Downtown Disney turns Rainforest Cafe into Star Wars shop — Is a cantina next? - OCRegister

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Disneyland’s temporary plan to set aside its commitment to immersive storytelling experiences just became more permanent as once-exclusive merchandise only available in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge will now be sold in the former Rainforest Cafe at Downtown Disney.

The Star Wars Trading Post pop-up shop at Downtown Disney will be moving from its temporary location in the WonderGround Gallery to its new more permanent home in the former rain forest-themed restaurant.

An opening date for the relocated Star Wars Trading Post has not been announced. The Asian Street Eats take-away restaurant temporarily placed in front of the Rainforest Cafe entrance has been removed after a year in business.

SEE ALSO: 10 things to know about the end of Disneyland’s annual pass program

Walt Disney Imagineering will transform the former Rainforest Cafe gift shop into a Star Wars shop themed as a hidden jungle Resistance base with Rey’s speeder parked at the entrance.

Disney fan website MiceChat expects the Downtown Disney gift shop to be themed to the Star Wars jungle planet of Yavin-4 which features Mayan-style structures similar to the Rainforest Cafe exterior.

“There’s room upstairs for Disney to do even more if they get ambitious,” according to MiceChat. “A Star Wars restaurant or bar would really turn the volume up to 11 on this project. You think Trader Sam’s is popular? Just imagine a large Star Wars cantina in Downtown Disney.”

SEE ALSO: Downtown Disney turns 20 — take a look at how it’s changed

The west end of Downtown Disney has been a bit of a ghost town since Disney abandoned plans to build a four-star hotel on the site of the Rainforest Cafe, ESPN Zone, AMC Theatre, Earl of Sandwich and Starbucks. The sandwich and coffee shops returned after closing in 2018, but the rain forest-themed restaurant and 12-screen theater complex have remained empty ever since. The ESPN sports bar has been repurposed for a number of Disney pop-up events and shops.

The WonderGround Gallery will eventually return to its former location in Downtown Disney — although no reopening date has been announced. WonderGround will once again feature collectible art along with the addition of Disney housewares, Minnie Mouse headbands and Disneyland spirit jerseys.

The new Star Wars Trading Post location in the former Rainforest Cafe will sell Jedi robes from Black Spire Outfitters, dejarik board games from the Toydarian Toymaker, pre-built droids from Droid Depot, cuddly porgs from the Creature Stall and legacy lightsabers from Dok-Ondar’s Den of Antiquities — all Galaxy Edge shops in Disneyland.

SEE ALSO: Will Disneyland raise ticket prices in 2021?

Disney once boasted that the merchandise sold in Galaxy’s Edge would be exclusively available in the Star Wars land. But the extended COVID-19 closure of Disneyland has changed everything.

Now shipments of interstellar goods bound for the Star Wars planet of Batuu are sold in an outdoor shopping mall in Anaheim — an exotic locale not even in a galaxy far, far away. Blame it on space pirate Hondo Ohnaka and his band of rogue smugglers.

The original concept behind Galaxy’s Edge was that the 14-acre land was in a separate universe from Disneyland with visitors to Black Spire Outpost stepping foot on the Star Wars planet of Batuu — at least according to the backstory developed by Imagineering.

That meant those lightsabers sold at Doc-Ondar’s Den of Antiquities and the plush alien critters available in the Creature Stall could only be found in Galaxy’s Edge. Provided you could suspend belief enough to forget that the same merchandise was sold at Batuu West in Disneyland and Batuu East in Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

Imagineering’s immersive storytelling went so far as to prohibit the use of the words “Star Wars” and “Galaxy’s Edge” at any attraction, restaurant or shop in the land.

None of the Galaxy’s Edge merchandise was supposed to show up in Tomorrowland’s Star Trader, Main Street U.S.A.’s Emporium or an off-planet shop in Downtown Disney.

Galaxy’s Edge merchandise had already started to seep out of Batuu — likely on pirated starcruisers piloted by space scoundrels. In August, Target stores opened Star Wars Trading Post locations within the big box retailers that carried once-exclusive Galaxy’s Edge toys, dolls, droids and lightsabers. Florida’s Magic Kingdom has been stocking Galaxy’s Edge merchandise in its Emporium gift shop since early September. A pallet of Galaxy’s Edge-exclusive thermal detonator Coke bottles even showed up in a small, family-owned Alabama grocery store.

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Downtown Disney turns Rainforest Cafe into Star Wars shop — Is a cantina next? - OCRegister
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