Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge (Disney's Hollywood Studios)

[Cup_Of_Coffee]

My theme park circle and I have had this conversation on a few occasions. We don't foresee anything capturing audiences like wizarding world did on an emotional level. Star wars was literally like one of the last ip's that could do that in our opinion. Hopefully down the road an expansion and an enhancement to the present will change that. We also really think pandora was done better.

Nintendo can do that, in my opinion. Depends on the exercution though. Based on the concept art it looks GREAT so I don’t doubt I’ll have fun but it could be better than the Wizarding World imo, and this appeals to people truly of ALL ages. I reallyyy think this could be just a massive hit for Universal.

 

[BigHouseFootball]

The problem was (is) people want to go to the places in the movies. That’s why Wizarding World is so successful-and easy. There are definite places in the Harry Potter universe that are visited time and time again in the stories. So Universal has blueprints already to work with.

Star Wars is different in that we don’t spend a whole lot of time in any one particular planet. Yes, a few stand out more than others such as Hoth, Endor, Sky City, and Tatooine. But again we don’t spend a lot of time on any one in particular. Which meant whichever actual planet they chose people were going to say, “oh they should have built this planet instead!”

But, I think Disney should have gone ahead and made the difficult choice and picked a real location. Creating a fictional planet makes sense from a story telling stand point, but you lose all emotional connection that the films have built up. It’s Star Wars...but not any that we know. We know the characters, the drinks, the droids, but it feels foreign because we can’t anchor it to a location.

It would be like if Universal built a Potter land but created a new Wizard school in Australia. Sure Harry, Hermonie, and Ron may be there, and butter beer, and wizard robes but it wouldn’t feel right.

That’s the problem Disney created for themselves when they chose to create a fictional plant for their land. This should have been an easy home run-slam dunk of a land but they managed to screw it up because they over thought it!

 

[Mad Dog]

No strong feelings on Batuu, but it didn't really seem a big deal to me. It actually kind of looks and feels similar to what Tatooine would be. I spent a lot of hours in the land on two different vacations. I have a detailed review somewhere here . Bottom line though,my thoughts on the land were that it didn't quite equal the Potter lands primarily due to lack of any substantial live entertainment, original Star Wars atmospheric music except in a few areas, the time frame precluded use of the original more popular characters, and the liveliness was off a tad. I really liked the land, but didn't love it. (Note: I was not a Potter fan of the books or movies. Universal made me a Potter fan. I've been a casual Star Wars fan since I saw the debut of the first movie, though I'm not a rabid fan). It wouldn't take much to put this land on the level of the Potter lands, but Disney, even before Covid, seemed unwilling to spend the necessary funds. Now with the covid financial disaster, I doubt the necessary improvements will get made in the near future. It's a very good land, but not at the status of 'great' at this point in time.

 

[tielo]

The land was created to appeal to Star Wars fans with deep pockets as the land is build like a bad game. You pay full price to play but you have to buy very expensive dlc to actually have a bit of a fun experience. Most of those fans never came. They probably see it as I do. I love Star Wars and I am disgruntled how my favorite characters where mistreated by Disney. I didn't care for the prequels either but they didn't abuse "my" favorite characters. I can ignore them and don't take offence. But the last change to get a good movie with Han, Luke and Lea is never ever going to happen.Star Wars land only remembers me about what Disney has done and because of that I won't enjoy it.

 

[HandsomePete]

So I typed something earlier and just never hit post but BigHouseFootball LITERALLY read my mind... I'm going to hit it anyways

Part of the challenge of Star Wars is that the "iconic" places are either fleeting, impractical, or flat out boring. Hoth, Tattoine, Endor... there's just not that much there. Part of the original was filmed in Death Valley - talk about being literally one of the last places on earth you'd want to visit. Cloud City is impractical to build. Even in ROTR - we get transported to a Star Destroyer - how many hundreds of those do they have? The Death Star is iconic, but are we going to blow one up for the fourth time after Episodes 4, 6, and 7? The allure of Star Wars is the family lineage story and character development and that just doesn't really package well for a 3-5 (or 15 :_ minute attraction.

Take Pandora and Potter on the other hand... there are no hardcore Avatar fans as far as I know, but the concept of story (tall blue aliens) is easy enough for the GP to digest while the amazing landscape gives the land its sense of place. Potter, as a casual myself, the basic concept of story (kids doing magic) is easy for the GP to digest while the locales from the book give the lands their sense of place ... so much so that that as I was wrapping up Sunderland Til I Die and they pull into the train station before playing at Wembley, I was like... what does Harry Potter have to do with th... oh right, that’s the real King’s Cross station.

And I apologize to anyone I offended by boiling all of Potter down to “kids doing magic” but it shows just how far you can distill it for those who have no knowledge of the books or movies.

The land was created to appeal to Star Wars fans with deep pockets as the land is build like a bad game. You pay full price to play but you have to buy very expensive dlc to actually have a bit of a fun experience.

This is also spot on - irrationally-priced commercialization drove elements of the land as opposed to building a land and letting the commercialization happen organically (at a reasonable price).

 

[Mike S]

This is just not the case.

Merchandise sales plummeted, the box office was halved over the course of the trilogy, and the opening of the land was considered a disappointment. Maybe we can’t say it’s a definite majority but it’s a very sizable portion nonetheless.

At this point I really wonder how people can still spin this any other way.

 

[Cup_Of_Coffee]

The land was created to appeal to Star Wars fans with deep pockets as the land is build like a bad game. You pay full price to play but you have to buy very expensive dlc to actually have a bit of a fun experience. Most of those fans never came. They probably see it as I do. I love Star Wars and I am disgruntled how my favorite characters where mistreated by Disney. I didn't care for the prequels either but they didn't abuse "my" favorite characters. I can ignore them and don't take offence. But the last change to get a good movie with Han, Luke and Lea is never ever going to happen.Star Wars land only remembers me about what Disney has done and because of that I won't enjoy it.

Honestly my bias is probably shown and this explains my entire thinking. Thank you lol.

I hope to experience the land one day, but now with Covid its not a priority compare to getting back to Universal and feeling safe doing so. I was excited to spend one trip on campus to get to experience it as much as I can but I really don't feel the need to go to Disney again for quite some time. Especially with an entire new campus comping up for Universal. We'll see how this land does over time.

 

[RevFreako]

Merchandise sales plummeted, the box office was halved over the course of the trilogy, and the opening of the land was considered a disappointment. Maybe we can’t say it’s a definite majority but it’s a very sizable portion nonetheless.

At this point I really wonder how people can still spin this any other way.

Loud minority is I think the best way to put it.

 

[Mike S]

Loud minority is I think the best way to put it.

Then I guess that minority are the people that actually spend money on it and most fans could be considered free loaders of sorts. Only explanation for how Star Wars has nosedived in sales but “most fans like the new movies.”

 

[RevFreako]

Then I guess that minority are the people that actually spend money on it and most fans could be considered free loaders of sorts. Only explanation for how Star Wars has nosedived in sales but “most fans like the new movies.”

No, the fanboys we're talking about are the ones that matter the least. Someone said of the equivalent wrestling fans, " If wrestling listened to you, every match would be an hour long with Chris Benoit vs. himself, and no one would watch." The new movies did fine, money wise, not that it should matter to anyone not holding Disney stock.

 

[SeventyOne]

Loud minority is I think the best way to put it.

Perhaps. But that minority was the one buying all the toys/collectibles. And I imagine the Venn diagram of that minority and non-WDW fans willing to shell out big bucks for upcharge experiences is close to an eclipse.

The audience for tentpole movies and the audience for a highly specialized theme park land are two different things. But either way, you have to know your audience.

 

[Mike S]

No, the fanboys we're talking about are the ones that matter the least. Someone said of the equivalent wrestling fans, " If wrestling listened to you, every match would be an hour long with Chris Benoit vs. himself, and no one would watch." The new movies did fine, money wise, not that it should matter to anyone not holding Disney stock.

$2 billion for TFA and then just down from there with RoS barely crossing $1 billion and I don’t think it even beat Rogue One. I’m sure Disney is very pleased and it was all according to plan. Thankfully they also have Marvel that knows how to please the audience.

 

[RevFreako]

$2 billion for TFA and then just down from there with RoS barely crossing $1 billion and I don’t think it even beat Rogue One. I’m sure Disney is very pleased and it was all according to plan. Thankfully they also have Marvel that knows how to please the audience.

ONE. BILLION. DOLLARS. It did fine, Mike. "Whiny fanboys" is not The Audience.

 

[Nick]

ONE. BILLION. DOLLARS. It did fine, Mike. "Whiny fanboys" is not The Audience.

Yup, only 46 movies have ever made over $1B. Ain’t no shame.

 

[Mike S]

ONE. BILLION. DOLLARS. It did fine, Mike. "Whiny fanboys" is not The Audience.

You clearly don’t know that enough money is never enough money for companies like this. They don’t think like regular people. After what Endgame pulled as a big closing movie for Marvel do you really think Disney was happy with the performance of a similar ending movie for Star Wars, the biggest media franchise for over 40 years?Why do you think they announced they wanted to slow down Star Wars movie output citing franchise fatigue but have no problem pumping out Marvel movies as much as ever? There’s no arguing 2+2=4.

 

[RevFreako]

You clearly don’t know that enough money is never enough money for companies like this. They don’t think like regular people. After what Endgame pulled as a big closing movie for Marvel do you really think Disney was happy with the performance of a similar ending movie for Star Wars, the biggest media franchise for over 40 years?Why do you think they announced they wanted to slow down Star Wars movie output citing franchise fatigue but have no problem pumping out Marvel movies as much as ever? There’s no arguing 2+2=4.

It did fine, Mike. I'm not arguing this any further. See you on the next topic.

 

[Cup_Of_Coffee]

I don't think Mike was arguing its a shame, but comparatively to their other big franchises? It underperformed, and there was a downward trend, when the opposite has been the case for Marvel. Star Wars is heading downwards, hence the lack of future production compared to Marvel who's heading upward after their big finale. I think thats all thats being said here, no one is saying a $1 billion dollar movie isn't impressive but when a predecessor from the same franchise did better, and this was THE finale of it all, 40+ years of film, I think they expected slightly more. Not Endgame numbers, but still more. They could use an extra $500 mil right now thats for damn sure!

 

[Brian G.]

Failure? No.

Disappointment? I mean the "final" film of the Skywalker saga should've made more ....

Even so, I still agree creating its own planet was the right route. The problem is the timeline, as in, it shouldn't be restricted to just one.

 

[shiekra38]

You're only saying that because you know both of those turned out to be mediocre at best. Mention a Millennium Falcon ride and Blue Milk to any theme park fan in 2015 and ask them which they'd prefer and I can guarantee you the overwhelming majority would be for Falcon and Blue Milk.

Hindsight is 20/20.

I would trade one Guardians of the Galaxy Coaster and one Moana splash bad for a really good Toy Story Dark Ride

 

[SeventyOne]

Failure? No.

Disappointment? I mean the "final" film of the Skywalker saga should've made more ....

Is Cars a failure? Box office-wise, it's in the bottom half of Pixar releases. And it was critically panned outside boys and immature men who still think like boys (it me). But it offers a rich environment and it moves merch. Why Cars Land is an amazing addition.

RoS made good, albeit not exceptional, money for a Disney tentpole. Critically panned by Disney fans. But most importantly, didn't offer much in the way of exciting world-building and severely underperformed with licensees. That last point should have been a warning siren. If box office was everything, you'd see a lot more Brother Bear than Ariel throughout the parks.

It doesn't cost $1B to build a cool new ride that excites the hard-core Disney fan base. The real point of GE was to sell merch and upcharge expereinces. And Disney rushed ahead with an unproven property that hadn't shown it could do that yet, and ultimately proved it could not.