Galaxy’s Edge is the new addition to Disney Studios theme park in Orlando. Adios to the back lot tour and the little museum of movie memorabilia and the pretense that any kind of video entertainment is created at Disney World. The former Disney/MGM Studio is now un-apologetically a full-blown theme park.
I’ve been a Star Wars fan since 1977, despite three prequels and The Last Jedi trying to convince me to give up. For those of you who consider Florida a galaxy far, far away, here’s my take on Disney’s latest addition.
To get to Galaxy’s Edge from the park, you enter a tunnel near the Muppets 3D building. You exit into an amazing recreation of a Star Wars planet, some kind of cross between Tatooine and Jakku.
The attention to detail is excellent. There are life-sized Tie and X-wing fighters and displays of droids. The Millennium Falcon sits in a courtyard. If it wasn’t full of tourists and kids in strollers, you’d swear you were on another world.
The downside to this is that, in an example of an authenticity idea gone bad, nearly everything is labeled in a Star Wars gibberish language. That means you have no idea if something is a ride, a restaurant, or a shop until you go inside. When it first opened, employees were giving out map guides at the tunnel entrance. Not park maps, but specific maps to Galaxy’s Edge.
Build a droid, build a lightsaber, drink blue milk. There is no end to how you can spend money on this desert world.
The first ride to open was Smugglers Run. A fantastic queue line takes you through Star Wars settings and delivers you to the lounge on the Millennium Falcon, complete with the non-functional 3D hologram game table where you want to let the Wookie win.
After a short wait, and you are ushered into a recreation of the Millennium Falcon cockpit and take one of four seats. And then…
I refer to this as a JAFS ride. Just Another Flight Simulator. A screen projects a frantic trip through various space obstacles while the hydraulic system shakes you like a box of Cracker Jacks. Each person has a set of controls, but I’m not sure that they do much of anything. Or they do a lot and the little kids in the pilot seats were awful at flying. Either way, I got off wondering what was different in concept between this and the Star Tours JAFS ride that has been here for years. I came up with nothing.
The new addition is Rise of the Resistance. As of now, you cannot walk into the park and get in line for the ride. To start with, you need to have the My Disney Experience app on your phone. Then you must be in the park at 7 AM. Yes, it opens that early and, yes, it is still dark. At 7 AM the app opens a “virtual queue” and you enter it. You are then given a boarding group number between 1 and well over 100. This group is assigned randomly. That means yes, you are there at 7 AM, and yes, your boarding group may be #69 and you get on at 5:15 PM. It also means that you may not get a boarding group at all, and the virtual queue fills and closes within minutes of 7 AM. I knew none of this the first time I tried to give the ride a shot. I did not have the app, did not remember my stupid Apple password to download the app, and went home.
My second try, I come with my app loaded. At 5:45 AM., cars are already filling the parking lot. By 6:30, thousands jam the holding area inside the park gates along the main street.
Kids who had to be dragged out of bed to get to school at 8:30 AM every morning are all bright and bushy tailed today. Wise parents are feeding families breakfast from backpacks. Poor planners stand in line for Starbucks items that are overpriced even by Starbucks standards. I await 7 AM in the packed crowd. At the stroke of seven, the gray button to JOIN THE QUEUE lights up. A cheer erupts from the crowd (seriously) and I push the button. I am in group #59. I now have most of the day to kill at Disney.
But the Mouse smiles down upon me and the boarding groups are called quickly. I can watch progress on the app or on the numerous status boards around the park that display wait times. At about 11 a.m., I am summoned via push notification. I have been granted access. I have two hours to report or lose my spot. As if I wasn’t already sitting in Galaxy’s Edge.
Again, nothing in Galaxy’s Edge has a useful sign marking its entrance, so an employee holding an ENTER HERE sign is the only way I know where to go to get on. I am scanned in via Magic Band on my wrist and in I go.
Now, I have been a theme park fan since I was a kid and first visited Disney in 1971. I’ve been to Disney parks all over the world, had passes to Universal, and indulged in most Six Flags parks at their height. As you can tell by my write-up so far, I am a little jaded and easily underwhelmed.
Rise of the Resistance is the best ride I have ever been on. Period.
Don’t you hate it when a trailer ruins the movie by showing you a pivotal part and you keep watching the movie thinking “When does the giant snake show up?” I won’t do that to you here. I am not going to give you any details because the best way to experience this ride is from a position of complete ignorance with no expectations. Let every twist and turn of the storyline take you by surprise.
I will tell you that Rise of the Resistance is the most completely immersive, technologically seamless experience you will have in a theme park. The ride delivers you to locations that are literally jaw-dropping. The sets are massive, the video all high definition, the effects perfectly timed. The audioanimatronics move so silkily, you wonder if they are actors. Even the ride operators are completely in character. Nothing brings you out of the moment or reminds you that you really aren’t on a star destroyer and those aren’t real storm troopers with laser pistols.
The ride ended, I stepped off in a daze, and wanted to go hug the Imagineers who made it possible.
So get the app, get up early, get in virtual line, and do this ride. To paraphrase Obi Wan, you will take your first step into a larger world.
May the Force be with you.
