Everywhere you look in Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge, there’s something to see, something to explore, or something to do. Even though it’s not 100 percent complete, the land itself is a star. You walk in, and you instantly feel like you’ve left Disneyland in Anaheim, California and become immersed in the Star Wars universe.
Though the one ride open so far is not a home run, for me, just looking at the Millennium Falcon parked there is worth the price of admission. Easter eggs from not just the films, but the books, TV shows, and more, are scattered in every nook and cranny. All the Disneyland cast members are truly that: cast members. They’re in character as citizens of the remote planet of Batuu rather than Disneyland park employees. They greet you with “Bright Suns!” during the day or “Rising Moons!” in the evening. They may ask you to complete tasks on the sly or help you hide from the First Order if a few Stormtroopers are walking down the street. Even the bathrooms, somehow, feel like Star Wars. And let me tell you, it’s both a little weird and exceedingly fun to pee in this world.
Galaxy’s Edge finally opens today at Disneyland (minus one out of its two rides, and only for fans who have reservations through June 23), and here’s what we thought of the highly anticipated theme park expansion.
Photo: Disney Parks
What’s Incredible?
If there wasn’t a single thing to do in Galaxy’s Edge, and it was just a glorified film set, it would still be worth recommending. It’s that gorgeous and impressive to walk around in with a completely different vibe than the more traditional theme park it’s a part of. Thankfully, though, there are a good amount of things to do, with a few of those standing above the rest.
My very favorite thing was visiting Savi’s Workshop, which is a store/building experience where you get to assemble your very own custom lightsaber. However, it’s not for everyone. It costs $200 to get in (which includes your saber and some accessories) and you can only bring one friend along to watch. It’s not like the experience at Olivander’s in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios where anyone can watch a wand ceremony. Plus, only about 14 people can do it at a time, and it takes about 15 minutes total, so wait times are sure to be long. But, if you really love Star Wars and/or lightsabers specifically, the experience is downright spiritual. It was for me.
Without spoiling every single detail, you pick one of four disciplines. Based on that choice, you are presented with a unique set of pieces. You’re then taken through the fascinating tale behind this “workshop” before being guided through construction. There are even be a few little surprises along the way too. Finally, your custom hilt is placed into its blade, those blades light up, and everyone holds their fully functioning lightsaber in their hands. After the investment of time, money, and emotion, it’s a powerful moment, unlike something you’d normally experience at a theme park.
Photo: Disney Parks
Next door to Savi’s is a store called Dok-Ondar’s Den of Antiquities. And while all of the merchandise in Galaxy’s Edge is cool, Dok’s is the standout. Dok-Ondar (who sits at the center of the store as a very impressive animatronic character) is a collector of rare antiquities, and the store is filled with his “collection.” The room is filled top to bottom with relics from everything Star Wars: there are pieces from the movies and shows, a helmet and staff from the upcoming Disney+ series The Mandalorian, and so much more (like an Indiana Jones Ark of the Covenant, another George Lucas creation) that theme parks fans will spend hours trying to catalog everything. You could probably spend a good chunk of your day in the shop looking at the amazing items that decorate it.
That’s important, though. Everything in the top half of the store is just decoration. The bottom half is all the buyable merchandise—mostly equally cool, random Star Wars prop replicas and accessories you probably never thought you’d get to own. There’s a USB key shaped like the one Poe gives to BB-8 in The Force Awakens. Hera Syndulla’s family Kalikori from Star Wars Rebels. Jedi Holocrons, Sith Holocrons, Kyber crystals, and high-end replica lightsaber hilts from the likes of Luke Skywalker, Kylo Ren, Asajj Ventress, and Ahsoka Tano, just to name a few (which range in price from between $120-$200 and can be upgraded with blades of various sizes, display stands, you name it). The list goes on and on. Again, if Galaxy’s Edge was just this shop, you’d probably walk away happy. Broke, but happy.
Hondo leads you through the story of Smugglers Run.
Photo: Disney Parks
What’s Bad?
So that’s the best of the best, but before I talk about more good things, I have to address some other things that didn’t quite live up to my expectations. Unfortunately, that has to start with Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run.
Smugglers Run is the only ride in Galaxy’s Edge as it opens and it will be that way for at least a few months. That said, it has a lot to live up to, and on paper, it should. It gives you a chance to do something you’ve dreamed about doing your entire life: fly the Millennium Falcon. And yet, maybe you won’t.
Six people ride Smugglers Run at the same time: two pilots, two gunners, and two engineers, all assigned at random by the cast member who organizes the party of six (you can trade positions if you want, though).The gunners push buttons to fire and engineers press things when prompted to fix the ship. Why do they need to fix the ship you ask? Because of the pilots. One pilot controls the vertical movement of the Falcon; the other, the horizontal. Two different people controlling two different movements is like two people trying to control opposite sides of a puppet. If those people aren’t comfortable communicating with each other, the Falcon is going to crash. A lot. And while crashing into stuff can be fun and leads to some funny scenarios, being so dependent on others for your enjoyment of the ride, especially if they’re not in your party, can be incredibly frustrating. Especially if you waited hours to ride, which is very likely.
Photo: Disney Parks
After personally riding Smugglers Run three times, performing each job once, I learned a lot. The Engineer is the easiest job and, maybe, the best, because you can just sit back, hit a few buttons, and enjoy the ride for the most part. Gunner is a little more subjective because you can select “manual” for a more intricate experience or “automatic” for a more laid back one. Then there’s the Pilot, which is absolutely key. It can be incredibly cool to pull that lever back and jump to lightspeed, or to expertly maneuver through a tight space, but it will take practice and the teamwork of everyone in the ride to do it well.
If you can, go in with six people you know. The more random the group, unless you have some experts, it’s likely to be a bumpy ride. Oddly though, on our three rides, we found if you had a particularly bad flight and ruined your hyperdrive, you got a longer ride. Once you escaped the planet in question, if you do well, you just fly home quickly. But if that hyperdrive has been damaged, there’s a whole other sequence flying through an asteroid field.
There’s no doubt the cockpit looks awesome.
Photo: Disney Parks
That variety has its blessings and curses. Once a group of us got the hang of it, the whole thing instantly got more interesting. Maybe not more fun, but there was a unique, heightened sense of stakes. It also seemed the more people you talked to about the ride, the more every person had their own unique story. It’s almost as if you can never experience the same exact ride twice—and for someone who visits Disneyland a lot, that’s a bonus.
The fact of the matter is, though, Smugglers Run feels like more of an arcade game than a theme park ride. Maybe it’s the most elaborate, expensive, and impressive arcade game ever, but that’s not likely what most people attending are signing up for. The immersion throughout the ride is absolutely incredible but, ultimately, even as a super-crazy Millennium Falcon fan, I got a bigger adrenaline rush seeing the Falcon outside than flying it.
The non-ride nature of Smugglers Run leads into to my other big gripe with Galaxy’s Edge. With only Smugglers Run open, the park feels oddly incomplete. A massive section, maybe even as much as half, of the land, is dedicated to a second ride, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, which won’t be open for a few months. From everything we’ve heard, it’s going to be impressive. Most impressive. Without it, though, Galaxy’s Edge winds up feeling half empty instead of half full. Sure, literally everything else is open, but the size and layout of the land make it very clear it was designed to function with two rides, instead of one. Check out the map below, which has blue marks for things you can do, and guess which side Rise of the Resistance is going to be on.
Image: Disneyland.com
You can almost perfectly draw a line down the middle there between Rise of the Resistance’s half of the park and the busier other half. Basically, until that opens, a massive, beautiful section of the park serves as little more than an entrance way with a few photo ops. Undue pressure is then assigned to Smugglers Run to anchor the whole place in a way it was never meant to. It’s currently the heart of Galaxy’s Edge when it was clearly meant to share that duty.
Why Disney opened the park without Rise has yet to be fully confirmed but most believe it’s simply because the company promised fans the land would be open this summer at Disneyland. Since everything else was done, and demand was so high, the company knew it could get the ball rolling without its biggest attraction, only to get another bump when that opens later this year.
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