Sorry
about the clickbait-y title up there. What with the opening of
Galaxy's Edge mere weeks away and May the Fourth having just been
with us recently, I've been thinking about Star Wars a little more
than usual. I've never made any secret of my misgivings about the
union of the Lucasfilm franchise and Disneyland, but only recently
have I started to put my finger on the cause(s) of them.
I
just don't think Star Wars is very “Disney.” Not that the company
hasn't done right by the franchise—for the most part, the new films
are quite good—but it doesn't sit well alongside what you might
call Disney's more traditional fare.* The Platonic ideal of “a
Disney movie” is an animated fairy tale, or maybe an adventure
story with animal characters. Obviously there are plenty of
exceptions, but that's the baseline most people think of.
And
that is not Star Wars. It may
be a fantasy, but it's no fairy tale. The main difference is one of
size. Disney fairy tales (and fairy tales in general) tend to be
pretty small. The
stakes are low, with the protagonists trying to save themselves, or
their families, or at most a small kingdom (and not necessarily from
something as dire as literal destruction). Their actions have little
to no effect on the larger world and the larger world does not
intrude upon their stories. Moreover, for most of them, the main plot
takes place within a relatively small area and/or a compressed
timeframe. And finally, they are self-contained stories. You start
the movie, and 90 minutes or so later, they all live happily ever
after, The End. What happened next is left to the realm of justly
loathed direct-to-video sequels. Or fanfiction.**
None
of this describes the Star Wars saga, a claim which can be handily
proved by the fact that you aren't questioning my use of the word
saga. The scale of it
is huge—it's a story
that spans generations and star systems, that's been being told for
over forty years, via ten theatrical movies (and counting!), several
TV series, and an inestimable number of novels, comic books, video
games, and other supplemental media.
I
mean, that is nuts. Do
you have any idea how nuts that is?
My
point is that Star Wars is vast.
They could give it its own entire Epcot-sized theme park, and still
only have room to explore a fraction of what makes it so compelling
to audiences of all ages. And they decided the best thing to do with
it is stick it on the back end of Frontierland? I'm sure Galaxy's
Edge is going to be monstrously popular and remain so for the
foreseeable future. I am also sure that it represents missed
opportunities. A remote corner of Disneyland Park, Anaheim, CA is not
the optimal location for this sort of concept.
From
the point of view of the park as a whole, Galaxy's Edge represents a
major departure from the kinds of themes that have historically been
assigned to lands. (Note here that I am talking about lands,
not individual attractions. Nor am I talking about any other parks.)
Better bloggers than I have spent hours and pages trying to pin down
the overall theme of Disneyland Park, but however you choose to
phrase it, there has always been a sense that no matter how wacky and
wonderful the environment was, you can get there from here.
This is our history, our future, our shared imagination, our
world.
Star
Wars is decidedly not
our world. Does it take place a long time ago from where we
sit, or from the perspective of someone even farther in the future?
The answer is that it doesn't matter, because it takes place in a
galaxy far, far away. We, ourselves, are entirely out of the picture.
Earth might not even exist in the Star Wars setting, and the “human”
characters might actually be aliens that look indistinguishable from
humans à
la Superman.
Is
it just me, or is there something inherently...askew
about this? Disneyland has always been about the best aspects of the
world we know. The tropics are full of adventure! The Wild West was a
time of heroes! Fairy tales can come true, and so can cartoons! The
future is bright! Spinning Star Wars into its own land kind of feels
like...giving up. Like saying “Actually, the world sucks and always
has. Our history is full of irredeemable villains, our mythology is
pointless, and it's only going to get worse from here no matter what
we do. Our only possible comfort is in the prospect of running away
to another universe entirely.”
And
isn't that uncharacteristically bleak
for the company that gave us “it's a small world”, the Carousel
of Progress, and all those Happily Ever Afters?
Just
some things to think about.
*
The same is true of the MCU, for similar reasons. This is not meant
as a knock against either film franchise in and of itself.
**
This is why I feel that even though the trailer looks okay, Frozen
2 may be a mistake.
