Disney 2025: Nailed it.

I recently suggested that Disneyland's Smugglers Run ride could do with some kind of an update to compensate for its apparent declining popularity. To my mild surprise, it turns out that Disney agrees with me. 

Equally surprisingly, my suggestion to add the opportunity to participate in the Battle of Yavin was almost right, although not in the same way I intended.  

The updated version of Smugglers Run will be based on the upcoming The Mandalorian and Grogu movie - both the movie and the new Millennium Falcon mission will make their debut on May 22, 2026, as per Disney's March 8th announcement at the South by Southwest conference held in Austin, Texas.

The Falcon's new adventure will take its crew to a variety of classic Star Wars locations:  Cloud City, Tatooine, and the shattered wreckage of the second Death Star, drifting in orbit around the forest moon of Endor - not exactly Yavin 4, but close.

Without knowing the full details as to the extent of the changes, I'd recommend that Disney do a few physical upgrades to the cockpit of the Falcon while they're at it.  One of the ride's shortcomings is that four of the riders literally take a back seat to the pilot views - the addition of some kind of view screen at the gunner and engineer stations would enormously enhance the non-pilot experience.  And, what the heck - let's drop a little Baby Yoda up at the front, just to distract the pilots.

- Sid

Disney 2025: Main Street, Mars.

"For those of us who remember the carefree time it recreates, Main Street will bring back happy memories. For younger visitors, it is an adventure in turning back the calendar to the days of their grandfather's youth."

Walt Disney

Around the rocket in four directions spread the little town, green and motionless in the Martian spring. There were white houses and red brick ones, and tall elm trees blowing in the wind, and tall maples and horse chestnuts. And church steeples with golden bells silent in them.

Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles

Disneyland's Main Street and its idealized Americana always disturbs me a little bit. When Walt Disney was originally designing the park in the early 1950s, he was inspired by his childhood home near Marceline in Missouri, as well as Disney set designer and artist Harper Goff's Colorado hometown of Fort Collins.

However, 70 years after the park's opening in 1955, Main Street's anachronistic turn of the millennium facade doesn't necessarily evoke a carefree time in the same way.  

Part of my disquiet is because it reminds me of April 2000: THE THIRD EXPEDITION*, one of the stories in Ray Bradbury's magnum opus, The Martian Chronicles.  The Third Expedition to Mars successfully lands on the Red Planet, only to discover that the nearby community is a perfect evocation of early 20th Century America, an impossible dream composed of wind-up phonographs, ice-cold lemonade, porch swings, fresh-mown grass and white picket fences, inhabited by the crew's beloved long lost relatives and childhood friends. Astonished and overjoyed, the crew abandons their ship to celebrate with their families and friends. 

Later, lying in bed in the room he shares with his brother in his parent's house, the ship's captain begins to suspect that something is horribly, horribly wrong:

And here we all are tonight, in various houses, in various beds, with no weapons to protect us, and the rocket lies in the moonlight, empty. And wouldn’t it be horrible and terrifying to discover that all of this was part of some great clever plan by the Martians to divide and conquer us, and kill us? Sometime during the night, perhaps, my brother here on this bed will change form, melt, shift, and become another thing, a terrible thing, a Martian. It would be very simple for him just to turn over in bed and put a knife into my heart. And in all those other houses down the street, a dozen other brothers or fathers suddenly melting away and taking knives and doing things to the unsuspecting, sleeping men of Earth ...

His hands were shaking under the covers. His body was cold. Suddenly it was not a theory. Suddenly he was very afraid. 

And when the captain finally tries to act on his suspicions and flee?  He never makes it to the door...

- Sid 

* Titled Mars is Heaven in its original standalone Planet Stories magazine publication in 1948.

Disney 2025: "That's no moon."

As I've discussed previously, Galaxy's Edge is my favourite part of Disneyland, but sadly, I have some mild concerns regarding Black Spire's longevity.  Outside of its immersive environment, Galaxy's Edge has only two ride options:  Smugglers Run and Rise of the Resistance. Rise has certainly remained a popular ride since its Disneyland debut in January of 2020, with wait times frequently reaching 90 to 120 minutes.  However, during our 2025 visit, wait times for Smugglers Run rarely rose above five minutes, and I've heard rumours that the local Disney community in Anaheim is a bit done with the ride.

However, I think that there's an opportunity for Smugglers Run to undergo a revival that would be both economically practical by preserving as much of the current infrastructure as possible, but newly exciting for visitors at the same time.

I realize that Galaxy's Edge is set in a very specific time period between The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, but what if Disney shifted Smugglers Run back in time to the timeline of A New Hope, when we're first introduced to the Falcon?  Instead of doing a cargo raid for the Resistance, you take flight from Mos Eisley after a confrontation with Jabba the Hutt and Boba Fett. You evade pursuit by an Imperial Star Destroyer, only to discover that the gigantic sphere in front of you is not a moon...

Briefly pulled aboard the Death Star by tractor beams, you manage to successfully break their hold, escape the hangar, and hyperspace to Yavin 4.  Once there, you leave the Falcon, receive a dramatic and emotional briefing from Princess Leia, then board a battered X-wing fighter and head back into space.  

There's an acrobatic dogfight with TIE fighters, you fly your ship into the Death Star's equatorial trench, follow Obi-Wan Kenobi's guidance to launch missiles that destroy the battlestation's reactor, and make a triumphant flight back to the rebel base - the end. 

The good news is that the existing infrastructure from Smugglers Run remains intact: new animatronics of Jabba the Hutt and Boba Fett replace Hondo Ohnaka at the beginning of the ride, and an updated simulation has to be created for the Falcon, but really, that's it for the existing front end.  Then, all you need is a conveniently located exit into the newly constructed Rebel base on Yavin 4, which contains a large hangar full of X-Wings, and a flight simulator motion-platform program, none of which would be a challenge for current state-of-the art - and voilà, Smugglers Run is now The Battle of Yavin 4. They would need to figure out some kind of safe and simple gangway system for quick access and egress for the X-Wings, but that's a minor issue.

After formulating the above plan, it occurs to me that the climactic events of The Force Awakens aren't all that different from A New Hope, and it's a lot closer to the existing Galaxy's Edge timeline - it would be just as easy (or hard) to recreate the destruction of Starkiller Base instead of the battle of Yavin-4.  Well, who cares, say I.  If you ask me, the Death Star battle is iconic, and, no offense to Oscar Isaac, but I'd much rather be Luke Skywalker than Poe Dameron.

- Sid 

Disney 2025: Mea Culpa.

Forgive me, for I have sinned:  I nicked a set of the 3D glasses from Disneyland's Star Tours ride.  To be honest, I don't feel excessive guilt, I suspect that Disney has them produced by the millions and as such can spare a set or two, but I also suspect that they don't encourage people to view them as free souvenirs.

 - Sid

P.S. Okay, fine, I pocketed a set from the Webslingers ride too - because red frames!

Update: I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed to discover that people are selling these glasses for $40 CAD on eBay.  My innocent desire for a remembrance of Disneyland happiness is one thing, but fencing them online seems calculated and criminal.

Disney 2025: A Love Letter to Galaxy's Edge.

It's probably not a surprise that my favourite part of Disneyland is Galaxy's Edge - after all, I'm a science fiction fan. But there's more to it than that - every time we visit the park, I fall in love with Black Spire Outpost yet again, thanks to its unmatched ability to take me away to a different time and place.

Fantasyland, Adventureland, Frontierland and Tomorrowland are all conceptual umbrellas for a wide range of source material, which prevents them from being too specific in their overall look. For example, Adventureland hosts attractions based on Indiana Jones and Tarzan, along with the Jungle Cruise, none of which have any connection outside of their shared location, and as such it has to be somewhat generic in its style.

 

 

Galaxy's Edge doesn't have to compromise -  and the result is brilliant.  Radiator Springs runs a close second, but there's nothing that really ties together its storefront elements, whereas Black Spire is a perfectly conceived community from the Star Wars universe, with every part designed and decorated so as to completely evoke the feeling of being in an alien locale in a galaxy far, far away. 

 

 

The outpost's buildings*, archways and storefronts share an aged, distressed aesthetic, marked with the occasional pitted memory of a blaster bolt impact, whereas the port buildings surrounding the central plaza have a more formal, industrial look and feel.  

 

 

 

The attention to detail is impressive and effective. Set decorators for the first Star Wars movie referred to the props used for layering and detailing of the film's sets as greebly dressing, and Black Spire Outpost beautifully maintains and extends that original design philosophy throughout the venue.

 

 

Even the bathrooms have a rough and ready outpost vibe.

To add to the illusion, Smugglers Run and Rise of the Resistance both cleverly extend Black Spire's reality with storylines that logically transport guests away from the outpost's location on Batuu for adventures in space, and then returning them to the surface as part of each ride's continuity.** 

 

I have no idea what lies behind the various facades in Black Spire - logic says that there would be real-world storage spaces, dressing rooms for cast members, coffee rooms and lockers, meeting rooms and so on, but in my hopeful imagination all the backstage spaces maintain the Star Wars look and feel from the exteriors. How great would it be to work in an office space that looked like it belonged to Han Solo?

- Sid

* The building in the above photo is a nod to the colony's Disneyland home - the two circles and the beaklike canopy are an abstracted portrait of Donald Duck.

** The strange thing about Radiator Springs is that you walk through the town to get to Radiator Springs Racers, which then duplicates many of the town's landmarks within the ride itself. 

Disney 2025: Lightyear

After investing in an X-wing pilot's helmet and a toy-grade lightsaber during our 2022 visit to Disneyland, I decided that I would take it easy this time in terms of souvenirs - both in terms of price and size, given the challenges of getting my previous purchases back to Canada. 

However, it's not a blanket boycott, I'm just restricting myself to something that will be an easier fit in my luggage, so I keep my eyes open as we make our way around the two parks.  It's a target rich environment, given that a lot of Disneyland rides exit their passengers into a themed gift shop - not a subtle tactic, but undoubtedly effective.   

One of our gift shop destinations is at the exit from Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, one of the few competitive rides at the park.  The shop's offerings are a combination of Toy Story and Lightyear items - personally, I enjoyed Lightyear, regardless of its mixed critical reception and relatively poor box office performance, and I decide to purchase a boxed set featuring three characters from the movie: Buzz himself, Izzy Hawthorne, and Mo Morrison.  (Darby Steel isn't in this box, and I'm fine with that - sorry, Darby was just not one of my favourite characters.) 

The figures are well molded and have good articulation, although I'm surprised that they don't have ankle joints, based on the poses from the box art. (There's probably a disclaimer someplace on the packaging indicating that the artwork isn't representative of the actual toys.) 

If you look closely, the painting is an odd combination of fine detail, such as Buzz's name tag, and general sloppiness.  But let's be fair, these are general toy grade figures, you're not intended to look at them with a magnifying glass. 

Buzz's handgun doesn't fit easily into his hand, but the hot water trick* quickly solves that, and the other characters have no problems holding onto their props - overall, a nice little addition to my collection of toys, although I have no plans to write my name on the soles of their feet. 

Oh, and I bought a Mickey Mouse mug as well - good size, comfortable grip, simple artwork.  I know, it's not science fiction, but it's probably time to pay tribute to the fact that, after all, it all started with a mouse.

 - Sid 

* If you’re not familiar with this solution, it is incredibly useful if you are having trouble getting a vinyl action figure to hold onto something: run hot tap water over the figure’s hand until it becomes flexible, shape it around the weapon or tool, then switch to cold water to set it.  

Disney 2025: "You insult my honour!"

"And believe me, I have very little honour to insult."

Hondo Ohnaka, Smugglers Run

 - Sid