I want to say something else about
[my initial review of Galaxy's Edge]. It's very, very cool that a lot of Galaxy's Edge feels like it's from Star Wars while being a totally new place.
There are some familiar things like specific ships, droids, lightsabers. But there's some new variations on things too.
What I'm saying is: this isn't Tatooine, Hoth, Takodana, Coruscant, Canto Bight, Dantooine, or Endor. It's Batuu. A planet made to be in the universe without being a place we've seen before.
I want to see more of this in Disney Parks.
I think this is a great step forward for film studios to enter theme parks. It doesn't feel like you just plopped them in, it feels like this was considered its own thing as much as a film. It's its own thing, not a replica. This is what all theme park things should be.
Hogsmeade and Hogwarts is cool. Diagon Alley is cool. But what they made was somewhat limited to what we've already seen.
And it created some weird situations like how Ollivander's is in Hogsmeade even though it should be in Diagon Alley. We shrug it off, but this is important.
They wrote it off as being a "branch" of Ollivanders, despite being incredibly similar to the true Diagon Alley location. And because it was made more as a replica, its experience was very limited. One person was chosen in a group of 20. It allows only one person to feel special.
Contrast this with Savi's Handbuilt Lightsabers in Galaxy's Edge. Instead of mimicking the creation of a lightsaber from a film or TV show, they created a *new* experience that felt like it could belong in the universe without being limited by recreating what we've already seen.
So this time, a group of 14 can all build lightsabers together. Everyone gets the opportunity to feel special in an environment that feels like Star Wars without being specifically a "Jedi" or "Sith" experience. It feels made for a theme park.
When you walk into Hogwarts, you don't really get to see a side of Hogwarts you've never seen before. You are taken through classic scenes they've already created as movie sets. They copied what they already had. When guests experience it, they mentally confirm similarities.
But when you walk around Galaxy's Edge, you are confirming *feelings* instead. It *feels* like Star Wars. They took the same care in creating the area that they did in creating a movie. That feels superior to me.
Another place I've seen this done extremely well is the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, Japan. Studio Ghibli didn't make a traditional art museum showcasing the work, nor did they create replicas of environments from their films. Instead, they built a *new* place with the same care.
For future theme park environments and attractions, I want to see the trend move away from literal recreations of places and stories from a movie. I want to see film-inspired theme park areas created with the same care that goes into creating those feature films.
Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade are places I've already seen. In the Fantastic Beasts series, I've seen a lot more from that universe.
If the concept of the Wizarding World is that it coexists with our "Muggle" world, don't take me to Hogwarts. Take me to the Wizarding World.
Let me give a silly example: what does the "real" Wizarding World look like in Florida? Like, in this fictional world, what does Orlando itself look like on the other side. Show me what the American, Florida-version of the Wizarding World looks like.
That is so much more interesting to me. Show me a side of it I've never seen. What does a wand shop look like in the American Wizarding World? What does a witch and wizard school look like? Invent some new characters. Bring some classic ones in too, but show me something new.
Films, TV shows, books, and video games shouldn't be the only excuses we have to visit new worlds. We can create wildly new, but real ones too. Other properties deserve this treatment, not just Star Wars. Show me new Marvel places. Show me new Pixar places.
Get a group together at Pixar to create a totally new place that only Pixar could create. A place that doesn't exist in a film, but only in a theme park, created by Pixar. I want to see what those those people make as a totally new theme-park-first property.
I want to visit an all-new place that lives and breathes just like Pixar films do. That tug at our emotions just like Pixar classically does. But a totally new place with totally new characters. I want to see these studios build places. They're already good at it. Let them do it.
