The Force Has Awoken at Disney Theme Parks, With More To Come!
Star Wars has always had its place in Disney history, with the always popular Star Tours ride, Jedi Training Academy and the now defunct Star Wars Weekend at Disney’s Hollywood Studios (the latter adding somewhat of a convention feel to the parks). The Disney characters would come out to Star Wars costumes, Star Wars themed parades, actors from the films would be present on certain weekends for picturess and autographs, they would even host special themed stage shows. Like the always popular Hyperspace Hoopla and themed fireworks. Disney really went all out during those weekends.
With the acquisition of the Star Wars property it was just a matter of time before Disney would ramp it up and make it a permanent mainstay at the parks. At last years D23 that is exactly what happened, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced Star Wars Land for both Disney World and Disneyland. Then, with the announcement of the conclusion of Star Wars Weekends and of the also popular holiday “The Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights”, we were now one step closer to having Star Wars Land.
I recently took my annual family trip out to Walt Disney World at the same time that the Star Wars Celebration was going on across the pond in Europe. Between all of the theme park stuff and all of the news announcements, I wasn’t expecting a Star Wars overload while on vacation.
First off, I had never been to any of the Star Wars weekends, and didn’t know what to expect of the new offerings that the parks started this Summer. With half of Hollywood Studios closed off with construction walls, Disney added the Star Wars Launch Bay which actually made its debut before the release of The Force Awakens and the most recently added Captain Phasma Storm Trooper March, Star Wars: A Galaxy Far Far Away, and Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular.
Jedi Training: Trials of the Temple
This kid participation show recently was revamped by receiving a Star Wars: Rebels overlay. Kids now receive training with characters that resembles our rebel heroes and encounter the Seventh Sister Inquisitor and Darth Vader. At the end of the trials they face off on a third villain which I believe varies day to day, I have seen videos of Darth Maul, but witnessed it being Kylo Ren. It’s a cool show for the little ones especially if they get to brag about facing off big Star War Villains.
Star Tours – The Adventure Continues
This ride had huge fan fare and a resurgence in popularity when it received a upgrade back in 2011. With the inclusion of multiples scenes, there are now 96 scene combinations to this ride resulting in a myriad of different ride experiences. The ride now includes 2 new Force Awakens scenes. I was lucky enough to receive both new scenes in my ride combination. First, after the speedster warps, they now land in Jakku where you’re now following the Millennium Falcon while being chased by TIE Fighters, and we then receive an incoming message from Finn. Now this scenes is the best of them all for the simple fact that your are now playing out the chase scene from the movie. I was completely overjoyed feeling like I was in the actual Jakku scene from the movie. After that, the speedster warps again and we receive a special transmission from BB-8 regarding a special mission. I always enjoyed this ride but for you continuity nerds like me, you have to heavily forgive it. There are scenes/characters from the prequels and original trilogy that also used. So the following scene of being warped to the Death Star and fighting Bobba Fett was a bit jarring. Still Fun!
Captain Phasma’s First Order Stormtrooper March
This march actually has a bit of prologue to it. Before each march starts, two Stormtroopers walk from the Launch Bay to the center stage clearing out the path and interacting with park guests. It was really cool to witness, they stopped my wife and harassed her for identification while the other trooper was trying to disperse the huge crowd following them.
The march takes place from the Launch Bay area to the center stage. Once at the stage Captain Phasma orders the trooper to perform some tasks to showcase the might of the First Order. Once I finished watching this I was impressed by the character and texted Jonathan how the park show redeemed her as a character. This show is is very short, and not much besides that.
Star Wars: A Galaxy Far Far Away
This is another live action show that features various characters from all seven films. The stage show starts off with a highlight reel of the seven movies that kind of focuses on the incoming character. We get to see C-3PO, R2D2, Chewbacca, Darth Maul, Darth Vader, Bobba Fett, First Order Troopers along with Captain Phasma, Kylo Ren and BB-8. Depending on the character, certain pyrotechnics would go off to add to the effect of presence on stage.
Star Wars Launch Bay
This area, which was formally Animation Courtyard would be a celebration of Disney animation showcasing behind the scenes looks at the process and a display of items used in the current movie. They would also host various popular character meet and greets. Depending on the newest Disney movie out, the area would get a quick re-theme to match the current hit, like for my prior trip it was themed for Wreck-It Ralph. The main stay was always Sorcerer Mickey and Mr. Incredible with Frozone.
Now the area was completely reworked for the sole purpose of Star Wars. When you first enter the area you can opt to watch a 10 minute video clip that works as an update of what going on with the Star Wars Cinematic Universe. After that you ushered into a hall with a bunch of props from the Star Wars Universe. I was happy to see Star Wars Rebels get some love with items replicated into the real world for display. after you work you way around a pod racer you find two separate lines for Kylo Ren and Chewbacca with more props on display to keep you busy while on line. Meeting them was a blast. For Kylo Ren you’re instructed to stand at attention while Kylo Measures you up.
One of the big surprises for me was when we were about to walk out and I stumbled upon a makeshift Cantina with two Jawas walking around dancing and taking pictures. This automatically triggered my memory of this area and I remembered that you can actually trade with them. So after some back and forth bantering and pictures I asked to make a trade, they pulled out a droid leg filled with trinkets. I lost it, they have thought of everything. I traded my sunglasses for a bar of soap and a jewel. they were ecstatic and parading the sunglasses around. I took a celebratory drink of blue milk and went on my merry way.
It wouldn’t be Disney if you didn’t exit through a gift shop. If you are rich and wanted something Star Wars related from this trip, this was the place to get it. I saw things here for sale that I didn’t expect from full blown costumes to the Medals awarded at the end of Episode IV. I’m poor enough, so we opted to each get a Star Wars name tag, which caused a great debate of what our ranks would be.
Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular
This was by far one of the most impressive fireworks display I have seen at Disney World. With a combination of lasers, projections and fireworks. The show is displayed in three “acts”. The first act covers the phenomena that is Star Wars and the magic that brought it to life.
The second act is about the movies and really brings you into the fold. This show is not for the casuals, different scenes are displayed from all seven films so it can be hard to follow. The greatest part of the section was when action is being portrayed on the projection. There was a scene with AT-AT walkers shooting towards the audience and the red lasers shoot across triggering pyrotechnics behind us. The other scene that stood out to me was the Emperor using force lightning and the projections just spreading across the area was so cool. It was just simply amazing.
The Third acts brings it back to being about the movies as whole and setting up the big finale. Different scenes are played out from each movie which are now creating a giant poster of every film until the finale of the iconic pose of Luke Skywalker’s hands clasped together on a lightsaber over the Chinese Theater sending up a giant beam of light into the air as to announce to the world that Star Wars has arrived at the Disney parks.
Just some notes I made from my observations of all the new stuff:
– They really focus on Kylo Ren’s temper tantrum. It gets displayed twice on two separate stage shows.
– Some of the continuity issues bother me, especially on Star Tours. But beggars can’t be choosers.
– The amount of silly merchandise is getting staggering. I saw a $15 popcorn bucket of a tie fighter that could barely hold any popcorn to begin with and the actual thing was massive. Also the Han Solo frozen in carbonite popcorn holder is just wrong.
– All the characters were great in keeping with my expectations of how they would act in the real world, with the exception of Chewbacca who seemed a bit tired.
I’m a sucker for nostalgia and I will miss all the old offerings from Hollywood Studios, but I cant wait for Toy Story Land and Star Wars to open. I fell completely in love with the the new Star Wars area and was just in awe of what could be coming once the Star Wars Land is completed. I’m sure not everything has been revealed to us of what’s to come. What we know so far is that there will be a full functioning Cantina, A Millennium Falcon Ride, and a ride centered around a battle between The First Order and and the Rebels.
On this trip I had the pleasure of visiting Hogwarts and Diagon Alley over at Universal Studios and was completely blown away to the attention to detail that i spent over 2 hours at each area soaking it all up. So if Star Wars Land is to serve as an answer to that, I can only imagine Disney is going to pull all the stops to make this the greatest add-on in theme park history.
