Maybe you haven’t heard this: Disney is planning to build massive, 14-acre lands themed to Star Wars at two of their theme parks – Disneyland in California and Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida. But of course you’ve heard. The two lands – both called Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge – are the biggest news to hit Disney Parks fans since Cars Land, and everyone’s abuzz about what these new lands could contain when they open (Summer and Fall 2019 in California and Florida, respectively).
Likewise, we all expected that Star Wars: The Force Awakens – Disney’s first entry in the franchise after a $4 billion acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012 – would be a runaway success, smashing box office records left and right. What far fewer expected was that it would be good. Really good. And it is. Now certain that Disney’s got Star Wars (back) on the right track, fans of both Disney Parks and Star Wars are eager to imagine the incredible lands Disney is designing for its theme parks, with construction due to start any day now.
Today, rather than forecasting what attractions Disney might build or how they might work, we want to take a step back and look at the larger picture as we saw it from the earliest days of this land’s announcement, before the finer details were announced. This feature, then, it meant to act like a “time machine,” capturing our thoughts as they were at the dawn of 2016.
We want to take a critical look at the pros and cons of this upcoming Star Wars land to critically discuss the the hopes (the Light Side) and the fears (the Dark Side) that this unprecedented and unique land inspired even before it opens. Read through our list of pros and cons and then share your own in the comments: are we too critical of this Star Wars land? Are we not critical enough? Check out our thoughts and be sure to tell us yours below.
LIGHT SIDE #1: Star Wars is getting its own, fully-realized themed land.
Easily the first thing Disney did really, really right with the upcoming Star Wars land was exactly that – creating a full, immerse themed land for the franchise. Let’s be clear: Star Wars is evergreen. It has weathered ups and downs and still draws massive, massive following. Disney purchased Lucasfilm outright (including Star Wars and Indiana Jones intellectual properties) for over $4 billion in 2012, and it was widely expected that their entry into the Star Wars universe would be big. And it sure has been.
It’s no surprise that Star Wars: The Force Awakens – the long awaited Episode VII and Disney’s first go at the franchise – has been critically acclaimed and shattered box office records, lining the franchise up for a triumphant return from the rough era of the prequels a decade ago. And ever since the acquisition, Disney has been searching for new ways to incorporate Star Wars into its theme parks.
Up until a year or so ago, the steady, persistent rumor was that Star Wars was on its way to Disney Parks, but in a very different format. Particularly in Disneyland, it was imagined that Star Wars would take over Tomorrowland. Of course, fans revolted at the idea that one of the park’s lands – and a Walt original at that – would be overtaken by a single intellectual property. And it was inescapable that Disney would’ve gotten flak for redressing Walt’s world of “new frontiers in science, adventure, and ideals” meant to embody “hope for a peaceful united world” into a land based on perpetual interstellar war that takes place “a long time ago.”
All that aside, Disney had a bigger fish to fry. It won’t surprise many that Disney fans call the upcoming Star Wars land a response to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. That fully immersive, self-contained world is a sight to behold. Universal’s Wizarding World – to the shock of Disney fans – has become the gold standard in themed entertainment design, with Disney unceremoniously playing catch-up and trying to design its own built-out, intellectual-property lands that can try to match Potter’s appeal and merchandising (PANDORA – The World of Avatar and Cars Land).
Put simply – shoving Star Wars into an existing park land would not hold up to that new gold standard. Even a really good re-skin of Tomorrowland’s 1967 buildings wouldn’t create an immersive world on the scale of Cars Land or Diagon Alley. Disney needed to go big and original with this. It had to be a from-scratch land rivaling the Wizarding World for scale. And it will be.
For what it’s worth, Disneyland’s current seasonal promotion – Season of the Force – has predictably seen Star Wars temporarily taken over Tomorrowland in what may be a sneak peek of what could’ve been had a Star Wars land taken permanent hold there. The Hyperspace Mountain overlay to Space Mountain is earning rave reviews, a new scene on Star Tours is welcome, and the half-baked Launch Bay exhibit is an alright aside, but it’s all evidence that Star Wars deserves more.
What’s coming at Hollywood Studios is also a step-up, where once it was thought that Star Wars would get only a few minor C-tickets to join Star Tours and they’d call it a day. Of course, that was never verified, but it sounds just about right for the dismissed and under-built park.
LIGHT SIDE #2: The Star Wars land will be set on a completely original planet.
The breadth of the Star Wars universe is staggering. Dozens of built-out planets have been seen on the big screen, and far more are depicted in the Star Wars Legends continuities. There are forest planets, urban planets, desert planets, oceanic planets, and more. Jakku, Coruscant, Kashyyyk, Endor, Tatooine, Naboo, Cloud City, and countless others are beloved locations from the films.
So perhaps it’s initially strange that Disney elected to forego them all and instead design a completely original “planet” for the Star Wars land to take place on. But really, it makes tremendously good sense.
A) SIZE AND SCALE: First, each of the planets we’ve seen in the films is just that – an entire planet. Huge, expansive vistas like Coruscant wouldn’t be recreatable because of their sheer scale and size. It’s one thing to recreate Radiator Springs. But all of Naboo? Not to mention, picking one specific planet is to the exclusion of all the rest. What if a fan felt that Star Wars land HAD to be Tatooine, but Endor was built instead?
B) TIMELINES: The Star Wars universe is constructed around a very rigid and specific timeline of events and locales. Unlike Harry Potter’s decade-long setting or the few days spent in Radiator Springs or on Pandora, the Star Wars universe takes place over literal millennia. Planets shift powers and names and are even destroyed. Certain planets are only seen or dealt with during the prequels, original trilogy, or the newest episodes. To have Star Wars land take place on a planet we know and have seen would require a specific explanation of the timeframe, and Star Wars’ legion of fans would (rightly) demand that each detail accurately represents that time. Even now, Disney’s confirmed that one of the land’s rides will see guests plunge into a battle against the dreaded First Order – the villanous galactic power from Episode VII. That means any (inevitable) appearance by Darth Vader in the land will be scrutinized…
C) LOGISTICS: While they’re gorgeous to see on film, most of the planets in Star Wars aren’t the kinds of places you’d care to see recreated in a theme park… Tatooine wouldn’t translate well. What would there be to do in Kashyyyk? No. Logistically, a theme park land needs restaurants; restrooms; shops; conspicuous attraction entrances and queues. A wide Tatooine desert with an open air market isn’t theme park worthy.
So count us into the camp that thinks Disney has done precisely what it needs to do – it’s building a new planet. By their explanation, this yet-unnamed “gateway planet located on the outer rim, full of places and characters familiar and not so familiar” will be an engaging and detailed environment. From the looks of the artwork, you can catch glimpses of familiar architectural styles.
The best way to think about it may be like Universal’s Islands of Adventure’s Port of Entry land. There, it’s made to look as if all the cultures of the world have come together to build a single port, with buildings sharing dozens of architectural styles. The same might be true here, too, but with aliens, droids, and humans from around the galaxy building this interstellar port together. It looks beautiful and – just as important – like it can actually be done in a theme park.
By the way, that’s not to say there are no drawbacks to designing a completely original planet… and we’ll talk about that when we look at the Dark Side. Read on…
LIGHT SIDE #3: Star Wars land plays a unique role in both parks.
While both Disneyland Park and Disney’s Hollywood Studios are getting identical (as far as we know) Star Wars lands, they each play a very different role. Sure, both lands will represent a never-before-seen planet in the Star Wars universe, but they’re both able to fit into their respective parks in very unique ways.
At Disneyland, the Star Wars land will be anchored along the northern shore of the Rivers of America in a never-before-used space (which, originally, had been set aside in the 1970s for a magnificent lost land called Discovery Bay). The plot is expected to allow Star Wars land to connect to Frontierland and Critter Country, creating a pathway around the northern edge of the river (and finally ridding Critter Country of its dreaded dead-end status). Look carefully, though, and you’ll see just how well the Star Wars land that Disney has designed melds with both Frontierland and Critter Country. It’s smart. After all, fans’ knees buckled at the thought that a towering, futuristic Coruscant-style city would rise above Critter Country. But it won’t. Star Wars land (which will be mostly-concealed behind a new rock face anyway) fits with the more natural lands (Adventure, Frontier, Critter Country) on the park’s western side – it transitions well from, to, and between from the redwoods of Critter Country to the Utah forests of Frontierland!
At Hollywood Studios, it’ll stand out. But that’s a good thing. Since its opening, the park has languished under its tired “studio” theme. Midway through the ‘90s, the advent of the DVD and its backstage features took the sizzle out of studio-style parks, and most have felt the heat ever since. Fans have been begging for Hollywood Studios to lose its tired, cheap “studio” theme (and name) and get rid of boxy tan showbuildings, mismatched neighbor attractions, and eye-roll-inducing “movie magic” elements for some time. Star Wars land is a step in the right direction. Pair it with the announced Toy Story Land and the days of the Studios appear to be numbered.
LIGHT SIDE #4: Star Wars land treats the franchise with a reverence that’s been missing for a long time.
Disney’s partnership with Lucasfilm started long ago. Even in the mid-1980s, they were working together to develop their original version of the interstellar simulator (as chronicled in our in-depth feature, Lost Legends: Star Tours), and their relationship has been fairly consistent ever since. Fans know that Disney leveraged that partnership long before they ever acquired Star Wars outright. From attractions and shows to Star Wars Weekends and merchandise. One mistake they made: an irreverent attitude.
We’ve all seen the videos of Boba Fett dancing to Lady Gaga at Star Wars Weekends. We’ve seen Disney Parks commercials with Darth Vader riding Dumbo. We’ve seen action figures of the Muppets dressed as Star Wars characters and Minnie Mouse with Leia’s signature hairstyles… Ultimately, these displays of hilarity might’ve earned cheers from hardcore fans, but the truth is that they cheapen the brand. Videos of Darth Vader and Stormtroopers dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” at Hollywood Studios are what Steve Jobs would call a “brand withdrawal,” pulling credence and respect from the characters. The truth is, the Star Wars brand is worth more than that.
(By the way, many fans imagine that Disney’s treatment of their Star Wars license is one element that weighed heavily against them when J.K. Rowling first entered talks to bring Harry Potter to Disney Parks. And think about it: Rowling probably expected (rightly) that if Disney got the rights, they’d have Muppets dressed up as Hogwarts students; have Voldemort dancing to Tina Turner at “Harry Potter Weekends,” and put a Harry Potter ride in a big tan showbuilding at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.)
To Disney’s credit (and perhaps as an example of their savvy), the minute they acquired Star Wars and Lucasfilm, much of that nonsense stopped. They made a conscious effort to undo the cheapening they themselves had brought. You won’t find Darth Vader dancing anymore; you won’t find too many instances of crossover merchandise; Disney is now dedicated to depositing into the Star Wars brand, not withdrawing. A meet-and-greet with Darth Vader is dramatic and intense, not a joke. Stormtroopers are imposing and dramatic atmosphere, not backup dancers. A fully realized Star Wars land is evidence of that newfound respect and reverence. It’s a good thing.
A whole land based on Star Wars brings with it a lot of hope for the magnificent things Disney can do. But it also inspires a few thoughts that are distinctly of the Dark Side. Here, we’ve collected a few fears that we just can’t seem to shake that make us wonder if Star Wars is happening in the right time or place. Some of this may be harder to hear, but think about it…
DARK SIDE #1: Disneyland cannot support the crowds Star Wars will draw.
Image: Ming-yen Hsu, Flickr (license)
If you’ve ever been to Disneyland Park, you’ve encountered one of its most unusual and divisive qualities: it’s small. Disneyland was built in 1955 for audiences of the era. Presumed by many to be a failure – even upon its opening – few could’ve predicted that Disneyland would become a staple of American pop culture. It’s a tiny park on a small plot of land, and given that it has more rides than any other Disney Park on Earth, things are tight.
Fans call it “quaint” while ride-or-die Walt Disney World fans call it “puny.” Either way, the paths of Disneyland are tight. They’re narrow. Those paths were not built to be inundated with strollers and ECVs and wheelchairs and the sheer number of people that come with being the second most visited theme park on Earth. There are well-known, crippling bottlenecks in Adventureland, Tomorrowland, and Fantasyland. Critter Country is a dead end. Fantasyland is a nightmare. On the (rare) days that crowds split more or less evenly between Disneyland and Disney California Adventure, the difference between the parks is obvious. Like Magic Kingdom, California Adventure can soak up crowds in its wide pathways and open plazas and angled flow corridors perfectly blueprinted to disperse crowds and keep them moving – it’s the benefit of hindsight and master-planning: something Disneyland did not have.
Try entering Disneyland during Paint the Night, or exiting after Fantasmic but before fireworks. Main Street, U.S.A. can feel like absolute, literal gridlock (and Southern Californians know their gridlock) on summer weekends, much less on holidays when photographs of shoulder-to-shoulder people through every square foot of the park make the rounds on social media. On many holiday and summer weekends, part time Cast Members must park at the Anaheim Angels baseball stadium and be bussed into work so that guests can park in the Cast Member parking lots. That’s how under built Disneyland’s infrastructure is.
Image: Loren Javier, Flickr (license)
Here’s the point: It may very well be that Disneyland cannot accommodate the crowds that a Star Wars land will draw. Make no mistake: Disneyland will increase ticket prices big time and likely (and hopefully) eliminate all but the most expensive Annual Passes, but in the future even that has happened too slowly and gradually to make a dent in crushing crowd levels. The Annual Pass payment plan needs to disappear if Disney has any chance of controlling crowds post-Star-Wars. If Star Wars land opened today, Disneyland would physically not be able to handle the crowds. And while Star Wars might be a few years off, Disney so far has not indicated that they’re doing much to prepare for the inevitable blow of debilitating crowds.
Look at it this way: in 2009, Universal’s Islands of Adventure attracted an estimated 4.63 million visitors. The Wizarding World opened in 2010. The next year, 2011, that went up by 66% to 7.67 million. That’s a tremendous jump. Of course, Islands of Adventure wasn’t a very highly attended park to begin with, so many of those visitors were new.
Disneyland is starting with a much higher number – 16.77 million in 2014 – so a similar boost percentage-wise is unlikely. But if the Wizarding World attracted roughly 3 million more guests in 2011 than the same park without it in 2009, that might give us an idea of how many more guests could reasonably show up for a Star Wars land. And that would – frankly be too many for Disneyland to handle in terms of infrastructure alone.
While Disney’s Hollywood Studios has its own crowding issues (often redirecting traffic to Epcot for any special event happening at the park), at least that can easily fixed, and allegedly will be by time Star Wars land opens. But at Disneyland, the only solution might be to systematically rebuild the infrastructure by widening paths, building plazas, and giving the Hub a Magic Kingdom style makeover, all of which would devastate fans and remove much of the “charm” the park is known for. If that IS Disney’s plan, people will revolt. But they’d better start something soon if this tiny, already-packed park is to be ready for year after year of record crowds by the end of the decade.
DARK SIDE #2: The Star Wars land will be set on a completely original planet.
We’ve already applauded Disney’s choice to create a new, from-scratch planet for a Star Wars land to take place on. And we stick by the notion that’s smarter than trying to pick a single planet from the expansive universe to recreate to the exclusion of all the rest. (“Oh man, I don’t wanna see Coruscant, I wanted to see Tatooine!”) But now, we’ll play Devil’s advocate and explain how this can also be a tremendous drawback.
There’s a problem: Disney seems to yet again misjudge the appeal of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It’s not just that people love Harry Potter. They don’t just want to buy wands to exorbitant prices. They want to step into Ollivander’s in Diagon Alley! They want to buy Butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks, just like Harry and Ron and Hermione did! They want to inhabit the world they’ve seen in films. Imagine how Butterbeer would sell if it were sold from a generic cart in Universal Studio’s generic “studio” themed entry. It’s not the same.
Don’t misunderstand: Disney will have absolutely no trouble selling Lightsabers within this new Star Wars land. However, they mustn’t misunderstand that as akin to duplicating the Wizarding World model; it’s not. Gift shops in Star Wars land might be filled with Mattel Star Wars action figures and LEGO Star Wars sets, but that’s not the same as shopping in Hogsmeade. Disney’s only choice to really benefit from the Wizarding World model is to fabricate entire gift shops of “authentic” good that look and feel as if they could actually exist within the Star Wars universe. Disney CEO Bob Iger promised that things will be distinctly Wizarding-World-esque, saying that the land will be “occupied by many inhabitants; humanoids, aliens and droids… the attractions, the entertainment, everything we create will be part of our storytelling. Nothing will be out of character or stray from the mythology.” That signals that there will be no LEGO sets. But if not that, then what WILL the gift shops sell? We’ll see…
The same is true of food, by the way. The Wizarding World lore has its own must-tries (pumpkin juice, Butterbeer, Fortescue’s ice cream, etc.) that can reasonably be joined by the kinds of food and drink Harry and friends enjoy: fish and chips, shepherd’s pie, roasted potatoes, etc. (The land was applauded for keeping out Coca-Cola or other invasive brands – something creator J.K. Rowling insisted on. By the way, if you ask many fans, they expect that that’s probably another one of the reasons Disney’s deal to secure Potter fell through… Disney probably refused to keep Coca-Cola, generic “Disney Parks” shopping bags, and Muppets-As-Hogwarts-Characters merchandise out. Obviously they’ve learned their lesson and Iger has changed his tune now, promising this Star Wars land will be equally exclusive.)
For Star Wars, then, it’ll be Disney’s job to make us want to pay exorbitant prices for “Star Wars” food. The issue here is that, in all of Star Wars, food and drink are rarely mentioned or seen aside from Blue Milk, which is Disney’s only chance to have their own “Butterbeer,” and Blue Milk certainly doesn’t have a cult following to start with.
One reason we have so little faith is that so far, Disney’s Star Wars themed food offerings for Season of the Force have been Darth Maul colored yogurt parfaits, waffles stamped with Darth Vader’s face, and “Dark Side” burgers with black buns. Put simply: Disney is going to need to invent wild, “alien” food that could reasonably exist in the Star Wars universe and that people want to try if they think they can crack the Wizarding World formula. Spicy chicken “Jedi sandwiches” won’t do. They don’t fit. Going back to Iger’s comment on nothing straying from the mythology, that’s a great thing to say. But if Star Wars land won’t offer hamburgers (which it shouldn’t) then what will they serve?
The concept art we’ve glimpsed of (what looks like) restaurants for Star Wars land give us hope that the experience will be appropriately “alien,” but they have to follow through… No “Darth by Chocolate” pudding desserts. Fair enough?
DARK SIDE #3: A Star Wars land really doesn’t fit in Disneyland.
Here’s the kicker; the thing Disneyland fans almost unanimously feel: at the end of the day, Star Wars land doesn’t belong in Disneyland Park. When the park opened, it featured Adventureland, Fantasyland, Frontierland, and Tomorrowland – each based (roughly) on a genre of Americana and pop culture – American’s fascination with the exotic jungles in 1950, the legends of the old West, the promises of American industry, the storybook fables of Europe that we so admired. Sure, Critter Country and New Orleans Square joined, but they fit within the scheme of the park’s lands – historic, realistic, habitable worlds with a touch of romanticism and Americana to give them something a little more cinematic and idealized.
A Star Wars land is straight out of left field. Among the reverent, historic style lands rooted in Americana and nostalgia, the inclusion of a distant alien planet connected to a single 1970s film franchise is… wrong?
It’s not that Star Wars doesn’t deserve a land, because it does. It’s not that the Star Wars land that’s been announced doesn’t look great, because it does. It’s smart that the Star Wars land will take place on an original planet, and it’s good that Disney’s treating the mythos with reverence and respect by doing so. But it doesn’t change the fact that Star Wars would almost certainly do better in a third gate.
Fans imagine, after all, that whenever Disneyland gets around to adding a third theme park, it will likely follow the Islands of Adventure model, making use of the many properties Disney has acquired. Imagine if Islands of Adventure were re-cast as a Disney Park with themed “islands” around a lagoon: a Star Wars island; an Indiana Jones island; a Monstropolis island; a Marvel Super Hero Island; a Frozen island; an Aladdin island. Basically, that makes more sense than placing Star Wars (or Marvel or any of those intellectual properties for that matter) in either Disneyland or Disney California Adventure in any permanent way. But Disney’s not going to let Star Wars go to waste. But in their haste to use their new toy, it’s worth wondering if they’re acting too quickly and compromising Disneyland’s concept…
If we’re being very honest, Star Wars land probably should wait. It’s not like they’re short on time. The franchise premiered forty years ago, and likely has a nearly infinite number of films upcoming… So why rush now? Disneyland will get a third park eventually, and Star Wars will almost certainly fit better there than it does at Disneyland.
It does beg the question: if Disney announced out of the blue that Star Wars land would happen, but in a new third park, and that the land north of the Rivers of America would be used as originally intended – to build Discovery Bay – would anyone complain? To us, that seems like a win-win, and a reasonable decision that would be cheered by all.
So what are your thoughts? Does a Star Wars land belong in Disneyland Park? Would you rather see it in California Adventure if it absolutely has to be built right now? Are you at all hesistant about the food and merchandise that will be offered, or will Disney get it right from the start? What else are you hopeful for, or fearful of, when you think of how Star Wars land could change everything at Disney Parks?
