On Tuesday, I had the opportunity to be one of the first people to enter Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, Disneyland’s Star Wars-themed land which will be opening to the public later this month (at least for those of you who got reservations).
What did I think of my first trip to Batuu? How was the first ride, Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run? What does Blue Milk taste like? What is it like to hang out in a “real” cantina in the Star Wars galaxy? What kind of cool exclusive merchandise offerings can be found in Black Spire Outpost? Find out the answers to all of these questions in our video reaction below.
Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge Reaction Video
Subscribe to my YouTube channel Ordinary Adventures to keep up to date with our future trips to Batuu. We will be heading there next week and will be posting a video tour of the land. So subscribe to make sure you don’t miss out! A big thanks to my friend Nate, who invited me to experience this adventure with him. He joins me in the above video and offers his thoughts, but for the sake of transparency, I should note that Nate is a Disney Cast Member who works at the parks, which is how I was able to experience Batuu weeks early at a preview.
Here are my brief thoughts for people who can’t watch the video.
The land is enormous and highly immersive. All of the theming and details feel right, and it really feels like you’re walking around in the world of Star Wars. You don’t even feel like you’re in Disneyland proper, and the the land feels massive
Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run feels like more of an immersive video experience than a ride, but it’s a ton of fun. I got to be one of the pilots, and all of my decisions hugely impacted our ride experience. Being tasked with controlling the Falcon and hitting the lever to go to lightspeed made me feel like a child again. I can’t wait to try out the other cockpit positions. The boarding queue brings you into the Falcon interior and seeing that in-person brought this grown man to tears.
While I love the theming of the queue (before you get to the Falcon), I’m slightly disappointed that there are no interactive elements. There’s a lot that could have been done to make that long, long wait for the ride go by a little faster. But instead of interaction, you watch fun “show scenes” that happen every so often.
Olga’s Cantina is the dream finally realized – you can drink inside the Star Wars universe. The space is very small (it probably fits about 200 people), which is both good and bad. Good because it feels intimate, like the Cantina in A New Hope, but bad because it likely means you’ll be waiting in a long line to get in. We waited about 45 minutes to get in during this preview, but when we were leaving, it looked like the line was double that.
The merchandise offerings in this world are insane. It’s a mix of in-world items that feel uniquely Star Wars and replicas and reproductions of things from this world, a lot that we’ve never seen produced before. And Disney knows they will be getting serious Star Wars collectors visiting, as some of it is very pricey. The most expensive thing I saw for sale in the land was a life-size working remote controlled R2 unit droid (like R2-D2). You can fully customize it for $25,000, shipping not included and no discounts allowed (sorry annual pass holders and cast members).
The post First Video Reaction: ‘Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge’ at Disneyland is Incredible appeared first on /Film.
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