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When Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge opened earlier this year at Disneyland and Walt Disney World, what we got was actually only Phase One of the new land. Two major attractions were promised when Galaxy's Edge was first being announced, and while we got Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run on day one of the new land, we all had to wait for a massive new attraction called Rise of the Resistance.
Now, that wait is almost over, Rise of the Resistance opens at the Walt Disney World version of Galaxy's Edge tomorrow, but this morning, media, and some VIPs got to check out the ride first. To put it simply, it really seems like Rise of the Resistance is everything we've been promised it would be.
One of the lucky people to check out Rise of the Resistance was CinemaBlend's own Mick Joest, who I'm not at all jealous of, who said the ride was so amazing it nearly brought him to tears.
Needless to say, that's a glowing endorsement for Rise of the Resistance. We've seen some details about how the Rise of Resistance is broken up into segments, and the final portion, which is the actual ride, is only part of the experience.
The ride sees guests joining the Resistance but being captured by the First Order. The "ride" portion of the attraction is an attempt to escape from a first order Star Destroyer. The portion where you are recruited by the Resistance and are captured aboard your transport, are technically, as Mick points, out, only part of the line.
The more we learned about Rise of the Resistance the more it was clear that the reason it wasn't ready for Galaxy's Edge's opening was the simple fact that the attraction was so massive that it simply couldn't be finished in time. The Orange County Register says that everything about the new experience will leave guests wowed.
Rise of the Resistance will leave you wondering again and again how Walt Disney Imagineering pulled off one visual illusion after another, with each scene somehow outdoing the last. Disney’s new Star Wars attraction redefines what E-ticket stands for: Extraordinary.
Walt Disney Imagineering has been blowing people away since the 1950's. You can learn all about that in the Disney+ series The Imagineeering Story (and you can get a seven day free trial of Disney+ here in order to do so). You'd think that eventually they'd run out of way to surprise us, but that day hasn't come quite yet.
The idea of theme park attractions, especially at Disney Parks, is to give the guests the experience of feeling like they're inside their favorite movies, according to IGN, Rise of the Resistance does exactly that, and does it better than any theme park ride before it.
Rise’s real strength is in its ability to tell a compelling, cohesive story that ratchets up the tension and keeps you guessing as it unfolds…It all plays out like a believable sequence from one of the films, complete with a rousing, goosebump-inducing score and crisp visuals that use CGI backdrops and footage of the actors, in addition to the practical effects and character projections … Rise of the Resistance is a technical marvel that delivers on its promise to fully immerse riders in the Star Wars galaxy.
The closest thing I have found to a negative comment about Rise of the Resistance comes from one theme park writer, who says it's "not a perfect ride" while still saying the experience left her speechless.
Media aren't the only ones who got to check out Rise of the Resistance early. Neil Patrick Harris, who did the reading at Walt Disney's World annual Candlelight Processional last night, got to check out the ride, as did Josh Gad, who got to give the attraction a go alongside Scott Trowbridge, who leads the team of Imagineers handling all Star Wars related projects. .
It seems that Rise of the Resistance is a true triumph. Walt Disney World guests will get to experience the attraction for themselves beginning tomorrow. The attraction is set to open at Disneyland on January 17, 2020.
