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Disney reveals new Star Wars Land details & shows first ride footage (Disneyland)

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Disney's finally showing off more of Star Wars Land, and it looks pretty freaking sweet. This video gives a good overview and shows the first footage of one of the land's two rides: One where you actually pilot the Millennium Falcon itself, and the other in which you have to escape a battlefield using Disney's trackless vehicle technology.

Ride talk & footage starts at 2:10
https://youtu.be/nwKRHbLbjNQ

Edit: Older video mistakenly posted earlier with more footage
https://youtu.be/0qfbgkMku2w?t=2m1s

What's super cool sounding is the "reputation" system, where your actions in the rides have consequences outside, in the land itself. More details here:

GUESTS DON'T RIDE THE FALCON, THEY FLY IT
When word first broke that Star Wars Land would feature a Millennium Falcon ride, the first thing that came to mind was Star Tours itself: an attraction where audiences sit passively and are taken on a journey. Trowbridge made it very clear that this was not the kind of experience that the team was currently working on.

Instead, the new ride will allows visitors — along with a ”flight crew" of friends — to actually pilot the Falcon itself. Whether that ride ends up being bumpy or Han Solo-smooth will depend on the choices of the team flying the ship. And while the odds are the ship will always make it to its destination, the condition it arrives in is another matter. It could show up without a scratch, or it could arrive beat to hell. Either way: it's up to the pilot and the flight crew and what they decide to do.


Concept art for Disney's Star Wars-themed land

YOUR DECISIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES
”YOU CAN ESSENTIALLY BUILD A REPUTATION IN THE STAR WARS UNIVERSE."
While the Falcon ride as described would be fun unto itself, Trowbridge and Imagineering executive creative director Asa Kalama stressed that that was just the beginning of a much more in-depth kind of interaction. If visitors bring the Falcon back all beat up, that might anger another character in the world — one that might decide to say something when they next see the pilot. ”An experience might begin on board the Millennium Falcon, and follow you right out the door of the attraction and into a local watering hole," Kalama said. ”So it really is up to you to determine how you want this thing to play out."

Hidalgo put it even more simply: ”You can essentially build a reputation in the Star Wars universe."

VISITORS CAN JOIN A FACTION
Given the nature of the world, there will be plenty of opportunities for people to interact, taking that idea of decisions and consequences even further. Some visitors may opt to take a side job with some smugglers and have their own side mission. Others might decide to join the Resistance, while still others may decide to pledge their allegiance to the First Order.

Mapping interactive, narrative storytelling tracks onto a real-world location is perhaps the most exciting thing about Disney's plans. It essentially amounts to taking the kinds of interactive, real-world interactions we currently see in immersive theater or haunted houses, mixing them with the Star Wars mythology, and letting the whole thing play out in a massive, all-encompassing sandbox built for that express purpose from the ground up.

The land sounds pretty freaking amazing.
 

Hazmat

Member
There is no way that any of it will be as cool as it is in my mind, but I still need this. Just hook it to my veins.
 

sphagnum

Banned
eh

honestly puts a damper on it for me. I don't want to put in effort playing a game, I just want to walk around and look at cool stuff
 

Salamando

Member
Reputation Systems...christ, I'm having Warcraft flashbacks. "LF1M Millenium Falcon gold run, must know encounters!"

If they get people in cosplay to perform as the Twi-lek lounge singer or the Bith cantina band, I could easily spend all day in there alone.
 
Won't go anywhere near this for like 5 years and even that will still be way too soon to not play the shoulder game with crowds.
 

MattKeil

BIGTIME TV MOGUL #2
There is no way that any of it will be as cool as it is in my mind, but I still need this. Just hook it to my veins.

You might be surprised. They've been talking about stuff like this for years in the theme parks, and it doesn't surprise me that this would be where they roll it out. This kind of experience has been in dev at Imagineering for many years.

Won't go anywhere near this for like 5 years and even that will still be way too soon to not play the shoulder game with crowds.

Go the Wednesday after Labor Day.
 
Never been to something as immersive as Diagon Alley before in a park, just imagine all the other people out of costume would hamper the immersion. Wonder what they limit the cap to for foot traffic. Just imagine getting to go through the non-ride parts solo or with friends...would be incredible. Curious if there are plans to use some of the mixed reality research ILM was doing and incorporating it into a ride. A VR space with wireless (or backpack) setup kinda like that Void Ghostbusters attraction but with much better visuals in a warehouse space with Disney's budget...I'd like to see that.
 
Did they ever say if they were planning on building this in Orlando?

Yes, they are, in Hollywood Studios.

I really adore Disney's parks work. Cars Land is amazing, and Avatar looks great but I still just don't like the single-IP land approach. It bothers me when the best thing about areas like Fantasyland is that it's crafted fantastically with sightlines and style transitions to perfectly hold a variety of different themes without standing out. While this sounds absolutely amazing I'm way more interested in how they're planning to transition from the other lands to this, and I wish they'd do less single-IP and more original lands.
 

Hazmat

Member
You might be surprised. They've been talking about stuff like this for years in the theme parks, and it doesn't surprise me that this would be where they roll it out. This kind of experience has been in dev at Imagineering for many years.

I'm quite familiar with the Disney parks. What I mainly mean is that even on light days it will be so crowded that you'll never feel like you've played out "your" story (except in your imagination, which is a good thing, not a lame thing). It'll be cool, but you're not going to get a personalized experience with your cantina bartender based off of your choices and the outcome of your Millenium Falcon ride. It's not Westworld.
 
I'm quite familiar with the Disney parks. What I mainly mean is that even on light days it will be so crowded that you'll never feel like you've played out "your" story (except in your imagination, which is a good thing, not a lame thing). It'll be cool, but you're not going to get a personalized experience with your cantina bartender based off of your choices and the outcome of your Millenium Falcon ride. It's not Westworld.

The only way I can see it being implemented right is if they save your ride to a Magicband or something, then are able to recall that info when you go to a meet and greet or pay for drinks or something like that, so other CMs get a prompt and can bring it up. That would work pretty well, like the stuff in WDW that saves photos to your account without you having to do anything, or puts your name on poster screens etc.

But it still sounds like way too much effort where the end result will be either "man leave me alone I'm trying to get a drink" or "haha yeah cool I guess" from 99% of guests.
 
Im so excited for this but honestly I just don't see how it can possibly live up to the concept.
From a population standpoint you'd need so many cast members to cover what they are visualizing.
Disney-Concept-Art-for-Star-Wars-Cantina-IMG_4626.jpg

Disney-Concept-Art-for-Star-Wars-IMG_4621.jpg
The restaurant and streets will be fine with all the guest traffic but a Cantina without loads of aliens and such will be pretty pointless imo.
 

Salamando

Member
Im so excited for this but honestly I just don't see how it can possibly live up to the concept.
From a population standpoint you'd need so many cast members to cover what they are visualizing.

The restaurant and streets will be fine with all the guest traffic but a Cantina without loads of aliens and such will be pretty pointless imo.

You should look up what Disney World did with their Rebel Hangar lounge in the past. About every 5-10 minutes a new alien would roam the restaurant, stopping for pics when asked. My nephew got to meet Chewie, an alien Rebel pilot, Jawas, Stormtroopers...

By using aliens with full masks and no speaking, they can get literally anyone to walk around. Have them "leave" to change into new costumes, you wouldn't need that many cast members to populate a cantina.
 

TDLink

Member
This all sounds cool but will be extremely limited in, well, a single "Land" of DHS/Disneyland. This concept is great and Star Wars is a universe strong enough to have been able to carry an entire theme park/"gate" on its own, where you could really get immersed in this world they're trying to build.

The reputation following you throughout an entire park would be fantastic...it following you between 3 attractions and a restaurant not so much.

I know what I'm asking for is crazy expensive, but if anything could carry another gate...it'd be this.
 
This all sounds cool but will be extremely limited in, well, a single "Land" of DHS/Disneyland. This concept is great and Star Wars is a universe strong enough to have been able to carry an entire theme park/"gate" on its own, where you could really get immersed in this world they're trying to build.

The reputation following you throughout an entire park would be fantastic...it following you between 3 attractions and a restaurant not so much.

I know what I'm asking for is crazy expensive, but if anything could carry another gate...it'd be this.

If you see a lot of Disney park behind the scenes stuff it really shows that even stuff thats already in construction can fall apart over the smallest reasons.
Disney tried for like 15+ years to open a 3rd US resort park,
They wanted to build an Epcot in California,
Animal Kingdom was supposed to have a full on 3rd of the park as a fantasy land(which was the 2nd priority) and it never happened

A full Star Wars park would cost far beyond what they payed for all of Lucasfilm.
Its too great a risk.
Beyond that you can really only build 1atm, does it go to Florida or California?

They will find ways to expand it eventually.
 
ugh so it's more screen rides?

I really want more actual rides. The screen rides are completely forgettable. I would love something on the same scale as Indiana Jones ride.
 
I can fuck Twi'leks and kill Ewoks and Gungans?


864.jpg


ugh so it's more screen rides?

I really want more actual rides. The screen rides are completely forgettable. I would love something on the same scale as Indiana Jones ride.

I remember at I think Disney Adventures? (It was one where it was mainly rides involving technology, not large coasters etc. Indoors. There was a VR type thing and you had a lightsaber or something and fought off enemies in a 3D environment. It was a long time ago around when anaglyph 3D was a fad again, they had a Terminator 3D viewing thing. Just blew me away. Not sure why they wouldn't focus on some really cool VR experiences like that.
 

SpaceWolf

Banned
I look forward to watching a bunch of gangsters in the cantina hounding a terrified four year old girl because she fucked up in the Millenium Falcon Ride.
 

watershed

Banned
I'm not sure how they're gonna pull off this whole role playing aspect. I'm interested but this sounds like a lot of hype talk.
 
I really hope the reputation aspect is very limited. You don't want some losers talking shit about kids and elderly people because they caused the crew to earn a bad reputation. You can also run into a situation where people have listed all the possible interactions online and now parents who want the maximum Disney experience lose their shit when little Johnny doesn't get the reaction others said they received online. Happens all the time with Whispering Canyon Cafe. Parents even report CMs that don't go the extra mile to acknowledge or reward kids with birthday buttons. Saw this happen in real time on Facebook where one kid got a free popcorn at that German place in Epcot, posted it to a Disney group, another parent saw this and took their child there immediately, didn't get a popcorn, got pissed and reported the CM.
 
Westworld tv show making LARPing cool again....well not cool...and it never was so 'again' doesn't really apply either. but damn, I'm really vibing with this concept.

I hope they pull it off to a decent extent.
 
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