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Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run's Preshow Doors Are Working Again After Years Stuck Open at Disney's Hollywood Studios
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Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run's Preshow Doors Are Working Again After Years Stuck Open at Disney's Hollywood Studios

Michael Travels
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Published

If you have ridden Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run at Disney's Hollywood Studios in the last several years, you probably walked straight from the standby queue into the preshow room without a second thought. A set of large sliding blast doors was supposed to open and close there, sealing each group inside before the next one moved up. For most of the ride's life, those doors just sat open.

The Millennium Falcon parked outside the Smugglers Run attraction building at Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run sits at the heart of Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge at Disney's Hollywood Studios. Photo: elisfkc via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.

Not anymore. Enthusiasts visiting on Sunday, July 26 reported that the doors are operating as designed again, closing behind each group of guests before opening to admit the next. WDW News Today first noted the change, and it circulated among Galaxy's Edge watchers the same day.

What the doors are supposed to do

The blast doors sit at the transition between the standby queue and the preshow chamber, where the pirate Hondo Ohnaka appears to recruit guests for a smuggling mission aboard the Falcon. Closing the doors between groups is a small but deliberate piece of theming, giving each batch of riders a sealed room instead of a continuous shuffle through an open doorway.

Guests standing at the sliding blast doors in the Smugglers Run queue, next to an illuminated Exit sign Guests gather at the sliding blast doors that lead from the standby queue into the Hondo Ohnaka preshow room. Photo: WDW News Today.

According to WDW News Today, the doors stopped operating not long after Galaxy's Edge opened and had been left in the open position ever since. That means a large share of guests who have ridden the attraction never actually saw them close.

A preshow that keeps changing

The doors are the latest small tweak to a preshow Disney has already been reworking this year. An update in 2026 renarrated Hondo's spiel, dropping the old First Order and Resistance framing in favor of a looser, more piratical setup. In the current version, after Chewbacca leaves the transmission, Hondo turns to the group and declares, "I found you a ship!"

No word from Disney

As with most quiet maintenance fixes inside the parks, Disney has not announced anything about the doors, and there is no official statement confirming the repair is permanent. For now it is an enthusiast observation, so the effect could always go offline again if it was only briefly restored. Even so, for fans who have wanted to see Galaxy's Edge running the way it was designed, a long-dormant detail flickering back to life is a welcome sight on an otherwise quiet summer weekend.

Sources

Image credits: Establishing photo of Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run by elisfkc via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0). Preshow doors photo via WDW News Today.

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