Starting today at Galaxy’s Edge in Disneyland, Star Wars fans will be able to meet Master Luke Skywalker in Batuu. His arrival is the latest evolution in the theme park’s canon, which had once limited itself to the time period between Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
The change to that original timeline came gradually these past couple of years as figures from Disney+ Lucasfilm shows have popped up in Batuu, incuding Ahsoka, Boba Fett, Fennec Shand, Sabine Wren, and Hera. And of course the Mandalorian and Grogu have had a huge presence at the parks because of fan demand for characters outside of the sequel trilogy.
io9 attended today’s opening of Season of the Force 2025—Disneyland’s annual Star Wars celebration, running now through May 11—and talked to Matt Martin from Lucasfilm and Michael Serna of Disney Live Entertainment to discuss how the story of the Black Spire Outpost will evolve from here.
“We look at all of our lands and experience as an evolution,” Serna shared. “Some things come and go, shows open, attractions come and go. So of course Galaxy’s Edge is going through the same journey; [it] evolves, and when we built Galaxy’s Edge, we didn’t even know that some of these stories would be told. So as time has grown on, we realized, who doesn’t love the Mandalorian story, who doesn’t love various different stories? So this is an opportunity for us to sort of lean into those stories we know our fans love and admire, while not pulling away from anything we’ve done before. Sometimes you’ll see something you love and sometimes you won’t. Our goal is to reach as many of our fans as possible and deliver all those amazing characters and experiences that people expect from our parks.”
That shift will become more defined this year, and it all begins with the lore weaver Tohan Lege—a character created for the Galaxy’s Edge fireworks show last year. Originally a disembodied voice narrating tales of the heroes and villains that are real within the land, this year he joins his trusty R1-series astromech droid Bard in illuminating the spires with projections of their history in “Shadows of Memory: A Skywalker Saga,” a show exploring the tragedy and triumphs of the family that connects them all.
Lucasfilm created him in collaboration with the parks to appear as a telling-stories-around-the-fire sort of figure. “Now we’ve got him as the centerpiece of ‘Shadows of Memory.’ And so it’s so perfect to have somebody to tell the mythical saga of the Skywalker story, because Star Wars is itself kind of a modern myth,” Martin said. “Having an in-universe character to do that storytelling is just kind of a perfect bridge for both of those shows that we have here. And hopefully we get to continue using that character as a storyteller for years to come both in the park and in other Star Wars stories.”
This is key in opening up the stories told within the land and the characters who may pop up in the future from across the Star Wars canon, Serna confirmed. “Star Wars has so many stories to tell. Matt and I had a lot of discussions about how do we sort of introduce things, like Fire of Memory [in] the fireworks show. We had this idea that a storyteller is the universal thing that’s happened at the beginning of [humankind]. It’s our lifestyle. We gather around a fire and tell a story. That’s how we’ve passed on histories and mythologies. So why would the galaxy of Star Wars be any different? There would be people that would want to collect these stories and tell them to future generations.”
We can’t wait to see what other stories make their way to the parks—in addition to Master Luke Skywalker, who we got to witness making his first grand entrance this afternoon.
As for any changes coming to the Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run ride to coincide with next year’s big-screen release of The Mandalorian and Grogu—well, Disney is still very much keeping that under wraps. “I mean, we can’t talk too much about that,” Serna teased. “We don’t have much to tell yet. Because other than what you learned at South by Southwest, we can’t really talk about it.”
Martin added, “What I will say is that it will be another authentic Mandalorian story, and obviously we will be in the Millennium Falcon. So we’re going to get to learn how we end up in the Millennium Falcon in a time where Han Solo owns that ship. So that should be pretty fun. But otherwise, I think you’ll have to wait and see.”
We also asked if any of the standout draws from Florida’s now-shuttered Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser might be coming to Batuu, such as the lightsaber experiences or our beloved Gaya’s dinner show.
Serna said, “I would say we’re always continuing to grow and do new things. You never know.”
We asked if we should be optimistic, and Martin added, “We learned a lot from that, you know, from a storytelling point of view. So I think the lessons that we’ve learned will always inform the future.”
Season of the Force is now underway at Disneyland. Learn more here.
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