Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
The Rise of the Resistance ride at Galaxy’s Edge will open December 5 at Disney World and January 17 at Disneyland, the parks announced today.
Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland is open now with Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run as the sole ride. The Florida version, at Hollywood Studios, will open August 29.
Rise of the Resistance is supposedly the more ambitious of the two rides, which may account for the delay.
At a recent leadership summit, Riz Ahmed talked about Muslim representation in Hollywood and revealed that he was stopped at the airport in April, keeping him from Celebration Chicago.
Pointing to [Hasan] Minhaj, he said “He can win a Peabody, I can win an Emmy, Ibtihaj Muhammad can go to the Olympics, but some of these obstacles are systemic and we can’t really face them alone, we need your help. I’m basically here to ask for your help, because it’s really scary to be a Muslim right now, super scary. I’ve often wondered, is this going to be the year when they round us up, if this is going to be the year they put Trump’s registry into action. If this is going to be the year they ship us all off.”
Minhaj, Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx and Eva Longoria also took part in the summit.
Neither the upcoming gap in new movies nor a just-over-a-year time frame could manage to slow enthusiasm for Celebration Anaheim, as 4-Day passes sold out in just about an hour today. Saturday passes were gone just a few hours after that.
To contrast, 5-Day passes for Chicago sold out in about three days. On the plus side, it seems that the hotel situation has been running smoothly.
For those who’ve snagged a pass, or hope to, Celebration Anaheim is being held August 27-30, 2020, at the Anaheim Convention Center. It’s just down the road from Disneyland and the by then fully functioning Galaxy’s Edge, which I’m sure has nothing at all to do with the heightened demand.
Keri Russell reveals she was all-in to play a helmeted character in The Rise of Skywalker, and that she cried when she first read the script.
Tickets and rooms for Celebration Anaheim 2020 are going on sale tomorrow, June 21. Tickets are up at 9:00am Pacific (Noon Eastern) and rooms at 10:00am Pacific (1pm Eastern). Note Reed has a new vendor for rooms this year, Connections Housing.
The con is being held August 27-30, 2020, at the Anaheim Convention Center (same as 2015). It’s early for many details, but the official site mentions “celebrating the completed Skywalker saga and mark the 40th anniversary of” The Empire Strikes Back, plus an “improved mobile app experience.”
Get out your calendars, we have the dates for next year’s Celebration Anaheim: August 27-30, 2020. First announced at Celebration Chicago, the con returns to the location of the 2015 Celebration, just down the road from Disneyland – and the just-opened Galaxy’s Edge.
August is also a bit of a flashback for the con: Celebration VI and V, both held in Orlando, were also in that timeframe. V was also host to “Last Tour to Endor,” a special night event held as a farewell to the original Star Tours before it was closed for upgrades. The big question on everyone’s minds now: Will the park hold a special con-only event for Galaxy’s Edge? Given the amount of interest there’ll no doubt be – far more than there was for the closing of a older ride – it’s bound to be a thorny dilemma for Disney.
Without any new movies coming until 2022, Galaxy’s Edge is likely to be the biggest thing going – particularly with a captive audience of tourists. My bet – and this is only speculation – is that they’ll do something similar to the reservation system that Disneyland is using right now – but for badge-holders. (I’d also expect to pay more, naturally, for theme park admission.) Under the current system, people with reservations get assigned a time period of four hours to explore Galaxy’s Edge. But with the high attendance of modern Celebrations, I don’t expect everyone would get in.
In any case, tickets for Celebration Anaheim will be on sale June 21 at 9 a.m. PT (Noon ET.) Prices are a little less this time around – an adult 4-day badge is $195 this time, as opposed to $215 for Chicago’s 5-day badge. 1-day adult badges are still $75.
The Star Wars Show devoted the entirety of today’s episode to Galaxy’s Edge. Pablo’s role in the park revealed!
For some tips and tricks from Disney experts – or an unbiased opinion – check out the Disney Food Blog’s latest video. Send this one to your pals who haven’t been pouring over all the coverage.
The first Star Wars land opened this week in California. Galaxy’s Edge in Disneyland only has one ride running, but that didn’t seem to dampen anyone’s enthusiasm. (Though at least one review did mention it. More reviews: StarWars.com, EW, /Film, Polygon and Hypable.)
But maybe the neatest was seeing the reaction of some of the first fans allowed into the land:
Galaxy’s Edge is opening soon, and we’re starting to get some details. The build-your-own lightsabers will cost you about $200 (which isn’t that shocking – that’s just a little more than a standard ForceFX lightsaber, which is – or was – the highest quality mass-produced lightsaber toy.)
You’ll also have the option to build your own droid. It’s $100 for a custom droid, and $150 for the DJ R-3X. To be fair, he is really neat:
Now that we’ve addressed the price tags, here’s a nice piece on the design process for the staff – err, cast member – uniforms.
That John Williams theme? You’ll probably not heard it-as is. Instead, it serves as “the musical foundation” for what you’ll hear in the park.
Also: Enforcing the time limit! Droid tracks! Bathroom breaks!
John Williams will start recording The Rise of Skywalker in June, per an interview with orchestra contractor Sandy DeCrescent (via) DeCrescent is in the process of selecting the musicians for Wiliams, but the interview is also about her own history in the industry – she’s the the first woman contractor in the industry.
In the meantime, here’s Williams’ theme for Galaxy’s Edge, which was released back on the 4th: