Disney Prepares Huge Upheaval of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge After Mass Complaints
After years of hype, the debut of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge proved to be one of Disney’s most divisive theme park openings in decades. Now, not even six years later, it seems like Disney is bowing down to one of the land’s biggest critiques.
As of 2025, guests can find Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge located at Disneyland Resort in California and Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. Opened at both resorts in 2019, the land is set on the planet Batuu, specifically in the Black Spire Outpost, a remote trading hub on the edge of Wild Space.
Rather than recreating a well-known Star Wars location like Tatooine or Endor, Walt Disney Imagineering chose to develop an original setting that could be integrated into the franchise’s official canon. This decision allowed for greater storytelling flexibility while tying into ongoing Star Wars media, including books and comics.
Criticism of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge
However, one of the most debated aspects of Galaxy’s Edge is its placement in the Star Wars timeline. The land is set during the sequel trilogy era, specifically between The Last Jedi (2017) and The Rise of Skywalker (2019).
As a result, the characters guests regularly encounter are from this era, including Rey, Kylo Ren, and its premier attraction, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, drops visitors directly into the trilogy’s Resistance versus First Order conflict.
While this aligns with Disney’s focus on expanding the newer trilogy, it has also triggered criticism from longtime fans who hoped to see characters and settings from the original or prequel trilogies. Iconic figures like Darth Vader, Princess Leia, and Anakin Skywalker are absent from Galaxy’s Edge despite their deep connection to the franchise’s legacy.
This strict adherence to the sequel trilogy timeline has left some guests frustrated, as it limits the storytelling potential of the land. Given the mixed reception of the sequel trilogy among fans, many argue that Disney should have taken a broader approach, allowing for elements from across the entire saga to coexist.
Recent additions, such as The Mandalorian and Grogu meet-and-greet experiences and the duo’s upcoming mission overlay on Star Wars: Millennium Falcon – Smugglers Run, suggest Disney may be loosening its stance.
Now, it seems like the studio is abandoning it completely, as it’s just teased an extremely non-canon arrival: Luke Skywalker.
Introducing… Luke Skywalker?
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A recent video shared by Disney Parks on Instagram shows a cloaked figure approaching the Millennium Falcon, accompanied by R2-D2 and captioned with the iconic line, “A Jedi… like his father before him.”
This figure looks extremely similar to Luke Skywalker during the character’s appearance in The Mandalorian, where a de-aged Mark Hamill reprised his role to take Grogu to train in the ways of the Force as a Jedi.
Of course, as per the land’s official timeline, Luke Skywalker is (spoiler alert) dead. The character controversially became one with the Force at the end of The Last Jedi following a standoff with his nephew, Ben Solo (Adam Driver) – who became Kylo Ren after being seduced by the Dark Side and feeling betrayed by his uncle – and briefly reuniting with his sister, Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), without ever actually leaving the planet of Ahch-To. (Jedi stuff, you know).
For the character to appear in Galaxy’s Edge means Disney is doing the one thing it seemed like it would never do: abandoning the land’s canonical integrity. It’s something it already started skewing when it introduced the Mandalorian and Grogu. However, to throw Luke Skywalker into the mix suggests Imagineering is prepared to throw all canonical caution to the wind – and we’ll be honest, we’re not mad about the prospect.
Whether this is a long-term change remains to be seen. While Disney has promised more updates via an “incoming transmission” on February 10, the social media post tags the Season of the Force, the Star Wars celebration that will run at Disneyland Park from March 28 through May 11, 2025. That would imply that Luke’s time in Galaxy’s Edge will follow a similar timeline, making him a temporary character opportunity.
The Case for a Permanent Luke Skywalker Meet-and-Greet
Personally, we’re rooting for a long-term installation of Luke Skywalker in Galaxy’s Edge.
While we get where Disney was coming from with setting the land at a fixed point in time, this has never really been the approach with any other Disney land. Princesses and villains – even those who are technically supposed to have met grisly fates – mix with reckless abandon in Fantasyland. For all its very real flaws, one of the highlights of Avengers Campus is the fact that it’s a multiverse where everyone and anyone who’s appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe can drop by at a moment’s notice.
We’re sure there are some fans out there who feel passionate about the canon of Galaxy’s Edge. But for a land that already receives constant complaints about feeling static compared to other Disney lands, we have a hard time believing that this isn’t a step in the right direction.
How do you feel about the prospect of Luke Skywalker coming to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge?
It will be a failure, like the attraction before it…