Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance opens at Walt Disney World Resort’s Hollywood Studios in Florida on December 5th and Screen Rant spoke to one of the creative minds behind the ambitious attraction and the entire Galaxy’s Edge project.
Jon Georges, executive producer on Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge for both parks at Disneyland and Walt Disney World, oversees the strategic development and conceptual design of the lands and has been a part of Disney for 32 years. “I think now we will finally be able to see the complete experience,” Jon tells us on the delayed debut of Rise of the Resistance, the flagship experience of the Star Wars land that also opens in Disneyland on January 17th.
Now that the final piece of the puzzle exists in Galaxy’s Edge and that the land – known as Black Spire Outpost on planet Batuu – exists within Star Wars canon, what happens next after the saga concludes? There are ships built into the land, and characters like Rey and Kylo who guests will meet along their journey. At the moment, the land takes guests into a point of time into the saga between the events of Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker so what happens when the trilogy ends later this month and more importantly, beyond that?
I asked this question to Jon Georges who describes the actual Galaxy’s Edge land as an active space that can easily evolve for new stories, an important and obvious consideration when developing the park, and that the attractions inside the land bring guests instead to specific points in time.
Star Wars isn’t going anywhere. There are already movies planned for the future beyond The Rise of Skywalker, so do you plan to leave room open for future expansion?
Jon Georges: Always. I think what we did with Black Spire Outpost and the planet Batuu was created an active space story, so we really thought of it as a flexible content platform. We’re coming to Batuu today, so whatever’s happening in the Star Wars world, those characters can appear here today.
When you cross the threshold of one of the one of the two attractions, you’re sort of in a moment in time. Kylo Ren and Hux are there, that sort of sets this attraction at a moment in time. But the land itself is flexible, so you’re just showing up today and anybody could be here. We tried to design that flexibility knowing that this brand is going to go on for another 42 years plus. That was the goal when we set out to do this.
Regardless of what happens in The Rise of Skywalker guests will always go back to a point in time before that when experiencing Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, however when roaming Galaxy’s Edge, that may move forward in the timeline. It must to stay relevant long-term. It’s for this reason that Smuggler’s Run can have no experiences added to it as well.
It sure makes one wonder though if the Disney Parks investment in the powerful brand puts a requirement on future Star Wars movies or television programming to keep pushing forward inch by inch on the timeline after Episode 9 in order to keep the parks – or specicially, the new planet Batuu – immersive and relevant to what Lucasfilm is working on in the future. That Millennium Falcon can’t ever leave Galaxy’s Edge, right?
Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance opens Dec. 5, 2019, at Disney’s Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, and at Disneyland Park in California on Jan. 17, 2020.
