The Star Wars galaxy contains billions of stars, is home to trillions of beings living on millions of worlds governed over millennia of galactic history, and you get to visit one of those places when you visit Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disney’s Hollywood Studios or Disneyland. While the land itself is called Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, the actual planet that you’re visiting is called Batuu.
What Is Batuu?
Batuu is an original concept, fully designed by Walt Disney Imagineering. As told by project lead Scott Trowbridge, Imagineering bucked the idea of a “greatest hits” land where guests could visit locations and stories that they knew, instead opting for a brand new location where guests could write their own Star Wars stories. The idea was that Batuu would be an Outer Rim planet that felt and looked very Star Wars-y, but one that had not yet been visited by the movies, TV shows, or multitude of other media that Star Wars was created for.
The idea of Batuu was born in late 2014 after the project, codename Delos, began in April 2014. teams working on creating a place that felt like a “natural stepping off point for adventure”, ensuring that it would not only be possible to build on Earth, but that it felt like it belonged in a galaxy far, far away.
Logistically, Imagineering wanted to create a place that could support guests choosing diverging paths in their story. After all, some guests may feel compelled to help the First Order (bad guys), while other guests will root for the underdogs and want to help the Resistance.
“Pretty quickly we coalesced around this idea of a spaceport, with people coming and going, introducing new characters and introducing new ideas,” Imagineering portfolio creative executive Scott Trowbridge says. “A place that was a little bit on the reckless side, a little bit off the beaten track—a place where it wouldn’t feel out of place to find smugglers and bounty hunters and Jedi in hiding and the First Order poking around. A place where us weird offworlders wouldn’t faze them. If we’re going to be participants in this story, we ourselves have to logically be able to fit into this story.”
Trowbridge continued, “All of those ideas drove us toward a frontier outpost right on the edge of Wild Space. You have to wind around things. Nothing reveals itself to you right away. You don’t necessarily know what’s around the next corner. There aren’t giant signs that say ‘Millennium Falcon ride this way? It is intended to be a place that is explored. It is intended to be a place where you can make discoveries, and where you can feel that there is still yet more to be discovered.”
Lucasfilm concept design supervisor Erik Tiemens thinks of Black Spire Outpost as an old port of call. Spaceships arrive and depart regularly. New visitors bring new tales. The Resistance and the First Order, and the tension they bring, intermingle with space mariners and merchants and all the tertiary characters in Black Spire.
Where Is Batuu Located?
In terms of where Batuu is located, it’s in a region called the Outer Rim right on the fringe of Wild Space. As you can see in the updated Star Wars Galaxy Map from StarWars.com, there is a lot of Outer Rim to speak of when trying to find a single planet. The map was updated recently with nearly 1,500 additions, including Batuu.
Here’s the full resolution version of the Star Wars Galaxy Map so you can poke around a bit yourself before we reveal the location of Batuu.
Zooming in a bit, we can find Batuu in section H15, right on the edge of Wild Space, as previously described. We’ve circled Batuu on the left side of the map screenshot below.
Other notable planets and locations “nearby” Batuu include Endor, which is where the second Death Star was stationed and where the Battle of Endor took place. Endor was some 7,500 lightyears from Batuu. Another notable location is Bakura. Bakura, not to be confused with Pacara (which can also be found nearby, 12,00 lightyears away) from the Rise of the Resistance attraction, is a location that was mentioned in George Lucas’ rough draft script for Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith. In the rough draft script, Grievous referred to Anakin Skywalker as “the young hero of Bakura.”
So there you have it! Batuu has been added to the official Star Wars Galaxy Map, and now you can visualize where you are in the vast galaxy when you step past Toy Story Land or Grand Avenue and into the Outer Rim planet of Batuu at Disney’s Hollywood Studios (or Disneyland).
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!
