Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge

• 1. Introduction

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  Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge asks a strange question before guests even reach the gate: what does blue milk taste like? Walt Disney Imagineering's senior creative leader Scott Trowbridge posed exactly that question while describing his goal for the project. He said the team wanted visitors to feel like they had walked straight into one of the films. The result covers 14 acres at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, and at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Orlando, Florida. Both versions are set in the village of Black Spire Outpost on the frontier planet of Batuu. Getting there took years of shifting plans, changed leadership decisions, and choices that reshaped both parks around it. Why did Imagineers abandon early designs built around the planets Tatooine and Endor? What convinced Disney to invent an entirely new world rather than use one already familiar to fans? And how did a single theme park project end up altering everything from Disneyland's horse stables to its nightly fireworks shows?

• 2. The Road to Batuu

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  In the early 2010s, Walt Disney Imagineering drew up plans for a Star Wars land at Hollywood Studios. It was built around Tatooine and Endor, settings from the original trilogy. The design would have taken over the park's Echo Lake area. It would have replaced the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular and Sounds Dangerous attractions, while folding in the existing Star Tours - The Adventures Continue.

  In 2014, chief executive Bob Iger slowed all of that development, choosing to wait for the sequel trilogy before moving forward. "I slowed it all down so what we come forward with will have a blend of the past, present, and maybe the future," he explained. The public announcement came on the 15th of August 2015, when Iger unveiled the still-unnamed land at the D23 Expo. He described the land as a place "occupied by many inhabitants: humanoids, aliens, and droids." He added that "nothing will be out of character or stray from the mythology." Bob Chapek, then chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, described it differently. He called it "a gateway planet located on the outer rim, full of places and characters familiar and not so familiar."

  Construction on both coasts began on the 14th of April 2016, following Iger's announcement the previous month that work would start in April. By February 2017, Iger stated publicly that both lands were on track to open sometime in 2019. The project finally got its name in July 2017. At that year's D23 Expo, Chapek revealed the land would be called Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge. He also announced that the Disneyland version would open first.

  Scott Trowbridge disclosed in November 2017 that the fictional planet's name had already appeared in the 2018 novel Star Wars: Thrawn: Alliances. By May 2018 he traced the outpost's name to a brief mention in the 2018 film Solo: A Star Wars Story. That same month, Disney confirmed the Disneyland version would open in summer 2019. The Hollywood Studios version was set to follow in late fall. Iger locked in exact opening dates on the 7th of March 2019.

  Disneyland held its dedication ceremony on the 29th of May 2019. Iger attended, alongside Star Wars creator George Lucas and actors Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Billy Dee Williams. Two days later, on the 31st of May, the land opened to the public. Demand ran so high that Disney added a virtual queuing system on the 24th of June. Disney's Hollywood Studios opened its version on the 29th of August 2019. None of it would have taken shape without a small creative team who spent months deciding exactly what kind of planet Batuu should be.

• 3. Designing a New World

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  Walt Disney Imagineering designed Galaxy's Edge with the Lucasfilm Story Group, led by Scott Trowbridge. Asa Kalama and Chris Beatty served as executive creative directors. Structural engineer Bryshere Casiano worked alongside Lucasfilm's Pablo Hidalgo and Industrial Light & Magic designer Doug Chiang, who both served as consultants. Rather than reuse a familiar world like Tatooine or Hoth, the team chose to invent a brand new planet in the Outer Rim's Unknown Regions. Existing locations, they reasoned, already carried too much familiarity for guests. As Trowbridge put it, "We wanted to build new Star Wars stories, new Star Wars destinations."

  Trowbridge described the fictional history he imagined for the planet: "This used to be a vibrant trading port back in the old sub-lightspeed days, but now with advent of hyperspace, its prominence has kind of fallen and faded a little bit which has made it a great spot for those who didn't want to be on that kind of mainstream path. The smugglers, the bounty hunters, the rogue adventurers looking to crew up, the people who don't want to be found - basically all the interesting people."

  Real-world travel shaped much of that look. The design team visited Istanbul, Morocco, Jerusalem, and Egypt to study the architecture, culture, and weather of each place. They also drew on Ralph McQuarrie's concept art for the original Star Wars trilogy as a reference point for color and style. The land's 135-foot-tall spires, meant to resemble the petrified remains of an ancient forest, were modeled on Arizona's Petrified Forest National Park.

  WDI, Walt Disney Imagineering's in-house team, used virtual reality software to test sightlines, deciding where forced perspective could hide each park's show buildings from view. Signage throughout the land appears in the fictional Aurebesh language instead of English. Designers also left out attraction marquees and Star Wars branded merchandise to preserve the illusion. Disneyland faces east to west, while Hollywood Studios faces north to south. The two lands receive different amounts of sunlight through the year, so each was painted with its own distinct color palette. When both versions first opened, guests found only one working ride waiting behind all that theming: Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run.

• 4. Inside Black Spire Outpost

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  Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run lets guests fly the famous ship on a customized secret mission, the only ride available when both lands first opened. Rise of the Resistance followed later: a 28-minute experience built around a battle between the First Order and the Resistance. More than 300 animated figures fill the ride. It sits inside one of the largest show buildings Disney has ever built for a dark ride. It opened at Disney's Hollywood Studios on the 5th of December 2019, and at Disneyland on the 17th of January 2020. Both dates came months after each land itself had already opened.

  Film actors reprised their roles for Rise of the Resistance. Daisy Ridley returned as Rey, Oscar Isaac as Poe Dameron, John Boyega as Finn, and Adam Driver as Kylo Ren. Domhnall Gleeson voiced General Hux again, and Kipsang Rotich returned as the voice of Nien Nunb. Frank Oz also returned as the voice of Yoda for a brief cameo inside Savi's Workshop.

  Oga's Cantina became the first location in Disneyland Park to sell alcoholic drinks to the public. Paul Reubens returned to voice its house DJ, R-3X, a droid who first appeared as RX-24, or Captain Rex, in the original Star Tours attraction. Nearby, a Toydarian runs a toy stall in the Black Spire Outpost marketplace. That alien species first appeared on Tatooine in Episode I - The Phantom Menace.

  Colin Trevorrow designed the land's TIE Echelon during his time working on Episode IX, before he was replaced as that film's director. The Coca-Cola Company supplied Star Wars themed versions of Coca-Cola, Sprite, Diet Coke, Dasani, Powerade, and Minute Maid for guests to drink throughout the land. None of those props explain exactly when in the Star Wars timeline Black Spire Outpost is supposed to sit.

• 5. A Story Without Borders

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  The main story of Galaxy's Edge unfolds between the films Episode VIII - The Last Jedi and Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker. It places guests amid a standoff between the First Order and the Resistance. Despite that fixed window, guests can also meet characters from other eras, including The Mandalorian and Grogu. Lucasfilm's Matt Martin explained that these characters are "visiting Batuu in the time that you know them from the series, or somewhere close to it." He added that Imagineering "has a pretty good way of ensuring that those characters don't intrude on each other."

  On the 29th of April 2026, Disneyland's version of the land expanded its timeline to include the original trilogy era. New appearances by Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia joined a roster that already included Ahsoka Tano and R2-D2. Rey still appears near the Rise of the Resistance attraction, representing the sequel era. Imagineer Asa Kalama explained the flexibility was intentional: "That's part of the reason we designed this sort of neutral, Wild West sort of space town, because it allowed it to be a framework under which we could project different stories." That same flexible framework would soon carry a different kind of layering: the music drifting through the streets.

• 6. The Sound of Batuu

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  John Williams, the composer behind every mainline Star Wars score, returned to write the main musical theme for Galaxy's Edge. Rather than play as a traditional symphonic score, his theme is broken apart and woven through the land as ambient music. William Ross conducted the symphonic recording on Williams' behalf with the London Symphony Orchestra, arranging the material for its many different uses across the land.

  Ross and the orchestra recorded nearly an hour of music at Abbey Road Studios in November 2018. Walt Disney Records released a five-minute symphonic suite digitally on the 3rd of May 2019. It was first performed in full at Star Wars Celebration Chicago later that year. Alongside Williams' score, the production team commissioned 29 original songs to serve as ambient music throughout the land.

  On the 6th of September 2019, Walt Disney Records released Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge Oga's Cantina: R-3X's Playlist #1. The album collects eighteen tracks of music heard inside the cantina. That music was first played publicly at Star Wars Celebration Chicago 2019. Williams later won the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition for the Galaxy's Edge Symphonic Suite. Beginning in late April 2026, Disneyland started playing Williams' original film scores throughout the land as well, including the Cantina Band tune inside Oga's Cantina. Fitting all of that sound design into two existing theme parks meant reworking land Disney had used for decades.

• 7. Two Parks, One Frontier

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  At Disneyland, Galaxy's Edge sits in the park's northwest corner, reachable through three entrances from Frontierland, Bayou Country, and Fantasyland. Making room for it meant closing Big Thunder Ranch for good on the 11th of January 2016, along with its event space, barbecue restaurant, and petting zoo. Disney also purchased nearby properties to relocate the offices and warehouse space that had occupied the land.

  Circle D Ranch, the park's horse training facility, was one of the backstage areas lost to construction. Disney replaced it by buying and renovating an existing ranch in Norco, California, which opened in June 2017. Since then, Disneyland's horses have traveled to the park in trailers, working in groups of four. Each group spends three or four days in the park before returning to Norco to rest.

  Tom Sawyer Island reopened on the 16th of June 2017, and Fantasmic! returned on the 17th of July. The Disneyland Railroad, Mark Twain Riverboat, Sailing Ship Columbia, and Davy Crockett's Explorer Canoes reopened on the 29th of July. That cleared the way for construction on Galaxy's Edge to continue undisturbed.

  Walt Disney Imagineering tested roaming BD-X droids in Galaxy's Edge in October 2023. The droids then began daily appearances during the 2024 Season of the Force event at Disneyland. That event ran from the 5th of April through the 2nd of June. That same event introduced a nighttime show called Fire of the Rising Moons, set to John Williams' film scores for the park's fireworks. The show remained in the land afterward. For 2025, Disneyland added a nighttime projection show called Shadows of Memory: A Skywalker Saga, debuting on the 28th of March. A limited-run show called The Curious Child, featuring Grogu, followed in May 2026.

  At Disney's Hollywood Studios, Galaxy's Edge occupies the southwest portion of the park, entered from Grand Avenue and Toy Story Land. It replaced most of the former Streets of America area. Disney closed the Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: Movie Set Adventure on the 2nd of April 2016. The surrounding backlot facades, restaurants, and shops closed along with them. The surviving section of Streets of America, home to Muppet*Vision 3D, was rethemed into a Los Angeles street called Grand Avenue. An earthen berm with a Figueroa Street themed tunnel now separates and connects Grand Avenue to Galaxy's Edge.

  The Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser hotel opened alongside Hollywood Studios' Galaxy's Edge and operated between the 1st of March 2022 and the 30th of September 2023. In July 2025, Disney announced that BD-X droids would appear in the Hollywood Studios land from the 16th of July through the 30th of August. All of that construction, on both coasts, would soon be measured against a much simpler question: how many guests actually came through the gates.

• 8. Reception and New Frontiers

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  Time magazine named the Disneyland version of Galaxy's Edge one of its "World's Greatest Places" for 2019. Disney initially required a reservation just to enter the newly opened land, part of a broader push called Project Stardust meant to increase Disneyland's capacity. That reservation requirement drew heavy crowds away from the rest of the park at first, before attendance fell off once the reservation period ended.

  That attendance drop proved significant enough that Catherine Powell, who oversaw Disney's U.S. themed areas, resigned from her role. Crowds picked back up once Disney's Hollywood Studios opened its own version of the land, and again once Rise of the Resistance opened at both parks. The Hollywood Reporter later observed that the Star Wars sequel films were commercially successful. Still, the outlet wrote, they "haven't had the same cultural resonance as the characters from George Lucas' original trilogy."

  That same publication described Disneyland's 2026 expansion into the original trilogy era as Disney's second "pivot" on a Star Wars theme park project. Galaxy's Edge has also spread well beyond the parks themselves. That same outpost gets a brief mention in Solo: A Star Wars Story, when the droid L3-37 tells Lando Calrissian she holds the only navigational database that can get them there. Marvel Comics published a five-issue miniseries starting in April 2019, written by Ethan Sacks with art by Will Sliney. Del Rey released Delilah S. Dawson's tie-in novel Black Spire that September, following a spy General Leia Organa sends to Batuu to search for Resistance allies. Zoraida Cordova's young-adult novel A Crash of Fate and George Mann's story collection Star Wars: Myths and Fables, illustrated by Grant Griffin, added further tie-in fiction. A two-hour television special, Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge: Adventure Awaits, aired on the 29th of September 2019. Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures set four episodes on Batuu: "The Tale of the Short Spire," "Caves of Batuu," "Lys' Lost Lightsaber," and "Batuu Bonanza."

  Guests who want to keep exploring Batuu without a plane ticket can strap into Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy's Edge instead. That virtual reality experience runs on Oculus and PlayStation VR2 platforms.