We’ve almost made it, America. We just have to keep it together for a few more months and we’ll finally be able to hang out inside our favorite movie world at Disney’s upcoming Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge theme park areas. If anything can keep us unified, it should be this.
We’ve been anxiously awaiting 2019 for years, of course. Galaxy’s Edge could establish a new high water mark for immersive theme park environments, and even if it doesn’t, well, Star Wars is still Star Wars. George Lucas’s cultural phenomenon still taps into a sense of awe and wonder that’s increasingly hard to come by in this world. One of the few other things in life reliably able to pull that off is a Disney theme park, and that’s why the Disney / Star Wars marriage always made perfect sense. As fun as the new Star Wars movies are (there are no Last Jedi haters in Paste’s world), Galaxy’s Edge is the main event, the big draw, the end goal for all Star Wars fans who were excited when Disney bought the whole thing. And it’s just a few months away, first at Disneyland, and then later in 2019 at Hollywood Studios at Disney World.
After years of rumors and speculation concrete news is finally starting to trickle out, with the latest big update arriving earlier today at the Destination D event in Orlando. Not only did Disney announce the names of the two rides coming to Galaxy’s Edge, but they’ve given us a first glimpse at them with these two short teasers.
As the Disney Parks blog writes, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance will put you “in the middle of an epic battle between the Resistance and the First Order.” The teaser was actually shot in the attraction, and it seems to nail the look of that classic Star Wars architecture. Disney aims to create a fully immersive Star Wars experience with Galaxy’s Edge, and if the whole area is as faithful to the look and feel of Star Wars as this teaser indicates, fans could be in for something truly special.
The other attraction, Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, will let you fly the most legendary Star Wars ship into some kind of a top secret mission. The Disney Parks blog reports that guests will assume “one of three unique flight crew roles,” which, based on the movies, we assume will be pilot, co-pilot and gunner. Sitting down at the helm of the Falcon, flipping all those switches and then rocketing into hyperspace has been a dream of Star Wars fans for over 40 years, and that’s exactly what this quick tease promises.
No opening dates have been announced yet, but expect Galaxy’s Edge to launch at Disneyland in California in the summer of 2019, with the Orlando version touching down at Hollywood Studios at Disney World later that fall. And there will no doubt be much more news on Galaxy’s Edge over the next few months, as Disney’s promotional juggernaut hits warp speed.