The otherworldly petrified tree spires and intergalactic outpost marketplaces in the new Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge themed lands coming Disneyland and Disney’s Hollywood Studios were inspired by a host of far-flung real-world locations on planet Earth.

Walt Disney Imagineering and Lucasfilm drew inspiration from locales in the Southwest United States, Eastern Europe, Western Asia, Northern Africa, and the Middle East to create the Black Spire Outpost village on the Star Wars planet of Batuu, the setting for the new 14-acre lands at the California and Florida theme parks.

“We go all over the world and kind of just pick and choose all our favorites,” said Imagineering executive creative director Chris Beatty.

The decision was made early on to take Galaxy’s Edge visitors to a new location in the Star Wars cinematic universe rather than a familiar planet like Tatooine or Hoth.

The Imagineering and Lucasfilm creative team wanted Galaxy’s Edge to look like it was designed by Star Wars concept artists Ralph McQuarrie and Joe Johnston and Star Wars production designer John Barry.

Early drawings by the original Star Wars artists covered the walls of the Galaxy’s Edge design office. Sketches of what would become Black Spire Outpost were held up next to the original Star Wars drawings. The new sketches were thrown away If they didn’t look like something McQuarrie or Johnston would have had a hand in, Beatty said.

The goal was to create a fully-interactive land that felt like a distinct and natural part of the Star Wars universe. Imagineering and Lucasfilm followed a “three-second rule” to determine the Star War credentials of any potential Galaxy’s Edge concept design.

“If in three seconds I don’t know it’s Star Wars, it doesn’t belong in the land,” said Imagineering executive creative director Wendy Anderson.

During the Blue Sky process, the creative team pinned the foundational pillars of Galaxy’s Edge to the wall — mystery, romance, history, danger, discovery, exploration — to serve as guideposts as they developed the backstory, design, and layout of the new land.

“One of the interesting challenges for this was to find a world that felt exotic enough and yet felt familiar,” Lucasfilm vice president and creative director Doug Chiang told StarWars.com.

The architecture, costumes, and vehicles in Black Spire Outpost rely on timeless designs drawn from the Star Wars cinematic universe.

“We went to that library of iconic, recognizable Star Wars things that people know and love from the films and tried to figure out which one of those best fit the specific story of the space that we needed and then adapted it as necessary to fit,” said Imagineering executive creative director Asa Kalama.

The creative team also drew upon millenniums of human history to make the new themed land feel exotic yet familiar.

“We want it to have a sense of history,” Beatty said. “That it’s been there for a thousand years and it’s been conquered multiple times in battles that have taken place. There’s a layering that takes place. Things have just been built upon. Building upon building.”

Hundreds of sketches were created for the layout of Black Spire Outpost. The challenge: How to take the best locations envisioned for the land and link them together like jigsaw puzzle pieces.

Imaginary landscapes created for Black Spire Outpost were inspired by Italian city view painters like Canaletto and Piranesi who created fantastic views of architectural fantasies, said Lucasfilm concept design supervisor Erik Tiemens.

“We’re kind of doing that in a way, creating these viewpoints that are imagined but then melded into this sort of believable but heightened imaginary landscaped structure,” Tiemens said.

The look of Black Spire Outpost was framed in the artistic vocabulary of classic architectural landscape paintings and cinematic compositions, Tiemens said.

“On a formal level, it becomes an architectural study of ruins, a study of layering,” Tiemens said. “There’s an archeological aspect to it and also the way light plays on form.”

An internal “Design Bible” contained all the real-world inspirations and architectural design details that guided the creative team as they built Galaxy’s Edge, Beatty said.

The creative team traveled to Istanbul, Turkey and Marrakesh, Morocco during the Blue Sky phase in search of inspiration for Galaxy’s Edge.

“Those are really the two locations that for the most part defined the village and a lot of the architecture,” Beatty said.

The mosques, temples, and landmarks seen on the research trip influenced the iconic dome-shaped cylindrical buildings that dot Black Spire Outpost and give the village its quintessential Star Wars look.

The sunshade-covered colonnade of tiny vendor stalls run by Black Spire Outpost grain vendors, toy makers, and jewelers were inspired by the Moroccan and Istanbul marketplaces.

The Creature Stall in the Black Spire marketplace will be filled with hanging cages containing audio-animatronic alien beasts collected from across the Star Wars galaxy.

“When we’re done, just like those stalls that you see in Istanbul and Morocco, you won’t be able to see the ceiling in this space,” Beatty said during a construction tour of the land.

The 135-foot-tall petrified tree spires made from hand-crafted rock work form the distinctive backdrop for Black Spire Outpost and lend the village its name. The spires were inspired by the Petrified Forest National Park in northeastern Arizona near the New Mexico border.

“For the rock work spires, we looked at the petrified forests in New Mexico and Arizona to help us with the look and feel of that area,” Beatty said.

The towering petrified trees lend a historic, exotic and iconic look to Galaxy’s Edge that still feels familiar and approachable.

“One of the key things that we did was really play around with scale and the idea of petrified formations,” Chiang told StarWars.com. “It’s that blend of something that’s exotic, but then exaggerating the scale quite a bit and then creating a whole world based on that one idea. If you look closely, there’s history built into it. There’s history built into the landscape and history built into the structures themselves.”

The spires became the graphic symbol that instantly identified Black Spire Outpost as a part of the Star Wars universe, according to Chiang.

“When you do that what happens is that you’re creating something that’s very fresh that is easily identifiable as Star Wars,” Chiang said. “It also makes it very real.”

The creative team turned to Northern and Eastern Europe for the landscape and terrain of Black Spire Outpost.

“We looked at Bulgaria and certain regions of the Baltic states for the planting palette and some of our rock forms,” Beatty said.

To add an element of war to the Star Wars village, the team looked to the war-torn region of the Middle East to see how shopkeepers, restaurateurs and residents in historic neighborhoods react and adapt to strife and instability.

“We studied Jerusalem,” Beatty said. “We were looking for places that had a lot of conflict. That had a lot of history, romance and a lot of nationalities living together.”

Docking Bay 7 Food and Cargo in the Black Spire Outpost village will offer an intergalactic twist on the latest food hall and food truck trends. The quick-service restaurant pays tribute to a lively Japanese food marketplace, according to Beatty.

“Docking Bay 7 Food and Cargo was really inspired by the Tsukiji fish market,” Beatty said. “It’s incredible. Tsukiji fish market is the world’s largest fish market in Tokyo, Japan. It’s just crazy.”

Not every detail in Galaxy’s Edge will have an elaborate backstory and real-world analog. Some parts will be left to visitors to puzzle over and craft their own tale.

When Imagineering managing story editor Margaret Kerrison turned to Lucasfilm creative director Chiang with questions about the origins of the ancient ruins near the Black Spire village, he told her not everything in the Star Wars universe is known and understood.

“Let it be a mystery,” Chiang told Kerrison. “There’s so much in the Star Wars galaxy that we don’t have answers to.”

Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge opens May 31 at Disneyland in California and Aug. 29 at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida.

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