You would think that one of the most iconic… maybe the most iconic… villains in all of cinema history would have his own little area to appear in a Disney theme park. The towering Darth Vader would surely be located in the heart of whatever Star Wars themed area the park has. And certainly you would want Darth Vader deep in said area of the park for his return in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series. Yet that isn’t what has happened and it’s so bizarre that even casual fans of both Star Wars and Disneyland are beginning to (finally) take notice. So what is the story behind the giant Galaxy’s Edge Star Wars expansion and why Darth Vader does not appear there?
“We meet again, at last.”
Darth Vader will return to Tomorrowland for a limited-time, beginning tomorrow! And don't miss the limited series #ObiWanKenobi streaming now only on Disney+. pic.twitter.com/1DtZlCnOmn— Disneyland Resort (@Disneyland) June 11, 2022
They (the imagineers) said: “Well, yesterday Bob Iger met with Kathleen Kennedy, who a lot of people may know is sort of George Lucas’ protege, and headed up Lucasfilm, And they had a conversation, a meeting, and Kathleen Kennedy, her point of view was there are way more Disney Star Wars stories ahead of us than behind us. So we really should think about, do we want to build a Tatooine and build what all of the fifty-somethings remember Star Wars as, or do we want to build something else which is going to appeal to all the upcoming generations who are going to know the new stories.”
— Dan Cockerell, WDW Radio Podcast
Readers of this site likely already know that Lucasfilm head, Kathleen Kennedy, intervened in the Walt Disney Imagineering process to convince then-CEO Bob Iger to flush plans for a Star Wars area that would celebrate all of Star Wars. Instead, she wanted Galaxy’s Edge to be a specific land that specifically role-played a time in the sequel trilogy. In her viewpoint, this new trilogy she was guiding would be far more popular and relevant. And so it was decided that all of Galaxy’s Edge would be sandwiched between Rian Johnson’s “The Last Jedi” and the ill-received “The Rise of Skywalker.” It was a critical mistake.
With the two mentioned Star Wars movies being at best divisive, and at worst hated, Disneyland actually saw attendance drop when they unveiled Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge to the public. To have a billion dollar expansion lower demand is something we don’t believe has ever happened before at a theme park. The huge investments of “Project Stardust” at Disneyland which were set in motion to increase capacity for the throngs of Star Wars fans sure to descend on the park… well, it was largely seen as a waste. And though Disney is slow to admit error, the adoption of Favreau-Filoni characters into Galaxy’s Edge (just the beginning of a transformation) is essentially a mea culpa. There’s no way around such a change — Disney is even stuck asking survey participants why their Star Wars hotel based on the sequel trilogy isn’t doing so well.
Disney Hosting Focus Groups About Galactic Starcruiser
All of this is to say that the Disney Parks are stuck in an untenable position. On the one hand, their Star Wars land and hotel were set up on the idea that the sequel trilogy movies and characters would be phenomenally popular. On the other hand, they’re not. And at the same time, they’re stuck with an edict from Lucasfilm not to put Star Wars characters outside of the sequel trilogy into Galaxy’s Edge. You’ll note how careful Disney Parks was in their statement about putting Mandalorian and Boba Fett characters into the themed area:
We are committed to the long history of Batuu and the collection of amazing characters who inhabit the outpost including our legacy characters and original characters and know that we will feel the same about new and future characters from the ever-expanding galaxy of Star Wars storytelling. While we as visitors may be able to experience different stories throughout Star Wars history, the characters on Batuu can not. They will remain in their specific story and timeline and won’t intersect with other characters or stories that would not be appropriate for them. — Disney Parks
All of this is to say that the real, and ridiculous, reason that Darth Vader can’t currently be in the giant Star Wars land Disney dropped a billion dollars on is…
… Kathleen Kennedy.
Seriously.
But change is happening slowly. Disney Parks, Disney Imagineering, and the park operations at both Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge locations are going to be pushing for the next years to transition from the sequel trilogy to all of Star Wars. There’s no better way to attract guests and make money than to have Grogu, Luke Skywalker, Leia, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, Mando, and even Yoda, all in the same location. Oh… and that includes Darth Vader. It definitely includes Darth Vader. But to make that shift, Disney has to implicitly announce to the public, through their actions not through their words, that the sequel trilogy is no longer relevant compared to the broader Star Wars story. And perhaps that even goes so far as to mean Disney leadership will have to accept that nobody really likes the way the sequel trilogy tried to end the story of Luke, Leia, and Anakin. Nobody.
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The main issue here with Disney having to admit it, is that KK has all her minions well-placed around Hollywood AND Social media to whip up an echo chamber in a fantasy land that reenforces the narrative and actually ATTACKS anyone who dares question it.
Be it people like Star Wars Meg who carries water for the KK regime and shames people in live chats who don’t like the new direction, or moderators in the Star Wars Cantina Reddit who full buy in to the “Obi Wan is being review bombed by racists!” and tries to use that as an organizing point to ARTIFICIALLY boost Obi-Wans reviews by organizing a “counter campaign” to a fictional narrative – see how that works? “No, we’re not trying to artificially boost Obi-Wans rotten tomato numbers! We’re ‘Fixing’ it as a reaction to a (non-existent) review bombing because we don’t like the numbers!”
There’s too much ICK right now in charge of places where people can go to talk Star Wars. But those people don’t realize – they are just echo chambers now for the most part – most of us star wars fans already left those places long ago. I wouldn’t have even been aware of the issues at Star Wars Cantina if reddit hadn’t randomly “suggested” I take a look. Sadly, reddit is a partisan cesspool, and has been for a while.
Too much “narrative crafting” out in the world, and not enough truthful, genuine news.
THAT is why I come here. For real news. And I thank you for it!
I can’t speak for the Star Wars Meg livestreams, but while they do seem to carry water for the status quo, they do a good job of covering any news as it comes out from a mostly impartial stance. And the comments seem to generate healthy conversation, even from those going against the grain and saying Kenobi sucks.
I wonder if we’ll see Obi-Wan or the Inquisitors at the park in the near future. I don’t see any major renovations of the park for many years though, unfortunately. Like 5 or 10. Bad as the decision was to set the park in the Sequel era, they don’t have the money & probably want to make the most of money already spent.
At least the Rise of the Resistance ride is great. Worth at least an hour’s wait.
Kathleen Kennedy needs to write a book about how create a multimillion dollar franchise, you just need to start off with a multibillion dollar franchise. It boggles the mind that Disney continues to allow her to waste money by producing such poorly written drivel.
I wonder how hard it would be to switch RoR to a classic trilogy timeline. It seems pretty doable, swapping Vader for Ren and getting likeness rights for Ford, Hamill, and Fisher.
I agree the sequel trilogy has to go if Star Wars is ever going to get back on track. But the main obstacle to that is the management team and “story group” at Lucasfilm who are pursing ideological and personal goals at the expense of corporate goals. Until Chapek lets these people go, the Star Wars franchise will continue rotting away.
Ultimately, Chapek must become Zaslav and start removing people who create controversy and fail to make money. If Zaslav can remove Ann Sarnoff, then Chapek should be able to remove Kennedy.
As in retconning the Sequels? Pipe dream is what that is.
I suppose it depends on what you mean by retcon. Retconning gets done in Star Wars ALL the time, and has from the very beginning.
I don’t think it can be in dispute though – the sequel trilogy has a loud, niche audience. They may enjoy those movies, and more power to them – but the sequels will not have the critical re-evaluation the prequels had.
The wisest course of action for Disney right now is to IGNORE the sequel trilogy, for another 5 years or so. Quietly build up the timeline after ROTJ – and THEN decide how to proceed.
If they have any sense, they’ll remember that they need money.
Otherwise – Star Wars will have been permanently reduced to a TV/dying property.
Thank you for addressing this gradually incoming change Pro. It will certainly be interesting to see what happens to both Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge locations in the years to come. Outside of Rise of the Resistance and a few specific ships scattered throughout the land, there’s not much about the rest of Batuu’s infrastructure that’s explicitly tied the Sequel Trilogy. Therefore, it probably wouldn’t cost that much in the grand scheme of things to theme it away from that era and into the Favreau-Filoni era or other Original Trilogy adjacent eras. No matter what happens, I think Disney Parks’ final decisions in what to do with the lands and hotel will directly reflect how the company as a whole is going to treat the Sequel Trilogy going forward.
Still doesn’t matter. Same people in charge at Lucasfilm means nothing will improve. Change the people to get real change.
This is true – I would expect things to begin changing in pretty dramatic ways around July/August of next year. (Behind the scenes, there will likely be other changes.)