The politics of play on Disneyland’s Millennium Falcon in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge

The last thing I expected to find in Disneyland’s Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge was a political statement. But it’s there, concealed within the Millennium Falcon like a Hidden Mickey.

is the new ride inside Disney’s Star Wars land. The backstory is that Hondo Ohnaka, from the “Clone Wars” and “Star Wars Rebels” TV series, is hiring visitors to crew the Falcon for a “perfectly legal” mission that just happens to involve stealing a bunch of coaxium, the hyperspace fuel that Han Solo was smuggling when he made the Kessel Run that he bragged about in the original “Star Wars” film.

Once aboard, visitors are grouped into crews of six, then escorted to the cockpit of the Falcon for their mission. On most theme park attractions, you’re just along for the ride. Perhaps, on interactive rides such as Buzz Lightyear, you might get to shoot at stuff to earn a score. Maybe even you can benefit by working with a partner, such as on the Little Green Men screen in Toy Story Midway Mania, where two people working together can unlock a score-boosting Easter egg.

But Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run takes cooperative play to a new level never before seen on a major theme park attraction. Each rider is assigned something to do on the ride, and the more successfully each person carries out that task, the more successful the mission will be.

The first time I rode, I was a gunner, assigned to shoot TIE fighters attacking the Falcon. I did OK, hitting about a third of the enemy ships. But we ended up wrecking the Falcon and collecting only the minimum one container of coaxium, since our pilots kept running into things and our engineers could not hit the right buttons fast enough to repair the damage in time. The ride attendant told us that Hondo had put a price on our heads. Not good.

The second time through, I talked through the upcoming mission with the other visitors who would be on our crew while waiting to enter the cockpit. A couple of us who had ridden before explained the process to the other four, who were surprised to learn they could have so much control over the action on the ride. Inside the cockpit, we killed it, snagging extra coaxium and making a nice chunk of change for Hondo.

Walking out of the Falcon, I recognized that Disney’s Imagineers had just taught us a few sneaky social lessons, ones that resonate politically in an increasingly divided nation.

First, you have to take control, because sitting around waiting for someone else to act is no way to do what needs to be done. Second, you have to work together with everyone to make things happen, even though you might not get to pick your crew. And finally, to do all this, you have to find a healthy, productive way to communicate with others, even people you do not know.

Getting angry, blaming others, or just laughing as the whole thing comes crashing down — none of those helps your mission succeed.

After riding, I wished that Disney could build a hundred of its Millennium Falcons. Not just because it’s a fun ride, but because it also offers some lessons that a whole lot of Americans would do well to remember.