...should be teeming with characters we're familiar with like Darth Vader, C-3PO, Chewbacca, Luke, Han, Leia, Boba Fett etc.
I just can't stand seeing all this sequel stuff...it's total trash.
Batuu was teeming with characters every time I've visited, but not Luke, Han, and Leia. There are stormtroopers and Rey and Chewy. Darth Vader does make an appearance but last time I checked his standard meet-and-greet location was Tomorrowland.
So you've circled your waggons around the OT and everything non-OT is total trash. Therefore Galaxy's Edge would be total trash unless it was based around the OT. Fine, there are many fans who aren't crazy about the sequels. I'm one of them actually, an original 1977 fan (I was 20) and none of the sequels have really captured the magic for me.
But I don't hold that against Galaxy's Edge. GE isn't about the OT and I don't expect things to be what they're not.
When I judge GE on its own terms it's amazing. The land itself is more immersive than any of the old lands, I think. The "sets" there have little animated touches here and there, so many cool little details everywhere you look. Imagine if New Orleans Square or Main Street had that level of detail, I'm not talking static buildings but things that feel like living movie sets.
My one aesthetic quibble is that they painted the Falcon and the surrounding mountains nearly the same colour, so that everything looks to be moulded out of the same stuff. A shade lighter on the Falcon, a shade darker on the mountains, so visually you know that the Falcon is a separate thing which is temporarily sitting in that environment, and not part of the mountains.
Actually as a Disneyland employee many of us were dumbfounded when we found out that GE was going to be crammed in a sliver of backlot between the back of Frontierland and West Street. "Property's Edge" we called it.
If you take a look at a map of Disneyland you'll see what we saw, that there would be more room for the future Star Wars land if they bulldozed Tomorrowland from just past Star Tours all the way back to Small World. Lose the submarines? Sure, they've been shut down for years and nobody cared. Lose Buzz Lightyear? That ride doesn't theme in anyway, it belongs at DCA with Pixar Pier.
A longtime dream of Disney has been to open more "gates" in Anaheim. They finally opened a 2nd gate with DCA. There's been talk of opening a water park for ages.
Many of us assumed that Star Wars Land would be a standalone park, a 3rd gate, across Harbor Blvd in the former strawberry field, where the proposed water park was supposed to be. Then there would be room for everything they could ever want to do, original trilogy stuff and Mandalorian stuff and Rey stuff.
But no, they squeezed it in where there's no room for future expansion.
