Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge is so ambitious Disneyland fans may not be ready for it
ANAHEIM, Calif. - Here's a familiar and effective design trick often used at theme parks: Corral guests under or through a passageway that forces the crowd to narrow before a grand reveal.
Think of Disneyland's Main Street, U.S.A., where park goers are shunted through a passage under a train tunnel that gives way to a romantic, turn-of-the-20th-century town and a fantastical castle. At the entrance to Disney California Adventure's Cars Land, an archway both shadows and frames the intricate yet massive hand-sculpted and rust-hued mountain range inspired by numerous Southwest landscapes.
Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, opening this weekend at Disneyland in Anaheim, is no different. The 14-acre land - the park's largest expansion themed to a single franchise - will usher guests through its entryways from Fantasyland and Frontierland into carved tunnels that lead to grand reveals of the bustling Black Spire Outpost.
"It promotes a sense of discovery - a sense of adventure - a sense of, 'I want to go and explore. I want to go and turn the corner,' " says Chris Beatty, an executive with Walt Disney Imagineering, the company's arm dedicated to theme park experiences.
The obvious similarities between Disneyland's past and its
