Galaxy Edge - Progress

Looks really good! Although I've been following the construction for a while, it's great to get a view from some of the up-close angles that just aren't possible from outside the land. It looks like there's still a lot of work to go, but there's no reason it couldn't be complete in about a year, which has been their target opening

That said, nothing about this calms any of my fears that this won't match the scale, style, or tone of Disneyland. Although this land was originally designed for DL, I think it will fit in the park much better at WDW

 

Disney, Lucasfilm and ILM shared a first image of the Millenium Falcon ride. The article is also quite intersting.

Walt Disney Imagineering, NVIDIA Develop New Tech to Enable Millennium Falcon Attraction | NVIDIA Blog

 

Why are there Imperial TIE Fighters instead of First Order TIE Fighters? I guess hyperspace is time travel.

 

Just noticed that "Pain in the Night" is baaaaaaack. (and why don't we have a "torrential vomit" emoticon?)
Looks like Galaxy's Edge will probably be open for business by the next time I set foot on the DLR property.

 

Why is it that, in recent years, for everything Disney comes up with that gives me a reason to reinstate my pass (or to include WDW in my fall vacation plans sooner, rather than later), they manage to come up with at least one reason for me to go an entire year without setting foot on Disney property?

At least this time, "Pain" is in DCA (where it's a better fit anyway), rather than DL. Didn't the powers that be get the message last summer, when the MSEP revival drew huge crowds, and the only serious complaint was that the Blue Fairy was AWOL?

 

Seems like a lot of unnecessary punctuation and subtitles, which is par for the course these days. I'm glad they've gotten past the trend of [character]'s [silly adjective] [event], but there's no reason that they shouldn't be able to come up with names that people will actually say out loud. I have a hard time believing anybody in the park will ever say "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge," "Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run," or "Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance" when talking about where to go next

 

That's a lot of fun! Funny how it's not textured in places.

 

I just skimmed over the article about smartphones in Galaxy's Edge.

I agree with the author. In fact, I refuse to own a smartphone (I have an advanced clamshell that has rudimentary web browsing, and can open a hotspot for my tablet). And when my dad saw what I wanted, he traded his smartphone for an advanced clamshell just like mine.

And the main reason why I have an advanced clamshell is that on my 2017 fall vacation, I found out that my old CDMA clamshell turns into a paperweight while I'm on Canadian soil. Which left me at the mercy of payphones that are awfully thin on the ground, unless you're in a train station.

Luddites of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your upgrade treadmills!

 

I agree that relying on phones is a bad decision. I may be in the minority of my generation, but I prefer to experience my vacation than to spend it glued to my phone and social media. My vacation is the time when I try to ignore all that other stuff and just focus on having a good time

Additionally, there seems to be an industry trend that conflates interactivity with immersion. I'm sure that the new lands won't lack cool details, but all these over-the-top interactive elements only serve to remind me that I'm in a theme park, rather than letting me get lost in the moment. As fun as things like TSMM the Citizens of Hollywood can be in small doses, they also leave the door open for a poor experience when guests aren't good at the games or don't want to interact with actors; I'd much rather sit back and have a consistently high-quality experience regardless of what I put into it

 

Hmm. Made me think about the "Star Trek Hilton," the last time I was in Las Vegas for anything other than a connecting flight. And speaking Klingonaase to a Klingon waiter in Quark's.

 

That's why, when visiting WDW, I have never had a meal at 50s Prime Time: I am not merely a picky eater; I am the ur-picky eater, the type specimen by whom pickiness is defined. And were my genuine pickiness to be construed as "playing along," the results would not be pretty.
(On the other hand, I rather liked the Soap Opera Bistro at DCA; even though I'm not even remotely a soap opera fan [and actively avoided them in my youth, when one had to work at avoiding them], I have some familiarity with television production, enough that I could still "get" most or all of the in-jokes [and besides, when the "acting waiters" did a scene, it was more like some comedy sketch spoofing soap operas than it was an actual soap opera].)

It took me a bit to realize what TSMM stood for; actually, I rather like "Mania," and find it infinitely preferable to what was in that area of DCA before. On the other hand, I flat-out refuse to do the DL version of Buzz, because the only west coast CircleVision theatre was what was sacrificed for it (it's not like there weren't other places in DL TL that could have been repurposed to accommodate it).

 

I'm thinking that amount of time includes a pre-show kind of thing like FoP in AvatarLand. I wouldn't be against the ride being that long as long as there is A/C. Maybe they are looking at it more like a show? Who knows what they are thinking...

 

I certainly wouldn't mind a half-hour ride, if it were good, and if the length of the ride didn't translate into a 3-hour unthemed, no-entertainment, queue.

How long were GMR and Ellen, at WDW, once you boarded the vehicles? How long is CoP?