My daughter is 8 and has watched a few episodes of The Mandalorian with me but that’s it. She knows some of the references (Kylo Ren) from her friends or cousins talking about them. She loved the ride. Like others have said, it’s more than a ride. And even as “just a ride” it’s still really good!
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I had to reassure a little girl twice that help was on the way. She was a bit scared. But to her credit, her parents were building it up a bit much. I would say she was 6 or 7.
Rise, to me, is definitely a must-do at least once. While, as others have said, having seeing the movies would cement any emotional connection to it, I think it can work as a standalone “experience” (it is more than just a ride) really well.
I will say that re-rideability drops after that first time. We have done it multiple times, but subsequent rides haven’t quite had the same “wow” factor as the first ride did. (Don’t get me wrong…I still enjoy it on re-rides!)
As far as MFSR…here’s the thing. Nothing about the ride experience itself really has anything to do with Star Wars the movies. In fact, even the main “character” who guides you in the experience isn’t part of the movies. It is only that when you enter the ship and feel like you are in the MF that has any actual connection to the movies. Otherwise, the ride experience itself is more like a amped-up video game experience. After having done it a couple times, to me it isn’t really worth a long wait. And if you aren’t a Star Wars fan, you won’t really appreciate the queue as much.
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I haven’t ridden either, so I can’t help OP. But I wanted to chime in to say that just reading this thread is getting me excited for my family’s August trip. Can’t wait!
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It probably depends on what a person thinks makes a cool ride. None of my kids (16, 14, 10) are very into Star Wars, the older two have seen ep 7 and whatever they remember of 4-6 from us watching at home when they were younger. My youngest hasn’t seen any movies and has no interest in watching. But she knows enough just from pop culture (and she did the Jedi training at HS when that was still a thing).
With that in mind, they all love ROTR. They just think it’s a cool, different type of experience. It’s one I think they would all want to ride every time we are at HS.
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I actually love the queue more than the ride. Rise is a must do for me. But MFSR I can pass on unless I can be guaranteed to be the pilot. The last time I asked in March the guy was kinda stern and said no, sorry. They automatically just assign people a spot. We had 3 parties of 2. The distribution was wonky IMO. Party 1 got both pilots, Party 2 got both gunners, Party 3 got both engineers. I’m sure this is the most efficient way to do things. It’s a cool ride but unless you’re pilot, it’s not as much fun. Gunner isn’t awful but I don’t want to wait more than 10-15 mins to be gunner. I would have liked the different parties to get distributed around better.
I’ve done both pilot and engineer. I actually had a better time as engineer. Pilot was too stressful and frustrating.
What was great as Engineer is that I could really pay attention to everything going on…not just my own stuff, but what others were doing, as well watch some of the on-screen action. When there was a group of 6 of us, it was amazing, because we were whooping it up, yelling at each other (in a good way) to take care of this or that, etc. It was so much fun. But when I was pilot (alongside my wife) I just felt we were playing some video game with really wonky controls. Fun…but not nearly AS fun.
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This definitely changes the experience though. If my whole family had the ship I wouldn’t care what position I had. I think it would just be fun. When DH and I had the ship to ourselves it was MUCH more relaxed. I was able to really get into the experience. Sharing it with strangers did feel a little awkward. I was able to see more of the action on the screen but having a little 8 year old yell at me to push a button I’m already pushing was getting annoying. I’ve only done it twice and with an LL, it’s almost a walk on so I’ll continue to ride it this way. But I’m not waiting more than 20 mins for it.
I’d rather be engineer than either of the others. I actually hated being pilot. But I’m not a gamer.
ETA oh my god, am I Ryan??
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No. Just Ryan-y.
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We took my 4 year old (twin) grand niece and nephew on Rise last year. Their mom watched the ride videos with them ahead of time so that nothing was scary for them and they knew what would happen. This is especially important for kids who are nervous or those who have ASD. My niece had her kids watch ride videos of everything before that trip! It paid off too. No one freaked out at anything.
Rise is worth doing at least once, if you can manage it. When is your trip? We hopped in line at the end of the night (after 8:00) and only waited 10 minutes to the first preshow last week!
MFSR gets better and better every time for me! I find myself really getting into it and will even “encourage” people in the ship that aren’t part of my party. Some might call it shouting, but I call it encouragement. 
I do love being pilot, but my second fave position is Engineer. Gunner is not for me.
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I call it “reaching across someone to pull the lightspeed lever,” but both terms are acceptable. 
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I was going to say this is just hearsay, but I guess I can’t do that any more!
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When I rode it the first time with my family, as engineer, I actually did this…sort of. As engineer, I could see that the gunner, in front of me, didn’t notice they needed to press a button. I yelled…err, I mean…encouraged them to push it, but they were too distracted, so I literally half stood, reached over the panel and pressed it for them! I’m not even convinced they ever even noticed! 
(They would have noticed if I had done that to the lightspeed lever, though!)
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