Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge
| Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge | |
|---|---|
| Park | Disney's Hollywood Studios |
| Land / area | Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge |
| Type | Themed land |
| Opened | August 29, 2019 |
| Designer | Walt Disney Imagineering
|
| Status | Operating |
Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge is a themed land at Disney's Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World in Florida, and at Disneyland Park in California. Each version covers about 14 acres (5.7 hectares), making them the largest single-themed lands Disney had built when they opened. The Florida land opened on August 29, 2019, three months after the California version on May 31, 2019. Both are set in Black Spire Outpost, a settlement on Batuu, a frontier planet on the edge of the Outer Rim that was created for the parks rather than taken from a film.
History
Disney chief executive Bob Iger announced the two lands at the D23 Expo on August 15, 2015, describing a major expansion for both coasts built around the Star Wars films. Construction in Florida cleared ground previously occupied by the Streets of America and parts of the former Studio Backlot Tour area. Rather than recreating a location already seen on screen, Walt Disney Imagineering developed Batuu as a new place within the established timeline, set during the conflict between the Resistance and the First Order depicted in the sequel trilogy. That choice allowed the same land to be built in both parks while giving its shops, characters and stories a setting of their own.
The land opened in phases. On opening day guests could fly the Millennium Falcon and visit most shops and restaurants, while the second major attraction, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, followed on December 5, 2019, in Florida and in January 2020 in California.
Attractions
The land has two rides. Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run is an interactive simulator in which a crew of six — two pilots, two gunners and two engineers — fly a mission for the smuggler Hondo Ohnaka. Each role affects the outcome of the flight, and the condition of the ship at the end reflects how the crew performed.
Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance combines a walk-through section, a transport simulator, a trackless dark ride and a small drop. Guests are recruited by the Resistance, captured by a First Order Star Destroyer, and then escape with the help of Resistance fighters. The attraction uses several ride systems in sequence and a large cast of audio-animatronic and projected characters, including Rey, Kylo Ren and General Hux.
Black Spire Outpost
The outpost is organised around a marketplace of small shops, a spaceport dominated by a full-size Millennium Falcon parked outside Smugglers Run, and military encampments belonging to the Resistance and the First Order at opposite ends of the land. The black spires of the land's name are presented as petrified trees rising above the buildings.
Several locations sell buildable merchandise as an in-story experience. At Savi's Workshop guests assemble a lightsaber with the help of gatherers; at the Droid Depot they build a custom astromech or BB-series droid from parts on a conveyor belt. Dok-Ondar's Den of Antiquities sells higher-priced replicas, watched over by an audio-animatronic Dok-Ondar, and the Creature Stall sells plush creatures.
Food and drink
Oga's Cantina is a bar modelled on the cantinas of the films, with a droid DJ, R-3X. Docking Bay 7 Food and Cargo is the main counter-service restaurant. Ronto Roasters serves wraps cooked beneath a podracing engine, and the Milk Stand sells the blue and green milk seen in the films as frozen drinks.
Design
Cast members use in-world language — greetings such as "Bright suns" and "Rising moons", credits for money and datapads for phones. Signage uses Aurebesh, the written alphabet of the films, alongside English. Roaming characters, including stormtroopers, Kylo Ren, Rey, Chewbacca and Vi Moradi, a Resistance spy created in publishing, appear in the streets rather than at fixed meeting points.