A Friday Visit with Jim Korkis: The Black Spire Cantina in Galaxy’s Edge

By Dave Shute

Welcome back to Fridays with Jim Korkis! Jim, the dean of Disney historians, writes about Walt Disney World history every Friday on yourfirstvisit.net.

THE BLACK SPIRE CANTINA

By Jim Korkis

The official description by Imagineering of Batuu, the setting of the new Star Wars: Galaxy Edge land at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, expected to open in the fall or late fall of 2019, is “Located on the edge of wild space, this remote outpost is home to all those who are seeking adventure and opportunity – pilots, smugglers, rogue traders and bounty hunters traveling between the frontier and uncharted space. This thriving space port is also a convenient safe haven for all others hoping to avoid the expanding reach of the First Order.”

(C) Disney

Thousands of years ago, Batuu was known for the huge ancient trees that dotted its landscape, and as the trees evolved and petrified, those spires remained a distinctive feature of the planet.

There’s one particular spire that was blacker than the rest, and as bounty hunters and traders came to the area, they used it as an identifying marker for where to meet and do business, so the outpost sprang up around it.

Black spires are also found elsewhere in the Star Wars universe. In the movie Solo: A Star Wars Story, L3-37 mentions to Lando Calrissian that without her, he would not get from “here to the Black Spire Station.”

Of course, all these scoundrels and rogues would need a particular gathering spot to plot and plan, relax and tell tales of adventure. For Black Spire Outpost that will be Oga’s Cantina, which will serve pilots, bounty hunters, smugglers, locals and galactic travelers alike.

Portfolio Creative Executive, Walt Disney Imagineering Scott Trowbridge, stated that the Cantina, hosted by the alien proprietor, Oga Garra, will serve a mixture of drinks with choices for kids and adults, and to expect some of those otherworldly concoctions to have exotic ingredients prepared with unique methods and served in unique vessels.

Trowbridge elaborated that the creative team is “developing a specialty cocktail (non-alcohol- and alcohol-based) menu that will include creatively themed custom cocktails, and proprietary beer and wine options.” So it will serve more than the infamous and familiar blue milk.

The proprietor of the cantina is Oga Garra, an alien who “adheres to a strict code of conduct that tries to keep its unruly patrons in check.”

The cantina will feature music from a galaxy far, far away, courtesy of RX-24, a former StarSpeeder 3000 pilot droid that will seem familiar as the nervous and possibly defective “Rex” to fans of the original Star Tours. He’s found a new job as the cantina’s DJ. RX-24 will supposedly be as quirky and talkative as ever, and will probably be a better fit for a cantina rather than piloting tourists through the universe. Trowbridge said, Rex is “still trying to do his best on the job.”

Visitors to Oga’s Cantina will encounter some of the galaxy’s more interesting and disreputable characters, from First Order Stormtroopers, aliens, droids, and bounty hunters to more familiar Star Wars characters including some who are trying to hide from detection. However, these interactions will be random, without a set show schedule.

Visiting something like the Mos Eisley cantina first seen in George Lucas’ 1977 film Star Wars  (now named Star Wars: A New Hope), has been something many Star Wars fans have always wanted to do, and now with the opening of the new land, they will finally get their chance.

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Thanks, Jim! And come back next Friday for more from Jim Korkis!

In the meantime, check out his books, including his latest,  The Vault of Walt Volume 7: Christmas Edition, and his Secret Stories of Walt Disney World: Things You Never You Never Knew, which reprints much material first written for this site, all published by Theme Park Press.

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