Disney Parks Star Wars Special December 2017 Update for Both Coasts
by Alan S. Dalinka, staff writer
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Writer's note: I am bringing you a special Update focused on just Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, the new themed land coming in 2019 to both coasts, and Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire from ILMxLAB and The VOID, which opened on Saturday at Disney Springs at Walt Disney World and is scheduled to open on January 5, 2018, at Downtown Disney at Disneyland Resort. Our regular Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World Resort Updates will be along in due course this week too, though. For those that hope to see the Disneyland crowd forecast for the week from our friends at TouringPlans.com on a Monday morning; I have included those and a sneak peek at the Walt Disney World Resort forecast too.
As you very likely are aware, Disney-owned Lucasfilm Ltd. released Star Wars: The Last Jedi in U.S. theaters last week. Walt Disney World Resort celebrated the release by inviting media, select cast members (particularly from "Star Wars Experiences" at Disney's Hollywood Studios), and a number of lucky Disney Parks Blog fans to the Resort's very first screening on Thursday, December 14 at 6 p.m. Then, at 7 a.m. on Saturday morning, the team behind the new Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire "hyper-reality experience" at Disney Springs held a ribbon-cutting ceremony and invited the media to get suited up and try the experience. On Saturday night, Disney's Hollywood Studios closed early to host the second-ever-edition of its hard ticket "Star Wars: Galactic Nights" event which included a panel discussion about the Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge lands under construction on both coasts.
Since I was the local MousePlanet contributing writer invited to attend all of these Star Wars events, and I was privileged enough to do so, I now bring you this special update. I will leave it to other writers to bring you more complete Star Wars coverage and promise that this update will be as spoiler-free about The Last Jedi as any of the movie trailers have been, will be spoiler-free about the surprises of "Secrets of the Empire," and will reveal just the details about the new lands announced by the creative team.
Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire - A New "Hyper-Reality" Experience | The Latest Details of Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge | Views of Star Wars: The Last Jedi Opening Night & Star Wars: Galactic Nights at Walt Disney World | Crowd Forecasts
Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire - A New "Hyper-Reality" Experience
Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire is a brand new, separately-ticketed activity described by its creators at ILMxLAB and The VOID as a "hyper-reality experience." It opened in the Marketplace neighborhood of Disney Springs at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida on Saturday, December 16, 2017, and it is scheduled to open in Downtown Disney at Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, on January 5, 2018.
Disney Springs Vice President Keith Bradford joins the team from The VOID and ILMxLAB to cut the ribbon for the new experience now open at Walt Disney World Resort. Video by Alan S. Dalinka.
In the words of its creators, the experience allows guests to "step beyond reality and into a galaxy far, far away." As the name of the experience makes clear, it is the time of the Galactic Empire. Specifically, the experience is set in the time between Star Wars Episodes III (Revenge of the Sith) and IV (A New Hope), pretty much concurrent with last year's Star Wars story Rogue One. As the creative team describes the story:
Under the orders of the budding rebellion, you and your friends will travel to the molten planet of Mustafar. Your mission is to recover Imperial intelligence vital to the rebellion's survival. Alongside the pragmatic droid K-2S0, your team must navigate through an enemy facility walking into danger at every turn. Disguised as Stormtroopers, grab your blaster, solve puzzles, and fight giant lava monsters in an effort to complete your mission.
As a "hyper-reality" experience, participants must wear rather extensive gear. While it does not require physical exertion like running or climbing, the gear has some weight to it. As such, participants must be at least 10 years old and must be at least 48 inches tall. Accommodations are available for folks requiring accessibility assistance, but guests may only use a wheelchair that does not exceed 34 inches in width. A complimentary wheelchair is available and participants using electric conveyance vehicles or scooters may be asked to transfer.
At check-in, participants receive a wrist band with a scannable QR code. Up to four participants are then grouped together in the Staging Area and then, together, led to a large video screen for personal selection of individual avatars (linked by the wristband QR codes) and the initial instructions for participating in the experience. The groups are then led to the room where they get their gear.
Once suited up, the experience really does take virtual reality to a new level of detail. The only surroundings participants see are those displayed in the visor, and those details come really close to looking like the real thing. No matter which way a participant looks, a fully-rendered world which is rich in visual detail can be seen. Sound, touch, smell and motion effects all are used to completely envelop participants in the story. When walking across a "room" or other location, the texture of the floor feels like it changes under foot to match what the visor displays. Doors to walk through open and close, leading you from place to place during the adventure. When participants see the lava of Mustafar, they smell it too. There are more physical sensations to experience along the way, but I will avoid the spoilers here.
All told, the experience can last approximately 30 minutes from check-in until departure. That total time does include getting introduced to the experience and getting suited-up and out of the gear at the end. The activity portion (from my experience and that of some others on opening day) lasts approximately 10-15 minutes.
The VOID is a destination that allows participants to explore "fully immersive worlds." The VOID says it is "on a mission to transport everyone, everywhere on adventures that until now could only be dreamed about." Away from the Star Wars universe, The VOID also has locations in New York, Toronto, and Dubai, where participants enter the "Ghostbusters Dimension."
ILMxLAB is part of Disney-owned Lucasfilm's immersive entertainment division. Its goal is to combine storytelling with technology to create immersive entertainment. It develops experiences for virtual reality, augmented/mixed reality, real-time cinema, theme park entertainment, and narrative-based experiences for future platforms.
Tickets are on sale at thevoid.com for $29.95/person for Disney Springs and Downtown Disney locations. An additional VOID Experience Center also opened in London on December 16, and this experience will open at additional centers around that globe that will be announced soon.
I thoroughly enjoyed my experience. While I was an invited media guest and got to participate before it was open to the public the morning of its debut, it is an experience that I also had bought a ticket to try later in the day (I gave my ticket to my brother who also thoroughly enjoyed the experience) and look forward to purchasing a ticket to experience again in the not-too-distant future. The experience is so rich in immersive detail, there is more to see and experience than I did on a single visit and, indeed, since interacting with the group is part of the experience, that dynamic alone means it should be fun to go back and do it with more friends in the future, both those that have experienced it before and those that are trying it for the first time.
Moreover, the promise of the technology used in this experience for the future of themed entertainment around Disney Parks and resorts cannot be understated. With Lucasfilm's ILMxLAB on board on this project, no doubt, some of the wizardry used here will find its way into Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge and, perhaps, beyond.
The Latest Details of Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge
The advertised highlight of the hard ticket Star Wars: Galactic Nights event at Disney's Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World on Saturday night, December 16 (after the park closed to day guests), was the panel presentation hosted by David Collins (known for his work on several Star Wars films and video games), and featuring team members from Walt Disney Imagineering and Lucasfilm involved in the creation of the new Star Wars-themed lands named Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge expected to debut in 2019, first at Disneyland and then at Disney's Hollywood Studios. Not surprisingly, the panel provided only a small additional taste of the rich details being created for the new lands, but it certainly does make it seem (at least to me) exciting to anticipate what is to come.
The panel, led by Scott Trowbridge, Portfolio Creative Executive, Walt Disney Imagineering, along with fellow imagineers Robin Reardon and Chris Beaty, and Doug Chiang from Lucasfilm, focused on their goal of providing authenticity—a real place in the Star Wars universe that folks have not seen yet but still seems familiar to those stories. Chris Beaty, for example, discussed research trips to the markets of Istanbul and Marrakech to provide inspiration for the creation of those that guests will find in the new lands. The market stalls will sell merchandise unique to the lands; for example, the Toydarian, a creature introduced in The Phantom Menace, sells toys that look like they were hand-crafted by the locals.
Although the panel never mentioned Pandora–The World of Avatar that opened at Disney's Animal Kingdom back in May to much acclaim, the team behind Galaxy's Edge clearly are paying every bit as much attention to the smallest details as the Pandora team did, if not more. "It's all about story," is a constant refrain from the team. To support the story, though, as Doug Chaing described the "cheats" that filmmakers get to take when creating things seen by cameras, he said that in the parks, they are building things "for real." For example, he said that an entire fleet of full-size X-wing starfighters that feel real to the touch will be part of the new lands as well. Unlike the plywood and foam used to create props for movies, in the parks, he said the materials are the same sort of quarter inch of aluminum over a steel frame that real aircraft use. He said the graphics all have meanings and are not just decorations.
An entire fleet of "real" X-Wings are being built for Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge. Photo ©Disney.
The panel shared that guests will actually get to climb through the Millennium Falcon hatch, walk through its hallways, sit in the cockpit, and then be in control of the ship on a mission that guests control. The missions go beyond Batuu (the planet that is Galaxy's Edge) to other places folks have not seen before, but will feel "completely Star Wars."
Finally, the panel mentioned that there will be special Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge trading cards available in the new land that contain various clues to adventures. All guests attending Star Wars: Galactic Nights received a starter set of these cards, including an aurebesh translator card. I will leave it to our Star Wars experts to discuss the aurebesh language in more detail elsewhere on MousePlanet.
Views of Star Wars: The Last Jedi Opening Night & Star Wars: Galactic Nights at Walt Disney World
Star Wars: The Last Jedi Opening Night was celebrated at Disney Springs on December 14. Star Wars: Galactic Nights Event took place at Disney's Hollywood Studios on December 16, 2017.
Disney Springs
Disney Parks Blog posted a spoiler-free recap of the film's red carpet debut. Video ©Disney.
Disney's Hollywood Studios
The Imperial March on Hollywood Blvd at #hollywoodstudios #waltdisneyworld for @StarWars #GalacticNights via @AlanDa https://t.co/1kcWEy7N9P
— MousePlanet (@MousePlanet) December 17, 2017
Starting with a bit of introduction and Warwick Davis, the spoiler-free video includes an appearance by Darth Vader. Video by Alan S. Dalinka.
The special "Star Wars: Galactic Destinations" included projected images from all eight Episodes of the Star Wars Saga. Video by Alan S. Dalinka (does not include spoilers for Episode VIII: The Last Jedi).
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