Star Wars Galaxy's Edge has been promising to be unlike anything Disneyland or Walt Disney World has ever created, and some new details have begun to reveal how. In a special feature available on select versions of the Solo: A Star Wars Story Blu-ray, Disney provides a special look at the Millennium Falcon attraction that will be the centerpiece of the new land. While it had been previously mentioned that the ride could have a variety of outcomes based on rider actions, it seems that result could also impact the rest of your experience when traveling through the new land. According to Walt Disney Imagineering Creative Executive Scott Trowbridge...
If you bring back all the loot and there's not a scratch on the ship and Hondo is really happy when you bring it back, you might find yourself with some extra Galactic Credits in your account, but do a poor job, you lose the cargo, you smash up the ship, you might come back owing more money than you started with, the bossman might not be too happy and when you roll across to the local cantina the bartender might lean over and say 'hey, word on the street is your name's been put on the list of a local bounty hunter, I'd watch out if I were you' so how well you do on this mission really does have an impact on your overall, land-wide story.
It's one thing to have a theme park ride that can have various outcomes, but the idea that said outcome will follow you outside of the attraction, which certainly seems to be what's being said here, takes things to a whole other level of immersion. It had already been stated that the new land would not contain traditional gift shop items like Star Wars t-shirts, and would only sell items that you might find for sale on the alien world of Batuu, but now it seems that not only is the land going for complete theming, but the guests themselves will be taking on roles within the world.
While exactly how this amount of interactivity will work isn't clear, Walt Disney World already has one potential method in place in the form of Magic Bands. The wristbands act as everything from your theme park ticket to your FastPass+ reservation holder. They're already capable of taking your picture on an attraction and linking it to your band for purchase later, so it's conceivable that it could also record the results of your Millennium Falcon attraction experience, and then relay that data to other places, resulting in your waiter at the cantina being able to directly reference it, as if you're a well known intergalactic traveler.
While Disney World has this option already in place, Disneyland doesn't currently use the Magic Band system, making one wonder if it will be implemented between now and the opening of Star Wars Galaxy's Edge, if some other method will be used, or if this level of immersion will be limited to a single park. At this point, this is all speculation.
In addition to these details which were revealed on the Blu-ray special feature, only available on versions of the Solo: Star Wars Story Blu-ray sold at Target (via Laughing Place), a lot more information was also confirmed and revealed. As mentioned above, the job that you will go on via the Falcon is given to you by a character named Hondo. Specifically, that's Hondo Ohnaka, a character that viewers of Star Wars Rebels will be familiar with. He's borrowing the Falcon to complete a job, and in order to do so, the cockpit of the ship has also been retrofitted with additional seats. Six people will sit in each ride vehicle, with some piloting the ship, others handling weapons, and others dealing with engineering issues.
This is where the results of your mission can be impacted. If your gunners don't fight off the TIE Fighters in time, your ship will take damage, and that won't make Hondo happy.
Every new piece of information makes Star Wars Galaxy's Edge that much more exciting. The good news is we don't have too much longer to wait. The Disneyland version of the land will open next summer while the version at Disney's Hollywood Studios has been given a late fall 2019 opening date, meaning that in just over a year both coasts will be able to visit Batuu.
