't value the history of the Star Wars galaxy the way they would need to in order to tell genuine and authentic stories the way that Universal does with their lands.
No Universal doesn't respect the story. They are just playing on nostalgia for cheap thrills so they can dump it later for something else.
They should really scrap making galaxy’s edge canon... split up the land into three sections that take place during the prequels sequels and original movies.... that way everything can be represented and Mando and grogu can even wander between the original and sequel areas... you should be able to walk through galexy’s edge and get to meet all the characters... not just limit it to one point in time.
That's not going to work when you make a fourth or fifth trilogy. This is just the problem when you have a franchise that goes on forever.
Julia, wow, EXACTLY my thoughts too! They should have picked three lands and just themed them as closely as possible. That's why GE is unfamiliar. Remove the TiE fighter and Millennium Falcon and it doesn't look like anything from the Star Wars universe. They could have just made the center look like a command center in the Death Star. Then have one land such as Naboo on one side and a second land on the other side such as Yavin-4. The two lands are just suggestions. They instead made up a whole new land. That's why nobody recognizes it. I still shake my head and wonder what the hell they were thinking making up a totally unfamiliar land for GE.
The thing about attendance increase is not really comparable. Galaxys edge wasnt even opened a full year before parks were closed for COVID, and not to mention that its signature attractions was literally only opened for 3 and 2 months before the parks were closed for COVID. Also, Disneyland already has so much more visitors per year where it would be very difficult to increase 22%, while Islands of adventure had less than 5 million visitors in 2009. In comparrison for the same year, hollywood studios had nearly 10 million visitors and Disneyland had nearly 16 million visitors. You absolutelly cannot compare the same numbers, its not how it works, you have to put everything into context. Galaxys Edge may not be perfect, and I absolutelly prefer Harry Potter over star wars, like a BILLION times more, but Galaxys edge is absolutelly a better land in pretty much every aspect, so is Pandora.
Laying down some truth
I love your channel so much! So informative and very interesting to hear the detailed breakdown from different perspectives (consumer, the business etc)
The problem during roaming droid testing I saw in videos wasn't "popularity"... it was people who kept physically touching the droid too much and preventing it from actually getting around. It was meant for roaming, not for meet and greet photo ops.
Galaxy's Edge is so drab, generic, and brown. Compare it to Cars Land or Pandora and you wonder how Disney went through with this.
Drab is the perfect description to how I felt in Galaxy's Edge. I'm not a Disney person at all, but I preferred every other section of Disneyland, which all had more life and color.
They did not seem to understand that a big part of the attraction for episode 7 was seeing all the classic characters again.
Galaxy's edge can be summed up easily: Kathleen Kennedy's failure.
Had they stuck with the original plan to theme it around the OT of Star Wars, it would have been the massive hit they were expecting. Instead, Kennedy tried to reinvent the wheel and based it on the sequel trilogy that will soon be forgotten. She continues to prove how underqualified she is for the position of president of lucasfilm. She's a glorified producer and that's where she belongs. Jon Favreau should be president of lucasfilm once her contract is up this year or #FireKathleenKennedy.
Disneyland and Disneyworld should have each been a different planet. Maybe Hoth and tatooine
What about Disneyland being Endor, Hollywood Studios being Tatooine (Florida is probably the hottest, but if it comes to humidity maybe switch them around), and Disneyland Paris's Walt Disney Studios being Hoth (it can actually get cold enough there)?
You could also choose to make each park cover a different era: Age of the Republic, Age of Rebellion and Age of Resistance. A possible fourth iteration could be the High Republic.
Yuuuuuup
We’ve been a few times now. I’m less impressed each time I go. We went in Jan. 2021 and road Rise of the Resistance for a second time. It was much less impressive, but that could have been because of CoVid restrictions. I (35yo) and my daughter (12yo) would have preferred a land centers around the original trilogy.
I’m curious, what kind of COVID restrictions do you felt lessened the experience? Was it watching everything thru a plexiglass barrier..?
Kathleen, were talking about parks that are almost 60 years old, which rely on American 40's nostalgia. Main Street takes place in the 1910's!!
Seems like a fairly easy fix.. don’t constraint into the timeline. Have mando and baby yoda walking around in the morning. Vader and Luke in the evening. And kylo and Rey at night
Really I’ll say fuck the timeline just have like anakin or obi wan walk right next to din or leia
I think this is the best bet. Maybe to make it not too weird have alternating blocks in the day where characters can come out based on the trilogy/show they’re in. Mando in the afternoon, Last Jedi stuff in the morning, original Trilogy early evening - and just randomize it a little
@@serendipitousone yup exactly. Add this planet to history of Star Wars and a stopping point for all major characters
Disney completely mismanaged the Star Wars franchise.
They should have just built a Star Wars themed hotel.
I think people would way rather stay in a hotel room that looks like the Millennium Falcon and get a wake up call from Darth Vader, than walk around some dirty looking alien market.
They actually did make a hotel about Star Wars. I don't know what actually happened with it, because it probably hasn't opened yet due to the pandemic. Or mabye it did and I forgot hearing about it, who knows.
@@magic75450 galactic starcruiser, supposed to be some space cruise, with screen instead of windows, idk why construction photos show spaces for _real_ windows
@@thetheatreorgan168 I'm just disappointed that they removed stuff from the Disneyland land just so they can have it in the hotel. That's very greedy if you ask me.
@@magic75450 Don’t worry, it’s in WDW, Florida, and they just built it over empty grass
@@thetheatreorgan168 What I mean that they removed from Galaxy's Edge things that they promised, just so they can sell the hotel- role-playing, interactive adventures, lightsabers that look real (I'm not sure if that was promised or not, but still)... they basically split Galaxy's Edge into two, so they can sell it two times.
Nobody wanted to visit a fake Rey Palpatine park. They want to see Chewy, Luke, Han, Leah.
the star wars park looks just depressing
I think another one of Galaxy's Edge's huge issues is the lack of interactivity. I get that you can use your phone to scan things, but that's not nearly on the same level as the wand magic within the Wizarding World. Even then, Super Nintendo World seems to have taken that a step further with the interactivity having users play minigames to win coins and causing kinetic figures and animatronics to move. Disney really over promised and under delivered on Galaxy's Edge. It's a symptom of the Iger/Chapek era attitude of "It's IP, that'll be good enough, we don't have to do anything beyond the minimum".
The biggest things missing are classic characters, droids and costumed "citizens" walking around, and an actual atmosphere. Everything feels like a museum and shopping mall. It needs a landspeeder attraction or something. There's just not enough there to keep guests attention unless you really, really, really like buying expensive Star Wars merch. Star Tours should have been part of the land as well. I imagine with Fast Passes to both rides I would likely spend an hour at most in that section, which is a shame, because I've wanted a Star Wars theme park or land at Disney for about 30 years now.
The Millennium Falcon could have been part of a cool walk through attraction liked "Escape from the Death Star" or something. This land and characters no one knows is hard to get emotional or excited about.
Kathleen Kennedy is poison to the Star Wars franchise. Why is she still there she is costing them millions of dollars?
Fun Fact: The original theme for Galaxy's Edge was supposed to be based off the Original Trilogy. Due to The Force Awakens being a huge success and was the highest grossing Star Wars movie at the time, CEO Bob Iger decided to change the overall theme to the Sequel Trilogy at the last minute.
Let me just say, I loved going to Batuu East, as cast members call Galaxy's Edge at Hollywood Studios. I did the Droid building experience, which was a hoot.
I also went on both rides. As a disabled person who uses a wheelchair some of the time -- here because of all the walking -- they handled it well. I was doing my part as well to get into the environment. Maybe it's not a LARP, (Live-Action Role Playing game) but I could have spent the day there happily.
I am an OG Star Wars fan. I saw "Episode IV" aka just Star Wars on 5/25/77. At the Mann's Chinese Theater, no less. My mother was dating a prop man at Paramount, so his influence made this an outing for all 3 of us. I was 14. It changed my life.
If WDW wants to do right by the land, I have an idea. You know the Starcruiser, which was such a dismal fail for WDW? Make it into a dinner theater and LARP experience. Nobody stays there. The decks would just be part of the LARP. It wouldn't be cheap, but if people will pay big bucks to build a clunky lightsaber, they can pay the same amount for dinner and a LARP. You're welcome, Disney.
Idk I feel like Harry Potter would feel sooo out of place at Disney
I’d trade galaxy’s edge away to get Star Wars weekends at dhs back. I miss being able to celebrate the whole saga. This continuity thing feels so limiting. If you don’t like these new characters, you’re out of luck.
That argument against Tatooineland is the funniest thing in retrospect-from both fan _and_ company perspectives
Disney has completely abandoned “The new stories to tell for a new generation”-there’s a reason every single expanded Star Wars story has taken place within ten years of the Original Trilogy
They made a big mistake with setting the land within the sequel trilogy, lets be honest, who really likes rey, plo whats his name, and finn (I dont fully hate finn but they just ruined his character in rise of skywalker, they didn’t even try to complete his character ark, they just tossed him to the side). Those characters aren’t memorable or lovable (except for finn). When I want to go into a star wars land I want to be able to meet luke skywalker, darth vader, obi-wan, ashoka tano, darth maul, ezra bridger, R2-D2, C3PO, and leia organa. I dont want to meet random blue haired lady. This is what they should have done. They could have separated the land into different trilogy’s, one slice of the land could cover the original trilogy (along with rebels), the other can cover the prequal trilogy (along with the clone wars because ashoka is life), and the other can cover the sequel trilogy. That would have been a win win win win for every star wars fan (including the normies). It feels like disney used this land for marketing and marketing only, it doesn’t have that disney feel, it’s beautiful but it’s lifeless, its one giant shopping mall with two attractions lazily slapped on it. Its wasted potential and nothing more.
Amazing report!
Back in 2006 I travel to disneyworld for two weeks like a Dream come true, but reserved two days into Universal Studios because it has some free days.. and as a Disney fan my favourite atraction was, universal’s spiderman ride… (tower of terror just second) for some reason I found disney more nostalgic and universal more innovative.
Both are great but once again.. Harry Potter ride in LA 2017 was incredible like any other disney ride.
Maybe is because im older but Universal at the moment has all my attention for the following years, most than disney.
I say this as an old school Star Wars nerd: Wizarding World was built with love; it inspired me to buy things to remember the experience and can't wait to return. Galaxy's Edge was built to sell me things; I bought nothing, don't really remember many details, and don't care to return.
I think the biggest difference here is that Disney wasn’t using the original creator aka George Lucas for advices and even planning for Galaxy Edge. Sure the new land looks good and Rise of the Residence is next level of the dark ride general but it’s missing that one thing that makes people invest with the franchise. Disney is excellent with theming like with Cars land, Avatar Land, Toy Story Land, some parts of Epcot, and a lot of more. They’re able to achieve that by having the original creators to be involved with the land, because they understand what the fans and visitors wanted. Harry Potter lands was in charge by the original creator and did an excellent job. Even if some of the actors look like they’re in there 30s or 40s, the land feel timeless. While Galaxy Edge sorta feel like it set at a certain time frame instead of being all the timelines
So WWoHP was co-created by JK Rowling, the creator of Harry Potter. It has her stamp on it which is why it's full of charm, character and magic. This is the same reason why Disneyland in CA has a charm and magic about it that other Disney parks lack, because Walt disney Himself helped create the park, it is his baby and has his touch.
But this is why SWGE lacks charm, character or magic. George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars had 0 imput on the land. It's nobody's baby, and It lacks the touch and stamp of the creator. It just feels like something a soulless greedy corporation bought and is trying desperately to cash in on, which is exactly what it is.
For as contravertial as JK is, her strictness on the quality and accuracy of Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley are the reason the two lands are so good today.
Universal won the fantasy franchise war against Disney, and it's even more evident because of Hagrid's Motorbike Adventure
@10 9 5 1 3 4 7 8 6 2 Gods no! The prequels are our example of what happens when you put George Lucas fully in charge.
The man HATED the original Star Wars(a new hope) because other people messed up his "vision". He literally bet Stephen Spielberg that it would flop hard and still pays up for that bet to this day.
George and his protégé are the biggest problems the Star Wars franchise has faced.
I wonder what George really thinks of it, seeing as how he helped create Star Tours and other Disney rides.
Great point. And I would add thats the problem with the entire Disney Trilogy.
I 1000000% agree what you said. I went for my birthday and it sucked. It was basically all shops that nobody could get into, no characters, no interactment, no way to get on Rise of the Resistance, it rained which made the floor super slippery and there's no cover for rain there at all. As a MEGA Star Wars fan I was crushed and dissapointed. I didn't recognize almost anything there. It should have been somewhere recognizable.
I feel bad for the Imagineers who had it all planned out for original trilogy lands, and then KK threw it out the window.
Here’s what should be added/fixed into the land.
1. With the Mandalorian and more upcoming Disney+ content for Star Wars. It is the perfect time to integrate it into the land. Maybe the missions on Smugglers Run could have appearances of Mando and Grogu trying to help you on the mission! And maybe they could add the same Star tours concept where they have multiple different missions to help with re rideablility. They could have Mando walk around. I think Disney could leave the concept of keeping it within a certain time frame. Even Wizarding World isn’t very consistent.
2. Add the dinner show dining area. It would relieve pressure off of Oga’s Cantina and would be an extra thing for guests to do.
3. A stunt show. They literally have h th e space for it and we saw them do it during media previews. It would create more energy within the land.
4. Add the credit system they talked about.
5. Add droids. I think for testing they could always have a cast member escorting it and after a few months they could ease restrictions.
I agree with everything you said in this video. I have been lucky enough to visit Galaxy's edge at Disneyland and I didn't know what it was about the land that made it feel off until you pointed it out in this video. The fact that it's an entirely new land that nobody has seen in any move or franchise it was makes (for me at least) feel disconnected. Because the land is "made up" from the star wars universe it doesn't make me feel like the land is a real place in the star wars universe. Another thing you pointed out which I have always thought from the beginning was that Disney scared everyone away with Project stardust. It even scared me away from wanting to go to the parks the summer it opened and was okay to wait for the crowds to die down before visiting. Disney should have just let everyone in without a reservation and especially with rise of the resistance, they should just drop the boarding pass all together and just let everyone wait in line. Yes it sucks to have to wait, but it's also what people are expecting to have to do when they visit a brand new attraction that Disney unveils.
The biggest issue of dropping the boarding pass system is just how frequently Rise goes down. If you have a massive 3 hour line waiting and the ride goes down for hours (which it has at least once a week, if not more) with people in it, that is a ton more people dissatisfied with their overall experience. The boarding pass system counters the popularity but more importantly makes sure the people who can get on with a pass aren't waiting 5 hours to get on with no guarantee it runs the whole day.
@@gotabonetopick2942 yeah I understand that to be the main issue and it’s very thoughtful of them to not have us have to wait in such a long line. But if you think about it, when radiator springs racers opened it had at least a 3 hour wait that whole summer and it too had its breakdowns at least once a week. There are positives and negatives to the boarding pass.
The whole boarding group situation really puts a stressor on the whole situation. If they weren't ready to open the attraction, they could've just said that
I feel terrible for vacationing parents back in Dec. 2019 and Jan. 2020 who had the added stress of starting their Disney Days basically with a lottery to see if their family was going to get a pass for Rise of the Resistance
Sounds about right to my experiences. Once you’ve done the ride, or I guess rides now, it just becomes a Star Wars themed shopping mall unless you really enjoyed the ride. Shows were unscheduled as far as I could tell, so unless I wanted to bask in the Star Wars at the expense of valuable theme park time, I didn’t see a point in being there. As an experience the Star Wars landing bay in tomorrow land was actually better as a Star Wars attraction than Disneyland oddly enough. Mostly because you could easily find the characters, and it at the time was in proximity to three Star Wars themed attractions. Star tours, hyper space mountain, and some Star Wars experience theater thing. Granted they were all of varying quality but you felt less stagnant exploring the Star Wars stuff in tomorrow land. For sake of keeping things cannon and immersive disney really sacrificed the iconography and theme park experience. I like what’s in galaxies edge but it needed more even if it was smaller rides with less technologically going on to serve as distractions to maybe ease lines for the bigger rides. Or some kind of outdoor ride to marvel at as it goes by like what radiator springs racers does for that park. Imagining the scrapped bantha riding attraction or some kind of land speeder attraction really gets me going. Or better yet, why isn’t there a character meet and greet. Like a Jedi or sith temple where they can have characters from beyond the time period appear. Also I feel like the land could have midway style Star Wars themed games, where the cast members are encouraged to act sleazy and out for money. I mean not too many of them but having one or two would really liven up the outdoors more and provide more for guests to do. Just my thoughts on the land though. I do think the fully immersive land idea is flawed to start though so perhaps my original ideas go against that concept a little too much or perhaps it would all be just out of the time and financial budget the land was on.
I gotta say, this video is so well done. Informative, but doesnt fuck you around. good shit
You nailed it!! They over promised and under delivered. The average guest knows they will spend a lot of money, and doesn't want to have it wasted with a half baked idea. I am a huge Star Wars fan which is proved by my being a member of the 501st Legion since 2002. I have also never been to Galaxies Edge even though I went to Orlando with my wife over Christmas 2020. If you tell me I will be "IN STAR WARS" that's a high bar. I expect everything you said. Droids roaming around. Chewie yelling at me for the damage to his ship, and lots of aliens to interact with. Its just not there yet. Most importantly, its placed in the middle of the Star Wars timeline which I hate. I saw Episode 8, once, and it was so bad I refuse to see that pile of trash ever again. This creates a problem for Galaxies Edge. Everyone loves The Mandalorian, and until Galaxies Edge is paired up with it. This tepid response will continue.
On a side note. I have seen video and youtube channels that show everything in Galaxies Edge. Even the rides. I have talked with friends who have been there. It looks and sounds amazing. However, until the high bar I have is met, I will hold my visit.
On a side note. I have heard they plan to make a Star Wars Land at Disneyland Paris. My one suggestion would be don't make Batu. Make a different land. Every Star Wars Land should have been different. I go to Ca, I get one experience. Go to Fl? Get a second. Go to Paris find a different destination to travel to. You get my point. It should have been different, and would have made me want to travel to all of them. If I experienced Endor in Paris, Tatooine in Ca, and Naboo in Florida. WOW, now that would have been amazing.
Well, Galaxy's Edge would be different at Walt Disney Studios in Disneyland Paris to begin with, as they will get firstly a smaller version and secondly only one ride, probably Rise as in the concept art we don't see the Falcon on a landing pad but an X-Wing. It'll also boarder a lake.
Your different settings idea is great, though. It wouldn't make it feel so mass produced then, and it could definitely play into the different climates.
One thing you didn't mentioned was that both locations for the longest time only allowed people into the land via reservation, and a lot of unsuspecting park goers would miss out on the new land for over a year. For Disney world it was a terrible idea because a majority of guests there are tourists, and for DisneyLand even though the parks in California are usually filled with locals the outrage there was felt as well.
And speaking of ROTR, they function the same way as the land used to work. Even now during Covid, you have a very small window to go to Disney's Hollywood Studios in the morning to HOPEFULLY get onto the attraction!
Overall these left a bad taste in many's mouths
Why'd it now be impossible to get into the ride? Does it have low capacity or are there technical issues? And why couldn't they fix the problem while the park was closed for a full year?!
@@magic75450 from what I’ve come to understand yes the ride does have a low capacity but a really high demand. As for technical issues I’m not sure about the one in Florida but in California there were frequent evacuations though I’m not sure what the cause were but they’d always get it up and running within the day
@@minidwarf4266 It still sounds weird that during a pandemic, when the park runs at 25% capacity at best, you have to be lucky to get on a ride. Unless it's due to new protocols to keep it safe, and then it's acceptable.
@@magic75450 even on the app they have an advertisement and quote “Request Access with Virtual que” where you’d request to get into the ride. Your only times to join the que is 7:00 AM before Hollywood studios opens and 1:00 PM if any spots are still available or open up. It’s been like this at both parks since the beginning
Sad how KK singlehandedly destroyed Star Wars
The mistake was not reading the pop culture. The sequels were not well received, yet they kept pushing it. Now they should change it to Mando and tatooine
7:38
That is why you fail.
This is the way.
10:00 What Disney during Operation Stardust with the AP block out dates is a mistake they did not learn from with Euro Disneyland and Club Disney:
Never. Ever. tell the public to stay away because of Overcrowding. That just leads to Not Enough guests showing up on Opening Day.
I watched this Defunctland gag many times, and it's still gets a chuckle from me every time.
I think the question is simple, if you think about star wars what do you think? A unknown future land or Tatoine? We need something that will connect us the galaxy far far away. I wanna see the location of the movie, not an anonymous maze of buildings.
I attended a major convention in June 2019, just one week after Galaxy's Edge opened. Disney is a major sponsor of this convention and the opening night we had access to half park, including Galaxy's Edge. It was good, but I didn't feel anything special about it. I still don't understand why Star Tours wasn't relocated either. It makes more sense to have it in Galaxy's Edge and another reason to go there, and then free up space for redesign of Tomorrow Land.