Lynx Thoughts

Last week ShadowCheetah and I got a chance to hop into my starfighter and fly ourselves down to visit Batuu… and it was a decidedly good time!

After following the construction progress from afar, walking into Galaxy’s Edge and experiencing it was very cool.  It’s a deliciously hyper-detailed land, with an attention to detail I’d not seen in a Disney park outside of the ones in Japan.

Every nook and cranny has been paid attention to with set dressing so that there’s no blank or disused areas.  And the design of the land purposefully avoids any clear sight lines so that it unfolds bit by bit as you journey through it.  While it has its downsides (or even flaws) from an operation’s standpoint (such as lack of casual seating) the land is glorious eye candy everywhere you look (which would be great to observe from said missing seating).

Our plan was to visit the planet both during the daytime and then return to see it under the glory of night.  This worked out even better than we expected — our boarding pass was called for Rise of the Resistance (more on that in a bit!) late in the evening, which had us emerge from the ride just a few minutes before park closing.  Which was enough time to hustle it over to Smuggler’s Run for our third ride of the day.  We ended up being the last ones on the ride for the day, and when we were done piloting (woohoo!) we exited Hondo’s garage to a very empty Black Spire Outpost.  Which allowed us to not only marvel in the great detail and lighting, but also take some nice shots with nary another person in sight.

So clearly we enjoyed Smuggler’s Run, but we were especially fortunate that our trip to Batuu came after the opening of Rise of the Resistance.  Because it is truly something else.  Several something elses, really, as it is more like 5 rides in one.  Spoilers hereon out if you want to avoid, as I kind of did, studiously avoiding watching any on-ride videos so that I would go in semi-fresh.  So while I knew of a few of the big set pieces from following the construction photos, the overall of it I didn’t know.  I’ve heard it described as the first “F-ticket” attraction, and I would agree.  There are a lot of very nifty moments, a tonne of incredibly creative set pieces and effects, and it has a more cohesive plot and perhaps even story than did the The Rise of Skywalker movie.  It’s a tour de force (pun semi-intended), and I’m keen on seeing it again!

Some of my fav moments:

• From those construction photos, I knew that there would be a Star Destroyer hangar.  But having us go out of the shuttle through same door we came in was unexpected… and best of all, there was this group of about 8 who clearly didn’t know about this and when the door opened and we were greeted by the tableau of three rows of stormtroopers and the giant doorway to space and the First Order officers this group, in unison, literally jumped back, leaned back, and screamed in a mix of surprise, amazement, wonder, and terror.  So much so that the officer had to stop his spiel and wait for them to finish before ordering us off the ship.  So while I unfortunately wasn’t surprised it was absolutely great to get to live vicariously through that group.
• The cast members playing the First Order.  They must love it, getting to be all stern and order-y and generally being very non-Disney like.
• The cutting out of the jail cell!  The effects of the plasma torch were neat (even if one fellow prisoner was standing in front of it, totally clueless to what was going on behind) them, and then the rough cut look of the wall when the panel pulls away.
• As we’re in the droid vehicles, headed towards a lift… and a mechanical form slowly slides down from above into view.  Me:  “Gahhhh!  It’s a probe droid!”  Voice on the Ride:  “Look out, it’s a probe droid!”  Me:  “That’s what I just said!”
• I want to see the blaster effects a second time… some seemed to work great (along with blasting holes in the wall), some less so…
• The decompression effect was amazing.  I’m guessing a chamber of pressurized air to get that instantaneous blast effect, it was very effective.  (The debris that ‘falls’ to hide Kylo Ren, not so much.)
• And then that last drop right into the motion simulator.  They must drop the entire motion simulator rig, and that’s just downright impressive — that thing plus the ride vehicle plus the guests can’t be all that lightweight!  And to do it over and over and over again!  It’s also very effective from an experience standpoint, you do get the sense of being ejected out of the ship and then escaping down to the planet’s surface (that said, they need to upgrade their graphics on both that and the original shuttle ride to take time-of-day into account — it was night outside but the graphics were all day).

All in all, a great ride experience, and super impressive from a technical standpoint.  Hats off and lightsabres up in salute to Imagineering for such great work!