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There are other attractions that could have been upgraded

 harshlight, Flickr (license)

Image: harshlight, Flickr (license)

Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is about to open, and when it does, Disney’s Hollywood Studios will finally return to the days before it became derisively known as a half-day park. And yet, it’s hard not to think those wounds were self-inflicted — and Galaxy’s Edge will simply paper over them, rather than real them.

Think of it like this: When Galaxy’s Edge opens, it will share Disney’s Hollywood Studios with attractions that have been open for decades. Somehow, Indiana Jones: Epic Stunt Spectacular, Beauty and the Beast: Live on Stage, and even Voyage of the Little Mermaid will still be operational as Star Wars opens its doors. For perspective, Indiana Jones: Epic Stunt Specacular opened closer to the premier of Star Wars: A New Hope than to today.

If the company really wanted to give Disney’s Hollywood Studios a makeover, it could have instead rolled out new attractions in the already existing show buildings and areas of the park — giving guests a reason to check out the park beyond a couple of headlining attractions. Star Wars is great, but it will seem somewhat out of place while the rest of the park remains somewhat stuck in the past. 

If all else failed, film production could have been brought back

 hyku, Flickr (license)

Image: hyku, Flickr (license)

When Disney’s Hollywood Studios began operation in 1989 as Disney-MGM Studios, it had a unique mission: Take guests behind the scenes to see how movies are made. They decided to complete this mission by giving guests a tour of a real production facility Disney would build on-site — half of which would be devoted to live action film, and the other half animation. 

For years, the animation studio helped produce some of Disney’s best work, including Aladdin, The Lion King, and Mulan. The live action studio, on the other hand, never quite made the same impact — sitting mostly vacant, save for a few one-off low-budget productions hoping to get a small marketing boost by filming at the Disney park. For most productions, it didn’t make sense to film outside of Los Angeles or other traditional filming locales — why film so far away from where the studio big wigs are?

Eventually, Disney decided the whole thing was more trouble than it was worth and, slowly, shuttered the working studio elements of the property.

Interestingly, right as Disney decided to shut down studio operations, the rest of the world caught up with their idea. 

 antciardiello, Flickr (license)

Image: antciardiello, Flickr (license)

In 2006, Disney purchased Pixar — a computer-based animation studio. While the process of couriering animated cells across the country, or scanning them to send digitally, was expensive, time-consuming, and ultimately counterproductive, computer animation would eventually change that equation. Now, teams of animators can, and regularly do, collaborate across vast distances. Even shows like The Simpsons regularly outsource computer animation as far as South Korea — with that perspective, having an animation team in Orlando doesn’t seem so crazy.

In 2008, then-Georgia governor Sonny Perdue signed into law a massive tax incentive — with no end date — that would give film studios that shot large-budget productions in the state of Georgia a break. The gains were so positive that by 2016, more blockbuster movies were shot in Georgia than California. Disney, even, got in on the fun, with most Marvel Cinematic Universe films since Ant-Man in 2015 being shot in the Peach State. It’s not just location shoots either — many productions base their operations out of traditional film studios in the Atlanta area, similar to the facilities Disney built at Disney-MGM Studios in 1989.

Politics aside, it’s not crazy to imagine a world in which Disney used its considerable leverage to get a similar deal granted in Florida. Disney may not have the theme park rights for Marvel attractions east of the Mississippi River, but they could have filmed Marvel movies in their Orlando studio in such a world. They wouldn’t just take guests behind the movie-making process, they’d show them how their actual favorite movies get made. Yes, Star Wars is nice, but a 21st century version of the promise the original Disney-MGM Studios held would be a fantastic way to breathe life into the 30-year-old park.

Plus, if Disney did all of this instead of building Galaxy’s Edge, we could have gotten an entirely Star Wars-themed fifth theme park at Walt Disney World. How cool would that have been?

 
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