Summary

  • Disneyland has added real-life versions of the popular BD-1 droids from Star Wars to its Star Wars Land attraction, showcasing their impressive engineering and technical design.
  • Videos posted on social media reveal the bipedal BD units roaming and interacting with park guests, generating excitement among fans of the franchise.
  • The BD units' larger size compared to the fictional counterparts highlights the complexity of their design, and suggests the possibility of more iconic droids being introduced in the future.

A new set of viral videos have revealed Disneyland’s latest Star Wars droids, with Disney Imagineers turning their skills toward making a real-life version of the lovable BD-1. First making his appearance in the hit 2019 videogame Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, BD-1 was the former droid of the late Jedi Master Eno Cordova before coming into the possession of Cameron Monaghan’s Cal Kestis. In January 2022, the popular droid design made its first live-action franchise debut in The Book of Boba Fett episode 5.

Now, new videos being posted to social media from Disneyland’s Galaxy Edge have revealed the BD units have been added to the park’s growing roster of automated characters.

A video posted to Twitter by Disneyland News Today reveals a trio of bipedal BD units roaming the park’s Star Wars attraction.

Meanwhile, another video reposted by Dan StarWars Centralized expresses his excitement for seeing BD-1 brought to life, while Disney Dan Becker’s original clip shows the diminutive droids interacting with a park cast member.

Disneyland's New Droids Are The Best Yet

BD-1 staring at the viewer with Cal visible in the background aboard his ship.

First announced in 2015 following Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm in a record-breaking $4 billion deal, Disneyland’s Star Wars themed park attraction first opened in 2019 to massive crowds and considerable acclaim. Depicting the outer-rim world of Batuu, the attraction would include several familiar franchise sights including the iconic Millennium Falcon and a host of characters from the various corners of the hit franchise.

However, the recent addition of BD units to the park marks not only the introduction of a fan-favorite droid design, but an impressive feat of engineering and technical wizardry. While other commonly featured droid types such as the R-series Astromech units could rely on far simpler wheel mechanisms to allow them to navigate the park, the BD unit’s bipedal design would have been a unique challenge for Disney Imagineers to overcome.

Looking closely at the new BD units, it quickly becomes apparent that the droid’s main body is much larger than the fictional counterparts featured in both the Star Wars Jedi games and The Book of Boba Fett. However, given the kind of intricate mechanics that would be required to keep the droids stable and upright, their design remains impressive nonetheless. It will be interesting to see what other iconic droids may come to follow in their footsteps in the years to come.

Source: Various (see above)