Disneyland occasionally changes its rides, implementing technology upgrades or incorporating new stories, but seldom does an entire land in the park completely alter its narrative.
When Disneyland’s newest theme park land opened in 2019, it boasted impressive theming and unique offerings, but it also had some big limitations that impacted how guests connected with the story. Now, Disney has listened to guest feedback and is finally about to change this land for the better with some significant improvements. It will soon welcome favorite characters and experiences in an update many fans think should have been part of the land since its beginning. Keep reading to learn all the details about what Disney’s changing and what’s staying the same. Mickey Visit brings you the latest Disney news and planning resources, including new details about Disneyland After Dark: Pride Nite 2026 and an update on new shuttles servicing hotels near Disneyland.
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The Timeline is Expanding in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge
When Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge opened in 2019 at Disneyland Park in California and Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida, the new land took place at a specific point in the Star Wars films’ timeline.
Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, in its original form, focused on the characters and stories of Episodes VII-IX of the “Skywalker Saga,” aka the “sequel trilogy,” the three Star Wars films released from 2015 to 2019 and involving Rey, Kylo Ren, Finn, Poe, and BB-8 as a new generation of characters.
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Walt Disney Imagineering was very careful that all aspects of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, from character appearances to architecture, supported the idea that guests were visiting the land, which resembles the planet of Batuu, during the events of the sequel trilogy. Nothing could contradict this continuity.
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Over time, Disney slowly relaxed the strictness around the timeline for Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, particularly for the Disneyland version of the land, with walk-around characters that bent the rules a bit. Disneyland started to incorporate seasonal character appearances like Hera Syndulla, Sabine Wren, and Luke Skywalker, and made a new viewing experience themed to the land that acknowledged the Disneyland Park fireworks taking place in the evenings.
Come April 29, 2026, Disneyland will implode its timeline continuity rules completely, welcoming a new era of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in which stories from all across the galaxy’s chronology coexist. Specifically, Disney will integrate characters from the original Star Wars trilogy in major ways.
New Characters Coming, Others Leaving
In a move that is sure to delight many fans, Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, and Han Solo will all permanently appear in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland starting April 29, 2026!
Luke previously appeared in Galaxy’s Edge briefly in 2025, but just for a limited time during Disneyland’s Season of the Force celebration. While Leia, Han, and Darth Vader have appeared in other meet-and-greet opportunities before, including the after-hours Star Wars Nites, this is their first time coming to Galaxy’s Edge specifically. These characters’ looks in the park will be inspired by their appearances in the original Star Wars trilogy, released from 1977 to 1983.
Consistent with other character encounters in Galaxy’s Edge, the characters from the original Star Wars trilogy will roam the land and interact with guests in spontaneous, story-driven moments. They will not stand in one place while guests line up for traditional photos and autographs.
That being said, we do expect them to be quite popular and likely draw crowds. The first day that Luke Skywalker appeared at Disneyland (pictured below), he was swarmed with excited guests. The immense popularity of this original trilogy character was a clear indication of how much fans wished for a more flexible timeline.
Generally, these newly added characters will be found near the Black Spire Outpost area of Galaxy’s Edge, near Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run.
The characters from the original trilogy join an existing roster of characters in Galaxy’s Edge who will continue greeting guests: Rey, Chewbacca, R2-D2, The Mandalorian, Grogu, Ahsoka, and Stormtroopers.
Characters from different timeline periods will not interact with each other, or even appear in the same area at the same time. For instance, don’t expect to see a young, ’80s-era Han Solo chumming it up with Rey, as Han Solo was much older by the time the two meet in the movies.
As part of the changes, Kylo Ren will depart from Disneyland’s Galaxy’s Edge, meeting instead on the other side of the park at Star Wars Launch Bay in Tomorrowland. In turn, Darth Vader will no longer meet guests inside Launch Bay.
Additionally, Vi Moradi, an original character created exclusively for Galaxy’s Edge, will no longer appear within Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland starting April 29.
John Williams’s Soundtrack
When deciding the creative direction for Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge as they were first developing the land, Imagineers opted not to include the Star Wars movies’ soundtracks as background music.
Music still accentuates the action in the land’s two rides, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance and Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, and in recent years, the iconic Star Wars music has been played during the land’s nighttime shows.
As guests walk around Batuu, however, they hear the ambient noise of the planet’s citizens, transportation, and shopkeepers brought to life through sound effects instead of music. This was an interesting creative experiment, but Williams’ grand music adds so much to the Star Wars movies that Galaxy’s Edge felt incomplete without it.
Officially, Imagineers said the choice not to play music throughout Batuu was to give the land an authenticity, as the characters wouldn’t have heard any music during their visits to the planet.
I suspect a great deal of the decision may have also been to differentiate Galaxy’s Edge from The Wizarding World of Harry Potter lands at Universal theme parks, which feature their own beloved portfolio of John Williams music.
Regardless of the reason, Disney noticed guest feedback and is correcting course. Starting April 29, 2026, Williams’ music will proudly be played throughout Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland.
Ride Update with the Mandalorian and Grogu
Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, a simulator ride in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, involves guests joining Hondo Ohnaka, a character from the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels, on a quest to smuggle coaxium fuel.
The current version of the ride takes place within the sequel trilogy, but will soon shift as Galaxy’s Edge opens itself up to all points in the Star Wars timeline.
On May 22, 2026, Disney will introduce a new version of Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run. Hondo will still be part of the ride, but the mission will also involve Din Djain, aka the Mandalorian, and Grogu, aka “baby Yoda.”
Here is how Disney describes the new storyline:
“In this new story arc, Hondo Ohnaka catches wind of a deal on Tatooine between ex-Imperial officers and pirates, setting the stage for a high-stakes chase across the galaxy. Guests will team up with Mando and Grogu to track them down and claim a bounty in a dynamic, galaxy-spanning adventure.”
After taking off from Batuu and visiting Tatooine, guests will get to choose which planet to visit: Bespin, home of Cloud City; Endor, including the wreckage of the Death Star; or Coruscant, one of the galaxy’s busiest cityscapes.
As part of the changes, riders assigned to the engineer role will get to communicate with Grogu. This is a big improvement over this position’s previously underwhelming responsibilities.
Along with these story-related updates, Imagineering is upgrading the tech behind Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run in an effort to help the real-time rendering of the ride’s imagery look more pristine than ever.
The opening date for the new version of Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, May 22, coincides with the release date of the new movie The Mandalorian and Grogu in theaters. Disney has not announced any refurbishment downtime to convert the old version to the new version.
Story Details Throughout Batuu
In addition to the items described above, which are more overt and likely to be noticeable to many guests, other changes to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge will be more subtle.
Near the Black Spire Outpost area of Galaxy’s Edge, Imagineers will adjust props, paint, and signage to support a backstory that takes place during the original Star Wars trilogy rather than the sequel trilogy.
For example, the store called First Order Cargo will change its name to Black Spire Surplus, since the First Order doesn’t exist in the time of Darth Vader.
Frequent visitors and superfans may have fun searching for details like this, and there will be many. The timeline expansion doesn’t equate a Star Wars free-for-all, and Imagineers are taking care to integrate context clues that make sense for whichever given point in the timeline an entity within the land represents.
These visual-focused changes will be installed by April 29, 2026.
Possible Preview During Star Wars Nite?
Disneyland After Dark: Star Wars Nite, an after-hours special event, returns to Disneyland Park on April 28, April 30, May 4, and May 6, 2026. The party features exclusive live entertainment and food, which you can see in our review of a previous year’s Star Wars Nite.
With many of the changes debuting at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge on April 29 for all park guests during the daytime, and Disneyland hosting its first Star Wars Nite of the year the very night before that big April 29 debut day, I would be shocked if Disney didn’t soft-launch the timeline expansion for guests attending Star Wars Nite as a special surprise treat.
This would essentially mean guests at Star Wars Nite on April 28 might meet Luke, Leia, Han Solo, and Darth Vader in Galaxy’s Edge, and/or hear John Williams’ music playing throughout the land that evening. However, this is just speculation, and Disney has not announced this. The official launch date for the timeline changes remains April 29.
Walt Disney World Mostly Staying the Same, Still Changing Smugglers Run
Most of the changes to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge we described in this story pertain to Disneyland Park in California.
The version of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in Disney’s Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World in Florida is very similar to its west-coast counterpart and contains the same rides. However, Florida’s land will not expand its timeline to include the original Star Wars trilogy, and will instead stay mostly within the sequel trilogy.
However, Florida will introduce the update to Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run with the Mandalorian and Grogu. The new version of the ride, with all the same changes, will open May 22 in Florida, just as it will in California.
Unlike at Disneyland, Kylo Ren and Vi Moradi will continue to be part of the character lineup in Galaxy’s Edge at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Additionally, Darth Vader will continue to meet guests strictly outside of Galaxy’s Edge in Florida rather than on Batuu.
Imagineers Go in Depth on Galaxy’s Edge Changes
Back in January, when Disney first announced the timeline expansion of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, representatives from Walt Disney Imagineering and Lucasfilm spoke with Mickey Visit in depth about how they approached integrating more stories into Batuu’s existing landscape. See all the insight we learned from those conversations here.
We are looking forward to these new changes, which broaden the appeal of the land significantly. With various eras of the Star Wars universe now represented in Galaxy’s Edge, there is something for every fan to look forward to.
What are your thoughts on the changes? Are you excited to see a looser timeline for the land?
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