The Unofficial Guide to Disneyland 2022 by Seth Kubersky

Author:Seth Kubersky
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781628091281
Publisher: Unofficial Guides
Published: 2021-12-14T16:00:00+00:00

We discovered after the fact that our children thought they would go underwater after the five-story drop and tried to hold their breath throughout the ride in preparation. They were really too preoccupied to enjoy the clever Br’er Rabbit story.

STAR WARS: Galaxy’s Edge

STAR WARS HAS BEEN ASSOCIATED with Disneyland ever since Star Tours opened in 1987, but once the Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm in 2012 for the Death Star–size sum of $4 billion, fans of George Lucas’s sci-fi saga seriously began salivating for a Disney theme park land dedicated to that galaxy far, far away. Disneyland broke ground in early 2016 on its most ambitious and expansive expansion ever, dedicating 14 acres of backstage areas to a new land called Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, which opened to the public in summer 2019.

The new Star Wars land is carefully concealed from the rest of the park by a mountainous berm built along the north edge of Frontierland’s rerouted Rivers of America. Guests access the area either via two rocky tunnels branching off from Frontierland’s Big Thunder Trail (one of which may be restricted to exit only) or along a forested path winding north from Critter Country. There, they find themselves at the Black Spire Outpost on the planet Batuu, an exotic Outer Rim spaceport on the fringe of the Galactic Empire frontier that was once a hub of commerce, before being bypassed by the hyperspace highways and becoming a haven for outcasts. (Sounds suspiciously like the backstory of Cars Land’s Radiator Springs to us.)

This location—which hasn’t yet been seen on the big screen but is referenced in Solo: A Star Wars Story, the Star Tours attraction, and various tie-in novels—incorporates design elements similar to iconic Star Wars locales such as Naboo, Yavin 4, Mos Eisley, and Maz Kanata’s hideaway, without re-creating any single familiar setting. Massive attraction buildings reaching as high as 150 feet are camouflaged by towering petrified trees, lush landscaping, and alien architecture, creating a bustling bazaar teeming with extraterrestrial life.

The Imagineers, who collaborated closely with Lucasfilm’s story group on integrating the land’s backstory into official Star Wars lore, claim they created this new locale so that guests could feel like the heroes of their own journey, rather than simply retracing Anakin and Luke’s footsteps, and also so that old fans and newcomers alike would be on equal footing. The righteous Resistance, still reeling from their close shave on Crait in Episode VIII, have established a temporary hideout on this remote planet, but the fascist First Order’s 709th Stormtrooper battalion (aka the Red Fury) has recently arrived to root out the rebel scum. Chronologically speaking, Galaxy’s Edge is set during the most recent Star Wars sequel trilogy in the gap between The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, so you won’t see Darth Vader or Obi-Wan Kenobi, but you might bump into Kylo Ren or Chewbacca.

Visitor reaction to Galaxy’s Edge has been unexpectedly mixed, with many finding the authenticity overwhelming, as this family from Petaluma, California, opined:

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