May 22, 2026, will be the day that The Mandalorian and Grogu release in theaters. On that same day at Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort, Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run will allow guests to control their journey like never before in thanks to a new The Mandalorian and Grogu update.
For the first time ever, the crew will be in control of their own destination. This will allow interactivity and will create a better overall guest experience for the attraction. The new planets for Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run include Bespin, the wreckage of the second Death Star around Endor, and the legendary city planet of Coruscant. The engineer position will decide the destination and will now have the job to interact with Grogu as well during the mission. The update makes the engineer position more important.
Walt Disney Imagineering is teasing that the updated storyline will follow a different path from the film. However, previous comments from Jon Favreau indicated that this mission from Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run could very well be an off-screen adventure that ties into the film.
“This isn’t going to retell what happens in the movie — it’s more like participating in something that’s happening just off-camera from what you see in the film,” Favreau told the crowd back at SXSW.
The new storyline will see Hondo Ohnaka sending you on a mission to Tatooine as ex-Imperial officers and a band of pirates are making a deal. Guests will borrow the iconic ship and team up with Mando and Grogu to stop the ex-Imperial officers and pirates.
Does this mean Hondo Ohnaka and some of these locations could be mentioned in The Mandalorian and Grogu? I wouldn’t rule out the possibility, as it would be an easy form of synergy, and this has happened in Star Wars before with Star Tours and Rise of the Resistance, including key events within the sequel trilogy timeline (Lando’s call to action in The Rise of Skywalker, General Hux’s turn on Kylo Ren).
The Mandalorian and Grogu update of Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, by the time it’s completed, will have taken 18 months in total to create. Walt Disney Imagineering worked alongside Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) to bring the update to life. The technology that powers the attraction is the Unreal Engine 5 by Epic Games, the same tool that ILM uses on the Disney+ Star Wars shows like The Mandalorian.
Walt Disney Imagineering revealed that the Tatooine sequence for Smugglers Run will include pirates, a Crait Dragon, and a sand crawler. It seems to be a pretty loaded sequence that will kick off the new narrative.
WDI also revealed Star Tours will make a cameo in the Bespin sequence. It will be fascinating if it’s just a small nod or if the two attractions will have more intertwining narratives in the future.
Both attractions, despite being simulators, serve different purposes. Star Tours gives you a wide glimpse of the Star Wars galaxy, and Smugglers Run gives you the ability to command an iconic ship across the galaxy. One is a more casual passive experience, and the other is a much more active, hands-on gaming experience.
The wreckage of the Death Star on Endor will include a new type of trench run. I wonder if any Star Wars project will explain why the New Republic let the Death Star wreckage stay through the Mandoverse timeline and through The Rise of Skywalker? It’s a lot of debris not to clean up. Maybe the Death Star wreckage has to just remain for story purposes.
One of the biggest reveals of the panel is that guests will have the ability to do a mission on Coruscant, one of the most iconic and notable planets in Star Wars lore. Considering what is happening on Coruscant during the New Republic timeline, it could end up being a loaded sequence as well.
In the end, The Mandalorian and Grogu update to Smugglers Run will make the attraction desirable again. The ride system is great, but an obsession with gaming and a bland mission and planet has held the attraction back. Now the move is definitely killing two birds with one stone. Disney knew they needed an attraction based on The Mandalorian, and for the longest time, I speculated a third attraction for Galaxy’s Edge would be based on Mando. Disney also realized they needed to update Smugglers Run because it lacked missions and variety. So this move effectively balances both. I still think it leaves room for more of The Mandalorian in Galaxy’s Edge in the future, but that’s another story for another day.
The new update will begin on May 22, 2026, at Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort.
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Zach Perilstein is the Editor-in-Chief of the Boardwalk Times
