At least they’re doing the outdoor game now instead of waiting until tonight when it would be in single digits. Also, Gavin McKenn should have been a Spartan. Still time for him to get on the team plane back to East Lansing.
“Dawn of the Jedi: When there’s no more room in the Force…”
Seriously, I’ve been paying a lot of attention to Galaxy’s Edge developments over the last five years (Museum Studies major here, and nobody pushes the bleeding edge of the field like Disney). Not only was the switch to the classic characters inevitable, but I suspect it was planned from the beginning. It’s just with something as massive as Galaxy’s Edge, the real proof was that it was successful no matter what flavor of Star Wars, and not getting attendees bogged down in “You got Darth Vader in my First Order!” fannish smarm. I also get no say in Disney operations (if I were, we’d be getting Darth Jar Jar and Kylo Boomhauer duel shows three times a day), but If I were, I’d suggest having distinct periods in the year where Galaxy’s Edge was Classic Era to attract Disney power users AND encourage multiple trips per year, the Disney Movie Era all year around, and special events mixing characters from both and testing attendees response for new and upcoming characters. (I still remember the only thrill over seeing the Holiday Special was telling classmates who didn’t watch it about Boba Fett, so you can imagine how Galaxy’s Edge attendees would feel about seeing a new character who turned up as a major backup character or villain in a new movie or series six months later.)
Yeah, it really does feel like the Original Trilogy and eventually the Prequels coming to Galaxy’s Edge feels inevitable and eventually it will be more of just “Star Wars Land” than a specific time and place in the Star Wars universe.
And that, for me, is when things are going to get interesting. Don't get me wrong: I love the idea of the specificity of Galaxy's Edge, and sincerely hope that it'll continue forever. That said, I can see offshoot sections from Galaxy's Edge that allow visitors to choose their own preferred flavor of Star Wars and bounce back and forth between all of the options.
This newsletter never fails to deliver. The Ahsoka Tano Day hangover bit got me good ngl. Been following the Galaxy's Edge updates too and the idea of seasonal era rotations is lowkey genius. My cousin works at Disney and says the opperational logistics of character swaps are wild. Would love to see more deep dives on how the Empire's middle management handles all these transitions.
Thanks for the kind words, always appreciate it. Yeah, I would love to have some behinds the scenes knowledge about how restructuring or adding/changing new characters to parks goes. I just think with the cost of going to Disney these days, you’d want to avoid as much downtime as possible. Like if I was going to Disneyland right now, I’d be extremely pissed the Rise of the Resistance and Oga’s Cantina are going to close. It’s a Small World is not an acceptable substitute for RotR.
I think a lot of the discourse misses who this is actually for. For Gen Alpha, Disney-era Star Wars is Star Wars.
My kid used to call it the “Baby Yoda trilogy,” and honestly that says everything. Taking your child to see Mando and Grogu on the big screen feels like an automatic family cinema night win. Kids already love these characters from home, so the jump to the theater isn’t “a TV show in cinemas,” it’s their favorite heroes becoming huge and mythic.
Also, most parents of Gen Alpha kids just want to take them to something fun and magical. That alone gives this movie incredible traction regardless of what older fans argue about online.
My only real concern is scheduling around massive cultural drops like Dunesday and GTA 6. When something like that hits, it dominates attention for months, so launching a big Star Wars show like Ahsoka in the same window would get unfairly drowned out.
Likewise I don’t see Skeleton Crew 2 happening because the lead actress is going to be the new Slayer (Buffy).
But a straight-up Mandalorian and Grogu movie? For parents and kids together, that feels like a slam dunk.
Spot on. The old and jaded Star Wars fans may have dismissed the Prequels, but they weren’t the target audience. The kids who were 8 years old when The Phantom Menace came out were and they meme’d the Prequels back to respectability. I fully expect in another 5-10 there will be a re-evaluation of the Sequel Trilogy as Gen Alpha takes over. Eventually it will just be Gen X fans like myself complaining to the nursing home aides the all-AI Episodes XIII - XV aren’t real Star Wars.
Not sure if you’re a Star Trek fan as well but there’s a similar thing going on with their fan bases. The older fans don’t seem to like SFA but you can watch it with your kids and they dig it.
I’m not a Star Trek guy but I’ve seen some of the SFA chatter online. I really think it just boils down to once you hit a certain age, whatever is new just doesn’t live up to what you liked when you were in your formative years.
Thanks for going over all those upcoming and potential Star Wars projects. The two I want the most are the Lando series or movie with Donald Glover (I want to see the Battle of Tanab, dang it!) and Rian Johnson's return. I'm still hoping beyond hope. I am also looking forward to the Rey trilogy but I don't want it to be called Episode X-XII. The Skywalkers all passed away and the saga is over.
P.S. Who actually knows that Battle of Tanab reference?
Penn State welcomes your Spartans to planet Hoth, I mean Happy Valley, this weekend. Cold, it will be.
At least they’re doing the outdoor game now instead of waiting until tonight when it would be in single digits. Also, Gavin McKenn should have been a Spartan. Still time for him to get on the team plane back to East Lansing.
“Dawn of the Jedi: When there’s no more room in the Force…”
Seriously, I’ve been paying a lot of attention to Galaxy’s Edge developments over the last five years (Museum Studies major here, and nobody pushes the bleeding edge of the field like Disney). Not only was the switch to the classic characters inevitable, but I suspect it was planned from the beginning. It’s just with something as massive as Galaxy’s Edge, the real proof was that it was successful no matter what flavor of Star Wars, and not getting attendees bogged down in “You got Darth Vader in my First Order!” fannish smarm. I also get no say in Disney operations (if I were, we’d be getting Darth Jar Jar and Kylo Boomhauer duel shows three times a day), but If I were, I’d suggest having distinct periods in the year where Galaxy’s Edge was Classic Era to attract Disney power users AND encourage multiple trips per year, the Disney Movie Era all year around, and special events mixing characters from both and testing attendees response for new and upcoming characters. (I still remember the only thrill over seeing the Holiday Special was telling classmates who didn’t watch it about Boba Fett, so you can imagine how Galaxy’s Edge attendees would feel about seeing a new character who turned up as a major backup character or villain in a new movie or series six months later.)
Yeah, it really does feel like the Original Trilogy and eventually the Prequels coming to Galaxy’s Edge feels inevitable and eventually it will be more of just “Star Wars Land” than a specific time and place in the Star Wars universe.
And that, for me, is when things are going to get interesting. Don't get me wrong: I love the idea of the specificity of Galaxy's Edge, and sincerely hope that it'll continue forever. That said, I can see offshoot sections from Galaxy's Edge that allow visitors to choose their own preferred flavor of Star Wars and bounce back and forth between all of the options.
This newsletter never fails to deliver. The Ahsoka Tano Day hangover bit got me good ngl. Been following the Galaxy's Edge updates too and the idea of seasonal era rotations is lowkey genius. My cousin works at Disney and says the opperational logistics of character swaps are wild. Would love to see more deep dives on how the Empire's middle management handles all these transitions.
Thanks for the kind words, always appreciate it. Yeah, I would love to have some behinds the scenes knowledge about how restructuring or adding/changing new characters to parks goes. I just think with the cost of going to Disney these days, you’d want to avoid as much downtime as possible. Like if I was going to Disneyland right now, I’d be extremely pissed the Rise of the Resistance and Oga’s Cantina are going to close. It’s a Small World is not an acceptable substitute for RotR.
I think a lot of the discourse misses who this is actually for. For Gen Alpha, Disney-era Star Wars is Star Wars.
My kid used to call it the “Baby Yoda trilogy,” and honestly that says everything. Taking your child to see Mando and Grogu on the big screen feels like an automatic family cinema night win. Kids already love these characters from home, so the jump to the theater isn’t “a TV show in cinemas,” it’s their favorite heroes becoming huge and mythic.
Also, most parents of Gen Alpha kids just want to take them to something fun and magical. That alone gives this movie incredible traction regardless of what older fans argue about online.
My only real concern is scheduling around massive cultural drops like Dunesday and GTA 6. When something like that hits, it dominates attention for months, so launching a big Star Wars show like Ahsoka in the same window would get unfairly drowned out.
Likewise I don’t see Skeleton Crew 2 happening because the lead actress is going to be the new Slayer (Buffy).
But a straight-up Mandalorian and Grogu movie? For parents and kids together, that feels like a slam dunk.
Spot on. The old and jaded Star Wars fans may have dismissed the Prequels, but they weren’t the target audience. The kids who were 8 years old when The Phantom Menace came out were and they meme’d the Prequels back to respectability. I fully expect in another 5-10 there will be a re-evaluation of the Sequel Trilogy as Gen Alpha takes over. Eventually it will just be Gen X fans like myself complaining to the nursing home aides the all-AI Episodes XIII - XV aren’t real Star Wars.
Not sure if you’re a Star Trek fan as well but there’s a similar thing going on with their fan bases. The older fans don’t seem to like SFA but you can watch it with your kids and they dig it.
I’m not a Star Trek guy but I’ve seen some of the SFA chatter online. I really think it just boils down to once you hit a certain age, whatever is new just doesn’t live up to what you liked when you were in your formative years.
Thanks for going over all those upcoming and potential Star Wars projects. The two I want the most are the Lando series or movie with Donald Glover (I want to see the Battle of Tanab, dang it!) and Rian Johnson's return. I'm still hoping beyond hope. I am also looking forward to the Rey trilogy but I don't want it to be called Episode X-XII. The Skywalkers all passed away and the saga is over.
P.S. Who actually knows that Battle of Tanab reference?
The masses demand to know what exactly was Lando’s little maneuver at the Battle of Tanab!
Yes! He was made a general after being in the Rebellion for, like, a few months because of that. It has to be extraordinary!
I'm dying to see a Rogue Squadron anything -- tv, movie, animated.. the books are incredible.