When Disneyland’s “Star Wars”-inspired land, Galaxy’s Edge, opens today, it will do so with one ride, Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run. Here’s betting it gets overshadowed by a dive bar.
Even casual fans of George Lucas’ 1977 cinema-changing film, now known as “Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope,” can recall the cantina, a lively watering hole in a run-down town populated by outcasts, weirdos and one funky alien band. At Galaxy’s Edge, Oga’s Cantina is intimate (read: you will wait in line), serves alcohol (a first outside of the private Club 33) and is full of eccentricities.
Look above the bar and spy a frog-like creature, said to lay eggs that will appear in one of the dive’s pre-mixed concoctions. Or simply saddle up to the bar, as I did, and get roped into a 20-minute conversation with a barkeep taking notes on every answer to the questions he asked me. “I heard there were resistance who landed here,” he said, before asking my thoughts on current “Star Wars” villain Kylo Ren.
To think of Galaxy’s Edge in term of sheer numbers — number of attractions (two, eventually), number of shops (nine) or number of food and drink locales (five) — is to misinterpret its vision for the future of immersive entertainment. A walk through Black Spire Outpost, the fictional “Star Wars” city at the heart of Galaxy’s Edge, is a stroll along war-torn streets — blaster fire has stained the buildings — and Middle Eastern-inspired bazaars where the shops are cluttered stalls under tattered canopies.
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