Update 9/3: Since the original publication of this story, the TSA changed its tune and will now allow the bottles to count as an “oversized liquid,” meaning they “should be put in checked baggage or emptied to be brought on as a carry-on item.”
Batuu travelers, be wary. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has banned the custom Coca-Cola bottles sold at Disney’s new Star Wars-themed attraction, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, from all U.S. flights.
The TSA says the beverage containers, which vaguely resemble Star Wars’ hand grenade-like thermal detonators, are considered fake explosives. As an official TSA Twitter account explained, “Replica and inert explosives aren’t allowed in either carry-on or checked bags.”
A TSA representative contacted by The Orange County Register elaborated, explaining that the bottle’s unique shape could confuse TSA agents running security checks, who might mistake the Coke bottles for “the real thing.”
Everything at Galaxy’s Edge is designed to look like it could be part of the Star Wars Universe. That includes all of the food and beverage offerings, the costumes worn by park staffers, and every piece of merchandise sold in the park, including soda bottles.
The one-of-a-kind soda bottles were created by Coca-Cola in conjunction with Lucasfilm. In addition to their distinct shape, the bottles also replace the standard Coke, Diet Coke, and Sprite logos with Star Wars-themed equivalents spelled in Aurebesh, the Star Wars Universe’s fictional alphabet.
Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is a 14-acre installation set at the Black Spire trading outpost on Batuu, a planet on the far edge of the known Star Wars galaxy. The park opened at Southern California’s Disneyland in May, and makes its debut at Florida’s Walt Disney World Resort on Thursday, August 29. The park is considered part of Disney’s Star Wars canon, and is set between Star Wars: Episode VIII — The Last Jedi and this December’s Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker.
While Galaxy’s Edge’s main attraction is Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, an interactive ride that puts guests in the cockpit of Han Solo’s iconic YT-1300 Corellian light freighter, visitors can also engage in a number of classic Star Wars experiences, including building their own droids, shopping for old Jedi antiquities, and grabbing a glass of blue milk (or, for adults, an alcoholic beverage) at the local cantina. A second ride, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, opens at the Florida park this December, and at Disneyland in January 2020.
For $150, Galaxy’s Edge residents can also build their own lightsabers as part of an elaborate 45-minute ceremony. For now, the TSA seems to think the replica laser swords are safe. We’ll let you know if that changes.
China just gave Hollywood a cautionary tale about AI filmmaking. Sanxingdui: Future Past, billed as the country's first fully AI-generated movie, hit theaters on October 23 and bombed at the box office.
According to Futurism, the film's reported $1.5 million production budget landed on more than 10,000 screens. Yet it pulled in only about $181,000, averaging roughly $20 per screen, making the budget difficult to recover.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?