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Star Tours

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This article is about the former versions in the US, France and Japan. For the current Disneyland, Disney's Hollywood Studios and Tokyo Disneyland attraction, see Star Tours–The Adventures Continue.
Star Tours
Attraction poster.
Disneyland
AreaTomorrowland
Coordinates33°48′42″N 117°55′04″W / 33.8118°N 117.9177°W / 33.8118; -117.9177
StatusClosed
Soft opening dateDecember 1986
Opening dateJanuary 9, 1987
Closing dateJuly 27, 2010
ReplacedAdventure Thru Inner Space
Replaced byStar Tours–The Adventures Continue
Tokyo Disneyland
AreaTomorrowland
Coordinates35°38′00″N 139°52′42″E / 35.6334°N 139.8783°E / 35.6334; 139.8783
StatusClosed
Opening dateJuly 12, 1989
Closing dateApril 2, 2012
Replaced byStar Tours—The Adventures Continue
Disney's Hollywood Studios
AreaEcho Lake
Coordinates35°38′00″N 139°52′42″E / 35.6334°N 139.8783°E / 35.6334; 139.8783
StatusClosed
Opening dateDecember 15, 1989
Closing dateSeptember 7, 2010
Replaced byStar Tours–The Adventures Continue
Disneyland Park (Paris)
AreaDiscoveryland
Coordinates48°52′30″N 2°46′46″E / 48.8751°N 2.7794°E / 48.8751; 2.7794
StatusClosed
Opening dateApril 12, 1992
Closing dateMarch 16, 2016
Replaced byStar Tours—The Adventures Continue
Ride statistics
Attraction typeFlight simulator with Audio-Animatronics synced to film
ManufacturerRediffusion Simulation
DesignerWalt Disney Imagineering
MusicRichard Bellis[1]
Vehicles4-6
Riders per vehicle40
Participants per group40
Duration4:30
Height restriction40 in (102 cm)
Audio-animatronicsYes
HostCaptain Rex (Paul Reubens)
Must transfer from wheelchair

Star Tours was a motion simulator attraction, based on the successful Star Wars film series created by George Lucas. At its debut at Disneyland in 1987, it was the first attraction based on a non-Disney produced film. However, in October 2012, The Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm, and in turn, now owns the Star Wars franchise.[2]

The first incarnation of the ride appeared in Tomorrowland at Disneyland in 1987, replacing the previous attraction, Adventure Thru Inner Space. Star Tours at Disneyland closed on July 27, 2010 to allow for its sequel, Star Tours–The Adventures Continue. Disney's Hollywood Studios closed its attraction on September 7, 2010 in anticipation of the same conversion which was completed on May 20, 2011. Tokyo Disneyland's Star Tours closed on April 2, 2012, to make way for Star Tours—The Adventures Continue which opened on May 7, 2013.[3] On November 7, 2014, it was announced that Disneyland Paris will receive the updated ride in 2017, which will mark the original ride's final closure.[4]

History

Attraction at Disneyland

The ride that became Star Tours first saw light as a proposal for an attraction based on the 1979 Disney live-action film The Black Hole. It would have been an interactive ride-simulator attraction where guests would have had the ability to choose the route. However, after preliminary planning the Black Hole attraction was shelved due to its enormous cost—approximately $50 million USD—as well as the unpopularity of the film itself.

A few years prior (1977), Joseph Strick expanded on his World War II Air Force training in motion simulators and invented the usage of six-axis motion simulators as entertainment systems. After attempting to develop a ride for independent parks through the Trans-Lux corporation, which had developed "The New York Experience"" ride, he approached Disney and brought to their attention new developments in motion simulation, in particular through a private "flight" with Disney executives on a Space Shuttle simulator based in Texas. He then served as consultant to the Disney corporation until the first opening of "Star Tours" in the LA theme park.

Instead of completely dismissing the idea of a simulator, the company decided to make use of a partnership between Disney and George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, that began in 1986 with the opening of Captain EO (a 3-D musical film starring Michael Jackson) at the California park. Disney then approached Lucas with the idea for Star Tours. With Lucas' approval, Disney Imagineers purchased four military-grade flight simulators at a cost of $500,000 each and designed the ride structure.

Meanwhile, Lucas and his team of special effects technicians at Industrial Light & Magic produced the first-person perspective film that would be projected inside the simulators. When both simulator and film were completed, a programmer then sat inside and used a joystick to synchronize the movement of the simulator with the apparent movement on screen. On January 9, 1987, at a final cost of $32 million, almost twice the cost of building the entire park in 1955, the ride opened to throngs of patrons, many of whom dressed up as Star Wars characters for the occasion. In celebration, Disneyland remained open for a 60-hour marathon from January 9 at 10 a.m. to January 11 at 10 p.m.

Closing

On August 14, 2010, Walt Disney World hosted the "Last Tour To Endor" event exclusively for Celebration V attendees at Disney's Hollywood Studios from 8pm to 1am. Entertainment features and events at "Last Tour To Endor" included George Lucas, character appearances, Jedi Training Academy, Death Star Disco, Bespin Stage Dance Party, Raiders Of The Lost Jedi Temple of Doom: A Fan Film of Epic Proportions live show, Hyperspace Hoopla, Symphony in the Stars fireworks, and the Star Tours shutdown ceremony. The Star Tours shutdown ceremony was a live show with characters C-3PO, R2-D2, Boba Fett, Darth Vader and a few Stormtroopers, culminating in the official power-down of the original Disney World Star Tours attraction. However, instead of R2-D2 simply shutting it down, Boba Fett destroyed the ride's power supply using a thermal detonator (achieved using pyrotechnics). The ride was still open after the shutdown ceremony until September 7, 2010, when the attraction held its "Final Flight to Endor" exclusive to D23 members.

Attraction

File:Star Tours MGM outside.jpg
Attraction at Disney's Hollywood Studios

Advertised as "The Ultimate Star Wars Adventure!", Star Tours puts the guest in the role of a space tourist en route to the forest moon of Endor, the site of the climactic battle of Return of the Jedi, via the Star Tours travel agency. Much is made of this throughout the ride queue, which is designed to look like a spaceship boarding terminal: posters advertise voyages to different planets, and a giant screen informs riders of the benefits of going to Endor. This area is stocked with Audio-Animatronic characters that seem to speak to the ride patrons (including C-3PO and R2-D2), as well as a life-size mock-up of a StarSpeeder 3000, the fictional spacecraft which riders are about to board. According to the book Disneyland Detective by Kendra Trahan, the figures of C-3PO and R2-D2 in the Disneyland attraction are actual props from the original film, modified to operate via Audio-Animatronics.

Guests then enter a maintenance area where an apparently underproductive G2 droid performs repairs on another droid while being distracted by the observing guests, and another droid inadvertently points out all the supposed flaws of the StarSpeeder 3000 and its RX pilots. The G2 droids are in fact the animatronic skeletons of two geese from the defunct Tomorrowland attraction America Sings. A ride attendant escorts guests to one of several loading stations where they wait for their turn to ride.

A television screen above the queue displays a countdown to take-off time and shows images of the Starspeeder 3000 spacecraft being serviced. As launch time approaches, a safety video is shown featuring Star Wars aliens, Disney Imagineers, and their families. It instructs guests how to fasten their seat belts and where to place belongings. Once the doors to the Starspeeder open, guests walk across bridges into one of several Starspeeder cabins. As the doors close, the bumbling pilot droid of the ship, RX-24 or Rex (voiced by Paul Reubens), appears on the side screen and chats to the guests about the trip as R2-D2 is loaded onto the spacecraft.

Rex lowers the cockpit shield, and the hangar crew activates the flight platform. All goes well until a slight mistake on Captain Rex's part sends the Starspeeder crashing into the maintenance bay doors and plummeting into the maintenance yard. They just barely crash into the control room and nearly collide with a giant mechanical arm. Once in space, Rex asks R2-D2 to make the jump to lightspeed. However, the ship accidentally passes the Endor moon and instead gets caught inside a comet cluster. The ship gets hit by several comets before getting trapped in one of the larger comets. The Starspeeder weaves its way through the comet and escapes by crashing through one of the walls. Upon escaping the comet, however, the ship encounters a Star Destroyer of the Imperial Remnant.

The Starspeeder gets caught in its tractor beam, but manages to get loose when a New Republic X-wing fighter provides assistance by destroying the tractor beam's generator. With the tractor beam deactivated, the Starspeeder escapes the Star Destroyer. Soon the ship accompanies the Republic fleet on an assault on the Death Star III (later revealed by Leland Chee in 2013 to be a Habitation Sphere disguised as a Death Star in a plot by an Imperial Warlord to distract the New Republic). Rex uses the Starspeeder's lasers to eliminate several TIE fighters while a Republic pilot destroys the Death Star in the same manner as Luke Skywalker by firing two proton torpedoes into the exhaust port. The X-Wings jump to lightspeed as the Death Star explodes, and a final lightspeed jump sends the Starspeeder back to the spaceport, nearly colliding with a fuel truck in the hangar and sending a Star Tours employee ducking under his desk. As the cockpit shield raises and cuts off Rex as he apologizes for the near-fatal flight, C-3PO instructs the passengers on the exit procedure and thanks them, oblivious to the perils they just faced. The exit doors opposite the entrance then open and the passengers proceed across another set of bridges into the exit hall towards the Star Trader gift shop.

Cast

English

French

  • Anthony Daniels – C-3PO
  • Luq Hamet – Captain RX-24, a.k.a. Rex (voice)

Muren, Gawley, and Keeler are all Industrial Light & Magic special effects staff. One year earlier, Reubens had voiced the shipboard computer in the Disney film Flight of the Navigator (credited as Paul Mall), in which his character was named Max. Reubens credits this role with his being cast for the ride.[6]

Ride system

Star Tours utilizes hydraulic motion base cabins featuring six degrees of freedom, including the ability to move 35 degrees in the X-Y-Z plane. The simulator was patented as Advanced Technology Leisure Application Simulator (ATLAS), originally designed by Rediffusion Simulation[7] in Sussex, England, now owned by Thomson-CSF. The Rediffusion 'Leisure' simulator was originally developed for a much simpler show in Canada called "Tour of the Universe", where it featured a single entrance/exit door in the rear of the cabin and a video projector. The film is front-projected onto the screen from a 70 mm film projector located beneath the cockpit barrier. The Disneyland original has four simulators, while the shows in Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, and WDW Disney's Hollywood Studio each have six motion bases.

Successor

Main article: Star Tours–The Adventures Continue

The successor attraction opened in Disney's Hollywood Studios on May 20, 2011 and at Disneyland on June 3, 2011, replacing the parks' original Star Tours attractions. It features an updated ride system, consisting of a new high-definition video, a Dolby 3D high-definition screen, improved motion simulators and several new special effects and Audio-animatronics.

The attraction is set at an earlier point in the Star Wars timeline[8] (between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope) and is piloted by C-3PO.[9]

  • An Audio-animatronic Mon Calamari can be seen in the control booth
    An Audio-animatronic Mon Calamari can be seen in the control booth
  • Queue line showing Star Speeder.
    Queue line showing Star Speeder.
  • Loading Area
    Loading Area
  • Disney's Hollywood Studios' entrance
    Disney's Hollywood Studios' entrance
  • Disneyland's entrance in 1998 after the Tomorrowland makeover
    Disneyland's entrance in 1998 after the Tomorrowland makeover
  • Disneyland's entrance in 1996 before Tomorrowland makeover
    Disneyland's entrance in 1996 before Tomorrowland makeover
  • Tokyo Disneyland's entrance
    Tokyo Disneyland's entrance

See also

References

  1. ^ "Music by Richard Bellis". Retrieved 24 May 2013.
  2. ^ "Disney purchases Lucasfilm, announces new Star Wars". 3 News NZ. 31 October 2012.
  3. ^ "Star Tours to be Reintroduced in a New Version! - Star Tours: The Adventures Continue - Opening Spring 2013" (PDF). Press Release. Tokyo Disney Resort. November 16, 2011. Retrieved November 19, 2011.
  4. ^ DreamDisney (7 October 2014). "Star Tours 2 à Disneyland Paris pour les 25 ans". Radio Disney Club.
  5. ^ "Star Tours with Paul Reubens". Disney D23. 9 August 2011. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
  6. ^ "Star Tours with Paul Reubens". Interview. D23 The Official Disney Fan Club. August 9, 2011. Retrieved September 19, 2012.
  7. ^ Peltz, James F. (November 25, 1993). "Hughes Agrees to Sell Flight Simulator Unit". Retrieved August 24, 2014.
  8. ^ Trujillo, Dara (2010-07-30). "Sneak Preview: Starspeeder 1000 Collectible Exclusively at Star Wars Celebration V". Disney Parks Blog. Retrieved 2010-09-25.
  9. ^ Fitzgerald, Tom (2010-10-26). "Who's Flying This Thing!?". Disney Parks Blog. Retrieved 2010-10-26.
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