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What if Star Wars Land fails?

streetmagix

Mega Poster
If they can make a success of Avatar, a film which most had forgotten existed and has very few hardcore fans, then Star Wars will do just fine. It will come down to just how well they execute it.

Ignore the 'Imma BOYCOTT STAR WAR DUE to THE WIMMINS' minority. Please.
 

tomahawk

Strata Poster
"A very long time" as in... one year? Toy Story Land opened in the same park on June 30 this year. Before then, there was Avatar Land in 2017. And that's not counting the overseas parks.
I'm assuming he is referring to Disneyland peoper in California. Minus California Adventure, the last "new" land in that park was the refresh of Tomorrowland in 98.

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EpochEmu

Mega Poster
"A very long time" as in... one year? Toy Story Land opened in the same park on June 30 this year. Before then, there was Avatar Land in 2017. And that's not counting the overseas parks.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Star Wars Land a separate park? Either way, it’s bigger than Toy Story and Avatar.
 

Youngster Joey

Strata Poster
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Star Wars Land a separate park? Either way, it’s bigger than Toy Story and Avatar.
No, It's just an area being added to MGM studios (Hollywood Studios).

And I'll echo the "as long as it's executed well it will be very hard to fail" sentiment
 

sirloin

Roller Poster
In light of the success of Pandora, I'd expect Disney headquarters to look a bit like this shortly after Star Wars Land opens:
1227081149388875334.jpg
 

Matt N

CF Legend
Sorry to bump this thread, but I thought this might be an interesting topic to discuss now that Disneyland's area has been open for over a month and we've seen what crowd levels have been like. And it's actually been a very different outcome to what I (and most others) were expecting thus far. I know that Rise of the Resistance isn't opening until January 2020 in California, so the land isn't technically complete yet, but from reports I've heard, Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge apparently hasn't been the smash hit people were expecting in California with regards to crowd levels.

Normally, you'd expect a major land opening at a major theme park like Disneyland to command waits that are hours long and see a park that's absolutely rammed. I remember hearing reports where it was estimated that 200,000 people would visit Disneyland on the Galaxy's Edge opening day alone. I remember queueing for an hour to get into Diagon Alley and then queueing 3 hours for Gringotts a month after it opened. I queued close to 3 hours for Flight of Passage in April 2019, nearly 2 years after Pandora opened. However, Smuggler's Run has apparently only attained wait times of between 30 and 60 minutes ever since Galaxy's Edge opened. Shops in the area reportedly have few people in them, and Disneyland as a wider park is reportedly strangely quiet for this time of year. I even heard a rumour that the weeks after Galaxy's Edge's opening represented the first time since 2003 that the Disneyland Resort was not making a profit. This is very strange; I was expecting a very busy park. While I admit that the land is not yet complete, so it's probably too early to determine its long-term success, Galaxy's Edge in California has certainly been less successful than I was anticipating from reports I've heard.

I'll personally be interested to see how the land in Florida fares by comparison. Walt Disney World is certainly a far more tourism-driven business than Disneyland Resort, which apparently relies more on domestic trade, so Galaxy's Edge may well be more successful in Florida. However, there are apparently still many room reservations available at most of Walt Disney World's on-site hotels in the weeks surrounding Galaxy's Edge's opening in Florida, so some people are predicting a similar opening outcome to what happened in California.

I'll certainly be intrigued to see what happens with both lands, as the California land's opening has certainly produced unexpected results so far. I personally think that crowd levels may rise quite a bit once Rise of the Resistance opens, so both lands will end up being immensely successful in the end. But what do you guys think will happen?
 

Jamesss

Hyper Poster
It will be interesting to see if the crowd levels do shoot up again once the season pass holders are unblocked. It seems almost unbelievable how much Disneyland relies on them. Clearly the park wouldn't survive without its locals.

WDW's version will be a very different story I imagine.
 

tomahawk

Strata Poster
Yeah, was talking to a friend on Thursday and he is the second highest and he's been blacked out for a month and still has a few more weeks. Normally that level is select days throughout the year, not for 6 weeks straight

The other big issue is people having my mindset:
"**** those crowds, I'll wait a few months/years for it to open." Well, when everyone says that, this happens. Plus, when only one of the two attractions is open, people would rather wait for both to open to spend that money. Why waste $150 pp to go in for essentially a glorified soft opening? You wouldn't.

WDW will have issues because they are putting it in the worst park that already has congestion issues. Plus it's a lot easier for people to travel to from Europe for obvious reasons.

Touching on the DLR passholder situation, they capitalize on the Southern California resident passes big time. It isn't even the cost of 3 visits anymore, and a lot of people who get it, totally have the intention of getting it, but then just do the payments and next thing you know they go twice a year and are paying more for it. The dense population of So Cal means they don't have to rely on out of area tourism as much, so if you flood the market with passholder who can only go Mon-Thurs, then you don't have issues where the park is slow. You take out that entire marker, except for the very wealthy who can afford an $1100 annual pass, and that is a small percentage of pass holders.

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gavin

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Social Media Team
The other big issue is people having my mindset:
"**** those crowds, I'll wait a few months/years for it to open." Well, when everyone says that, this happens. Plus, when only one of the two attractions is open, people would rather wait for both to open to spend that money. Why waste $150 pp to go in for essentially a glorified soft opening? You wouldn't.

Disney created that mindset themselves though by not only blocking access to annual pass holders, but telling regular guests they wouldn't be getting in without hotel reservations. Add to that the main attraction opening a ridiculously long time after the rest of the area, and they've pretty much told people not to go.

Common sense says they should've lifted the annual pass restrictions when they started getting negative press for a "failed" area, or at least offered some kind of reservation system for pass holders, ensuring more people there but still having some control over it.

They've f**ked this whole thing royally.



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Gazza

Giga Poster
Since everyone dunking on Galaxys edge, I’ll summarise some thoughts from my visit a couple of weeks ago.

First things first, if Rise of the Resistance had been open, then for many all would have been forgiven etc and everyone would have been in such awe of that attraction that any other shortcomings would have been ignored.

Overall, the theming is beautiful and the area feels quite big and extensive…definitely no sense of “Was that it?”
Sometimes I felt there was an over reliance on running power cables over everything and splashing varnish on surfaces to make them look old.
So much effort has gone towards concealing anything from the outside world, everything right down to the card terminals and the toilet hand dryers are themed.
This is a double edged sword, there's no big signage etc so sometimes it takes trial and error to work out what each shop contains.
The area itself, nor the rides actually have any big signage, in some ways I like how they've tried to be super realistic to not make it feel like a theme park, on the other hand, there's less of a sense of arrival when you arrive at the area entrance or a ride entrance...you pass a threshold, the music changes, and there you are.

The food is really good (If all you eat are burgers and chicken tenders, it might not be for you, if you like food from laneway cafes and those kinds of places, you’ll enjoy it, and I did like the blue and green milk too)
The merch would satisfy any star wars fan, and the shops have amazing theming too.
The costumed characters are superb, especially Chewbacca.

But, the flaws:

-Smugglers run has some impressive millennium falcon theming and a spectacular animatronic, but the simulator itself is neither fish nor fowl. It lacks the heart and comedy of Star Tours but it lacks the intense physical experience of flight of passage.
It’s a good simulator, with some button bashing (Like mission space), and a good experience if you get to pilot (2 rides and I didn’t sadly). The sequence itself was maybe a bit lifeless, no characters etc so you are just chasing around other ships in an industrial environment, so felt more like F zero or some sort of flight sim game, without a human touch (or alien lol). Also, seemed like a huge oversight in the queue themed like a workshop to not have some basic droids doing welding etc. The queue was static aside from some radio chatter from unseen characters.

-Area feels unbalanced, one end where the actual town is bustling, but one end is literally a meandering path through some arid forest with some fancy lamp posts and a couple of space ships parked. To me it felt like being in a good modern picnic area of a national park.
Eventually Rise of the Resistance will anchor that end, but coupled with the walk from critter country, its quite a distance of not a whole lot, and doesn’t feel very alien or star wars.

-Too much static theming (Which is very beautiful at least). A lot of space ships, but all of them are off, with no idling engines, and every single one is cordoned off and treated like a museum piece. They should have made a couple of them sturdy enough that guests could go up and touch, look up close etc.
Similarly, it seems like they could have just spammed the area with lots of droids to really add some humour and energy to the area. A droid seems like a dead simple bit of animatronic to do, just a spinning head and some beeps and it would have really made the area more immersive

-Nothing for kids. This is a huge oversight for Disneyland IMO. They could do something like a “resistance training camp” play area, or some sort of kids droid flat ride down the quiet end , because right now its one (soon to be two) big rides, plus a lot of shops geared towards Star Wars fans with cash to burn.

-Ogas cantina has limited capacity, they really should do a walk up stand right now with some of the drinks available for take away.

-Ticket prices are too high. I paid $150 USD for one day, plus $25 parking , plus say another $60 on food etc, and I do think you do get a lot of entertainment for your money, but it's just not affordable for a lot of visitors now.
The makeup of visitors has noticeably changed from my last visit to DL about 6 years ago. It now seems about 4 adults for every 1 or 2 kids, and the crowd is heavily millennials, and not as many nuclear families as was in the past.

I liked it, and I want to go back when Rise of the Resistance is open, but Disney aint perfect so don’t put this on a pedestal.
 

UKCoasterFan

Mega Poster
I don't understand why Disney didn't add at least 1 coaster. There is so much potential.
A pod race coaster
A death star trench run coaster
A forest moon of Endor speeder bike coaster

Any of the new Vekoma launch coasters would suit these ideas.

I certainly am not interested getting out to Galaxy's Edge just to ride another sim/game. Something I can do at home almost. I found Star Tours 2 disappointing and it was truly awful when it was completely in French. There is so much talking and the pause in the middle is dumb. I do not understand why Disney Paris can't have a designated queue and sim unit for English guests. (Same as Tower of Terror, when it's in English superb. When it's in French you miss so much if you don't speak that language).

I could see Disney scrapping Galaxy's Edge in Paris (which I believe was already a cut down version). I truly don't see the point without rides. Good theming is fine but you only really come back repeatedly for the rides.

The themed area really should have been Tatooine or a combination of other location (Forest moon of Endor / Hoth).
There is a lot of speculation whether George Lucas still owns some of the original characters or ideas and perhaps gets a cut when those are used). I would have thought everything was sold when Lucasfilm was sold to Disney as Indiana Jones 5 is going ahead etc. But it is very weird Disney not using the locations everyone already knows. Who cares about some random outpost without rides?
 

Pokemaniac

Mountain monkey
Staff member
Administrator
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The themed area really should have been Tatooine or a combination of other location (Forest moon of Endor / Hoth).
There is a lot of speculation whether George Lucas still owns some of the original characters or ideas and perhaps gets a cut when those are used). I would have thought everything was sold when Lucasfilm was sold to Disney as Indiana Jones 5 is going ahead etc. But it is very weird Disney not using the locations everyone already knows. Who cares about some random outpost without rides?
I think they did something original precisely so there wouldn't be any expectations to meet or designs they were locked into. The set pieces for Hoth and Mos Eisley are already designed, and trying to recreate them would either put restrictions on how Disney could design the area, or they would have to make compromises that meant the recreation wouldn't be faithful anyway. Better to create something entirely new and putting the general Star Wars aesthetic on it.
 

UKCoasterFan

Mega Poster
idk, Universal managed to do it really well with HP stuff?
That motorbike coaster looks awesome and I don't even like HP but I can fully understand the 3-8 hour queue lines. Simulators are so old hat. I feel sorry for the people running them at funfairs these days. Even at a busy one I was at in June literally no one cared about those rides.
 
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