Star Wars; Galaxy's Edge is a remarkable place. The new theme park land, which opened at Disneyland in May and opens to the public at Walt Disney World tomorrow, brings theme park immersion to entirely new level thanks to an expansive space that feels like an alien planet. Even things that are familiar, like a can of Coca-Cola, take on entirely new appearances. Unfortunately, it appears that if you need to fly home from your Disney vacation, you can't bring the bottle with you as an inexpensive souvenir. TSA has banned them, apparently, for being replica explosives.
Recently, somebody who was likely going to be going to Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge tweeted at the Transportation Safety Administration to confirm that the bottles could be checked into luggage. The OC Register was the first to pick up on the response, that they are not allowed as carry on or checked luggage due to being replica explosives.
Of course, what makes this interesting, is that, while technically the bottles of Coke, Diet Coke, and Sprite are meant to resemble explosives, they're meant to resemble fictional explosives, specifically, the thermal detonator first scene in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.
Although, only the shape is reminiscent of that. It's really just a round plastic bottle, and, once empty, could be easily run through an x-ray machine to show that it's of no harm. Actual weapons can be transported through checked bags, so, while certainly explosives are another matter regarding air travel, this seems like an over reaction.
This is why people are stealing sporks.
I had no problem bringing my lightsaber with me as a carry-on when I left my visit to Batuu a few months back. While it's easy enough to tell that a lightsaber isn't an actual sword, nobody even looked at me funny, and that was before Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge was open to the public, so airport security certainly hadn't seen hundreds of them. They likely have now.
While buying a Coke at Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge isn't cheap, it's cheaper than any other souvenir you can find there, so it's understandable that people might want to take the bottles home. There's no where else in the world except Disney Parks where they can be found.
I still find it utterly amazing that Coca-Cola, a company that has a trademark on the contour shape of its bottles, was willing to change that shape in order for Disney to sell the popular soft drink inside Galaxy's Edge in a way that wouldn't break the theming of the land. It shows just how much sway Disney has.
It will be interesting to see how strictly this actually gets enforced. Even if a TSA agent has to double check a bag to be sure the round thing isn't something dangerous, once it's clear the object is safe, I feel like most agents will actually let it through. One thing that I've learned about airport security through the years is that no policies are consistent and everything gets handled on a case-by-case basis. Maybe you'll get lucky.
Image courtesy DisneylandNews.com/Disney
