INSIDE THE FAILURE OF STAR WARS GALAXY'S EDGE | Film Threat Versus

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:04]Inside Star Wars Galaxy Galaxies Edge failure. Speaking of it, you probably saw this promo.

[00:00:12]Is it is it fat Han Solo? Uh, you've got to see this.

[00:00:16]>> [laughter] >> I'm not going to play the music, but this is your Leia.

[00:00:23]Oh, oh, no. No.

[00:00:25]>> like some people are really overreacting about this. She's [ __ ] not ugly.

[00:00:28]Yeah, she's wearing too much makeup and that's not the best hairstyle, but her outfits from the expanded universe and my god, at least they're adding original trilogy characters. It's a tacit admission that they were [ __ ] stupid.

[00:00:39]Oh, yes.

[00:00:41]It is an admission that they did everything wrong when it came to Galaxy's Edge. Look, she's not as bad as the Han Solo guy at Disneyland. As someone who's gone to Disneyland for like well over 25 years, um, the the face characters never look like the originals. I mean, that's just the way it is. It's a hard Yeah, I didn't have a problem with how she looked. Honestly, I laughed because I was like, look at that. Look at that desperation.

[00:01:04]They need some they need to go back to the original trilogy. That's what they should have done from the start. And they're they're admitting it here.

[00:01:11]Finally, they're bringing in the original trilogy characters to Galaxy's Edge. When they they took they took them out, too. Like there was a big show done at Was it at Tomorrowland or something like that? There was a huge Star Wars show that had original trilogy characters, sequel trilogy characters and they they took it out. They were like, nah, we're done. We're done. We have we have our Star Wars sequel trilogy now, so we can focus on that. I laughed. I don't care how she looks. I think she looks great. Honestly, like she's Leia. She's never going to look like Carrie Fisher. Um, the Han Solo, the guy that's doing Han Solo as well, he's not going to look, um, like what's it Harrison Ford? Yeah.

[00:01:50]>> Yeah, he's not going to look like Han.

[00:01:51]He's not they're not going to look like Leia, but they're just just the fact that they're bringing these characters to Galaxy's Edge after all this time. To me, I just laughed at it because I'm like they're admitting failure. Like they failed when it came to to Star Wars Galaxy's Edge. Well, let's get it from the source.

[00:02:07]Uh, read this if you would, Badger. I'll zoom in and then there's a comment that I want to make sure we get. Disney spent 1 billion in 2019 building a Star Wars theme park where you were not allowed to meet Luke, Leia, Han, or Darth Vader.

[00:02:22]Galaxy's Edge at Disneyland was set on Batu, a backwater planet in a narrow window between The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker. By that timeline, I believe he talks about how like all the original characters were gone. Mhm. Uh, and yeah.

[00:02:38]Well, here's what uh, wait, no. Sorry.

[00:02:42]Yeah, it's us.

[00:02:43]Yeah, it is us. But this is from someone uh, Peachy Keenan. You need it's a little long, but you need to read this.

[00:02:51]She was there. She worked on the Star Wars land. Does anyone call it Galaxy's Edge? I call it Star Wars land. I think most people call it Galaxy's Edge, I think.

[00:03:02]Yeah, but it's Star Wars land. What what, you know, that's the name to me.

[00:03:07]But whatever. Uh, Badger, if you would, this goes into detail.

[00:03:11]I was at Disney when the land launched.

[00:03:14]In fact, I personally wrote a lot of the copy for the Star Wars land rides and Star Wars hotel in the marketing materials and for the website. When I say there was crushing disappointment, almost a feeling of betrayal that the whole thing was on the new IP and not the original IP, I am not exaggerating. Disney made the decision to invest this money in order to support the new trilogy, which they thought would erase the old one in the minds of fans. The level of hubris around this is one of the business industry history books. Yeah, one for the history books.

[00:03:47]Bob Chapek, who was head of parks at the time, since fired in disgrace, was in charge of green-lighting all creatives in Star Wars land. He killed things like a life-size bantha ride where guests would ride around the land on top of a bantha. He killed the live show at the cantina and most importantly, he gave the land its own lame subplot where you could use or your phone to scan kiosks and get some code messages deciphered so you were part of the resistance, but it had no payoff. But pause there, right?

[00:04:18]Pause pause there, Badger.

[00:04:20]I played that stupid game. I don't want to be on my phone while I'm at a theme park. It was embarrassing. There was no payoff to it. You just went around and scanned things. You collected this. You collected that. That's a secret like and it leads to what exactly? It led to nothing. Anyways, please continue. Was that at both cuz there's a Galaxy's Edge in Orlando as well, right? It's definitely Disneyland. There there were perks. I remember doing it. Some of the things didn't work. So you couldn't If you're one of these people completionists, you there's no way you can complete it. But there were things you could do like you could launch like sound effects in front of the Millennium Falcon, which made it sound like tie fighters are flying overhead and bombing you. You could activate robots with it.

[00:05:07]Um, but that was about as far as you can go with it. Well, I'll I'll just say >> if that was at the Orlando park cuz I've been to Galaxy's Edge in Orlando and I don't even remember that. You download an app to play the game. It was the Disneyland app that you used.

[00:05:19]>> When this was first announced, I I assumed it would be like the Harry Potter land at Universal. The one in Florida is much better, but it's so simple. You've got a wand. If you know where to go, the wand does little tricks.

[00:05:35]It's it's real you know, that motivates buying a wand. It's it's the music is playing everywhere. Even the smells.

[00:05:42]Even when you go to the bathroom, who's in there moaning what's her name moaning Moaning Myrtle. Moaning Myrtle is also >> There were shops in the movie that were in there. So you had a familiarity.

[00:05:55]Right.

[00:05:55]>> You wanted to go to green gods. You wanted to go to the other stores.

[00:05:58]Yeah. Yeah.

[00:06:00]Anyways, if you could continue, I'm sorry. Yeah, I see and I see chat saying it. Yeah, I distinctly remember Kathleen Kennedy being the one that they were saying like, why would we focus on the old stuff? They already got those fans.

[00:06:09]We need to focus on our properties cuz that's the future. But I'm sure Chapek was also Yeah. Okay, so then reality struck. They made a trilogy that destroyed the OG characters. They elevated an insufferably annoying Mary Sue girl boss, added a pathetic loser son of Han, a divorced Leia and Han, a disillusioned and bitter Luke, and then killed Luke, Han, and Leia. Wait a second. Let that sink in for a second. And guess who's saying this?

[00:06:38]A woman is saying this and she acknowledges this. Again, second time today. Someone pointing out things we have been saying a long time.

[00:06:53]But she was there when it happened.

[00:06:54]Sorry to keep interrupting, Badger. It's fine. Results. JJ Abrams' career was finished as a filmmaker. Rian Johnson was wrecked. Kathleen Kennedy is finally out as head of Lucas. Chapek out. Disney movies are garbage. The greatest entertainment IP ever created was lit on fire to appease the egos of the geniuses who bought it and they and thought they could outdo the original genius. And now it's too late. No one cares that Darth will be walking around again to John Williams' score. The new Leia face character looks like Brenda from HR. By the way, Tomorrowland already had storm troopers, the original ones, not the fat ones, Jedis and Darth in a wonderful live show for years. My kids all took part in lightsaber battles against Darth Vader many times. It was hilarious and thrilling. Killed in favor of the new slop. Absolutely over. Yeah, that show was great. It had a bunch of Star Wars characters. That show was great. And even when the new even when the when Rey like even Rey came out in that show. She was featured in that show when the when the first movie came out.

[00:08:01]So she was even there. But that show was amazing. I loved that show.

[00:08:05]And I didn't know about this, but Peachy Keenan, which is which is a long way of saying that yes, Kathleen Kennedy made the cut for my upcoming book Supervillains, Architects of America's Decline.

[00:08:20]Oh, wow.

[00:08:22]I >> Again, something we've been saying for years that they systematically killed all of our established heroes because can't have that. Nope.

[00:08:31]Wow, I'll get that book. That looks great. What do we think about all this?

[00:08:36]And I should I'm going to bring up some photos of the Han and I think actually of all of them, the guy who plays Luke looks the worst.

[00:08:44]But what do you guys think? Luke has been there for a little while. Right.

[00:08:48]But I Honestly, like you you could see the failure of Star Wars Galaxy's Edge. I've been to the one in Florida and you can't like it's so out of the way Yeah. that I had to ask for directions.

[00:09:01]Like, am I going the right way to get to Galaxy's Edge? Like I couldn't find it.

[00:09:05]And when you're when you finally get there, the only reason that you know that you are in Galaxy's Edge is because of the Millennium Falcon.

[00:09:13]You know, because of the ships. Like that's it. That's the only reason. You don't recognize the music. Um, you don't see a lot of characters out unless like they have to be out and about while you're while you're walking around. So it's the only reason is because of the ships that you see.

[00:09:28]That's the only reason that you know that you're in Star Wars land. I went into one of the I can't remember what that bar was called, but I went into that bar, which I think it's no longer there. So then I don't even remember.

[00:09:37]But but this it just looks like a generic sci-fi set. It doesn't look or feel like Star Wars at all. At all. And so knowing now that they absolutely can are saying that yeah, it's a failure. We're going back. We're bringing back all of the Star Wars character all of the Star Wars characters that you know were finally going to be playing the music that you know because if you compare Galaxy's Edge to Harry Potter, you know that when you go walk into um uh um oh my gosh, when you walk into um oh my god, why am I thinking Diagon Alley?

[00:10:14]When you walk into Diagon Alley, you know that you're in Diagon Alley. You walk straight onto the movie set. Their stores are the same. Everything is the same. Um and you see Gringotts like right in front of you. It's amazing. You really know and you're immersed in Star Wars or I'm sorry, in Harry Potter. You want just it's just like you said like you see people wandering around using their wands doing all of these things.

[00:10:36]It's incredibly immersive. You want to be there. You don't want to leave. You don't want to leave. You want to be there because you're just around everything that you know from the movies. When you go to Galaxy's Edge, there's like that ship right there and then there's another ship like a little bit farther away. Like you're just like okay, this is nice and then you leave.

[00:10:55]You don't want to stay there. There's really no reason to stay. You know what's funny that I can get my picture in front of the Millennium Falcon and bounce because there's nothing there.

[00:11:05]Yeah, it's funny last year when my daughter and I went to Walt Disney World, we the only ride we've never done in Galaxy's Edge was Rise of the Resistance and so we decided to do it there.

[00:11:14]You walk to it the to Galaxy's Edge.

[00:11:17]You go like 20 ft and there's the entrance to Rise of the Resistance. We rode it and then walked out. We we we walked 20 ft into Galaxy's Edge. Uh and that's as far as we got at Walt Disney World. That's how much we didn't care about it. I don't have a problem with this on Solo. He's no Gaston. But look at this Chewie outfit. It looks like a Temu special.

[00:11:40]Like it that Chewie costume looks bad. And here's here's a look I found Luke.

[00:11:48]Here's a look at the guy who plays Luke.

[00:11:50]I I I don't know. This is not Is that a chick?

[00:11:56]Not great. Mark Hamill always looks so manly.

[00:11:59]>> [laughter] >> I'm like wait.

[00:12:00]Yeah.

[00:12:02]There's Luke. I I swear I thought that was a lesbian. Now, is there a thing where they're slightly off model so they don't get in in trouble?

[00:12:12]I don't think you know, if if you looked like Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, or Carrie Fisher, would you be working at Disneyland?

[00:12:19]I know.

[00:12:20]I mean, you know, you you get what is available to you and this is what was available. Hey Alan, I've seen hot chicks working at In-N-Out dude. So I mean, you're you're attractive. But you get treated better at Disneyland really matter. You get treated better at In-N-Out than you do at Disneyland. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure.

[00:12:35]Yeah.

[00:12:37]Wait, and remind me of this. Do you have to pay extra for that part of the park? No. No, it's not extra.

[00:12:45]No, they stopped doing that But almost everything is an upcharge.

[00:12:50]Everything that you do. And it's like an outdoor shopping mall.

[00:12:56]You know Dante, what it was was you had to schedule time to go to the park.

[00:13:00]So you you couldn't just show up and walk through it. You had to be there in a certain window. Wait, you had to make a reservation to go to the park that part wow. Well, when it first opened definitely.

[00:13:11]And remember didn't they have they had a Star Wars hotel as well? Yeah. That opened and closed like in a year.

[00:13:19]Yeah, one year >> it opened it was it was open for like a year before they announced it's it it being closed? Yeah, we've already forgotten about it.

[00:13:27]>> [laughter] >> Well, here is I wrote an article on Film Threat five ways to fix Star Wars Galaxy's Edge.

[00:13:36]So just simple things like how about serve alcohol?

[00:13:42]It's only the one bar where you get alcohol and your time in there is timed.

[00:13:47]You go to a assigned seat. You're sitting with other people that aren't part of your party very awkwardly ordering drinks and you can get two. It was weird. Guess what? That's not a problem anymore.

[00:14:02]Uh it's not? No, cuz no one's going to this. No one's going.

[00:14:06]>> [laughter] >> Uh I don't know like have some parades.

[00:14:09]Where are some aliens, droids, smugglers?

[00:14:12]Uh maybe they fixed that part. Um and then just I don't know. Some activities that do not require additional fees.

[00:14:21]So I really like this article.

[00:14:24]Yeah. Oh, that's the only thing that I really loved about it was the Coke bottles. The shape of the Coke bottles.

[00:14:30]That's the only thing that I really liked about Galaxy's [clears throat] Edge. I can share my screen real quick, Chris? Sure, of course.

[00:14:36]>> Just cuz it has all of them together. I feel like people are I get it. Disney sucks. They [ __ ] up. These costumes are fine. They're just as good as any fan cosplay. Any other character just like he did in Mandalorian season 2.

[00:14:48]Hot the Han Solo's literally wearing the Return of the Jedi outfit and she's wearing an expanded universe flight jumpsuit with the same vest and [ __ ] she wears.

[00:14:57]So it's like say what you want about the actors playing them. The costumes are fine. Yeah.

[00:15:03]What I wish they would do is they bring the new droid in from Spaceballs too.

[00:15:08]Yeah, the box.

[00:15:10]Yeah, that would be great.

[00:15:12]That was um so we saw uh a a little tease of Spaceballs the new one and they showed us there's like a droid that's like BB-8 but it's a box. It's a rolling box.

[00:15:30]It's I can't wait. The trailer that has come out isn't what we saw or isn't like It's yeah. isn't what's on YouTube right now. What we saw was just Mel Brooks but there was actual footage from the film.

[00:15:41]>> There was actual footage from the movie.

[00:15:43]>> I I I just still can't get over the biggest franchise in the world being completely non-profitable at this point.

[00:15:49]Yeah. Like my mind can't even wrap around I can't even wrap my head around that.

[00:15:54]It's and they did it to themselves.

[00:15:56]That's like that's like if I if I if I handed you a bag of gold bars and you just threw it into the ocean, right?

[00:16:00]Like that that that's what it it feels like.

[00:16:03]Well, think of it this way. The the the first movie, Force Awakens, it made a billion dollars and no one knew what the movie was about.

[00:16:11]They didn't know what it was about. I know. But but that's how much money if they had made a good movie uh it would have been more than three movies that would have made a billion dollars.

[00:16:25]>> [music] [music]