Why Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge Is Set on an All New Planet

Creatives behind Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, the just opened expansion land at Disneyland park, imagined the never-before-seen planet of Batuu to better allow guests to live their own Star Wars story.

“We really wanted to create something brand new. Not only does it give us as creators kind of more freedom to build a custom experience, but to allow guests to live exactly the story that they want to tell, and be the adventurer, the hero, the scoundrel that they have always wanted to be,” Matt Martin, creative executive, Lucasfilm story group, said during a media preview.

“And actually what’s really cool about Star Wars storytelling in general is that we look at it all as one singular continuity. So when we were developing this land, we could have easily done a ‘greatest hits of Star Wars‘ thing, but then you would have just been seeing things that you’ve seen before. Now not only do you get to tell your story, but Batuu becomes a world within the Star Wars galaxy, and we will get to experience that throughout other mediums. It lives in Star Wars the same way that Tatooine and Mustafar does. It’s all connected.”

The action revolves around Black Spire Outpost, a centuries-old settlement on the remote planet left behind with the development of lightspeed travel.

Shop owners, such as antiquities dealer Dok-Ondar, have connections to the wider galaxy: a tie-in comic book revealed the Ithorian collector of space goods had dealings with famed gangster Jabba the Hutt and was responsible for bounty hunter Greedo winning what would ultimately prove to be his final mission.

Other ties exist in Oga’s Cantina, where evidence of a clash between Darth Vader and Grand Admiral Thrawn can be found following Star Wars: Thrawn: Alliances.

“Pretty much every shop, every area that you can visit, has a backstory, has a proprietor, those proprietors have their own backstories, their own relationships to the other proprietors of the other shops – it really has this whole lived-in story that I think fans have come to expect from Star Wars,” Martin said.

“[Dok-Ondar] is kind of the main antiquarian, he’s kind of a legend in the field, and we’ve actually started using him in other storytelling – he’s mentioned in Solo [A Star Wars Story]. Now we’ve actually begun publishing other stories that take place within the land. I think Thrawn: Alliances was the first book that went to Batuu, and you actually get to see Grand Admiral Thrawn and Darth Vader in the cantina there, and you may actually see some damage from when they were here while you’re there.”

Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is now open at the Disneyland Resort. No reservations will be required after June 23.