How Star Wars Canon Now Works in Disney's Theme Parks
When Disney created Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge at its theme parks, the aim was to let fans step into Star Wars. This happened both literally, by people moving their bodies through the area, but also figuratively, because everything happening in the land took place in the overall Star Wars canon.
At least, that was the aim when Galaxy’s Edge opened in 2019. Park guests were visiting the planet Batuu in the middle of a conflict set between the events of Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. All the characters, rides, and story were situated in that specific sliver of time.
Over the past few years though, the idea of the park experience only happening in that time has been mostly lost. In part, that’s because the movies moved past that, so characters like Kylo Ren are no longer around in canon but are still present in the park. Plus, when Disney+ came around, a whole new list of exciting characters entered the public consciousness and Disney wanted to capitalize on them.
So it did, bringing costumed characters from the newer shows into and around Galaxy’s Edge. But bringing characters like the Mandalorian, Grogu, Boba Fett, Fennic Shand, and others into the area didn’t 100% work canon-wise. Since the park story is set years after the story on The Mandalorian, is seeing him a spoiler of what’s to come? The answer is no, but with some fine print.
Now, to be fair, 99% of people who enter Galaxy’s Edge don’t care about any of this. They’re at Disneyand want to get a photo with Grogu, plain and simple. But for that one percent who are hardcore into keeping Star Wars true to its canon, Lucasfilm does have an explanation, which io9 discovered last week.
Disney invited io9 to attend the kick-off to Season of the Force, an event at Disneyland with all sorts of new Star Wars excitement. There, we got a chance to pose this question to Lucasfilm’s Matt Martin, one of the employees whose job is to keep everything Star Wars cohesive in the games, comics, theme parks and more.
“Star Wars storytelling is [set] across so many eras,” Martin told io9. “And we wanted to give people the opportunity to meet characters from some of those new things that are coming out that may not be within the original, intended timeline. So, what we do is we try and look at the area each character is in as that exists where they are. They’re visiting Batuu in the time that you know them from the series—or somewhere close to it—and you’re getting to meet them [then and] there. And Walt Disney Imagineering has a pretty good way of ensuring that those characters don’t intrude on each other. That way your immersion isn’t broken when you’re meeting Sabine in one place and walk off and meet Kylo elsewhere.”
There you have it. When you meet Mando and Grogu on Batuu, Batuu time shifts. You’re transported through time and space to Batuu in the era of those characters. And when you see someone else, it shifts again. Oh, and to be clear, none of this goes for Star Tours, an unrelated greatest hits Star Wars ride that’s not in Batuu, probably for that very reason.
For more on what’s new at Disney’s Season of the Force event, check out our previous coverage.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
