Star Tours: The Adventures Continue

"We're going to do things with Star Tours that have never been done in any theme park attraction, at any theme park anywhere."

- Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Chairman Jay Rasulo

Star Tours: The Adventures Continue is a Disney simulator ride theme park attraction located at Disneyland in California and Disney's Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World in Florida. It officially opened at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Walt Disney World on May 20th, 2011 and at Disneyland on June 3rd, 2011. The attraction replaced the original Star Tours attraction and serves as its prequel, taking place in between Episodes III and IV and tying both trilogies together. The new ride is scheduled to open at Tokyo Disneyland in Spring 2013.

Opening crawl
This crawl was shown at the attraction's grand opening ceremony.

Synopsis
Unlike the original Star Tours, the ride has eleven segments that are randomly chosen during each viewing. In all, the various options result in 54 possible combinations.

Queue and boarding
Guests enter through a hangar where C-3PO and R2-D2 are busy repairing a StarSpeeder 1000 while a large viewing screen displays commercials -- some hosted by droid Aly San San -- messages, flight lists and exterior views of a space station that presumably the waiting passengers are inside. Guests pass by security droid G2-9T x-raying luggage, where a monitor displays various items inside the luggage (including many Star Wars and Disney references). Guests also pass by droid customs, where RX-24 is malfunctioning with a sticker labeled "Defective: return to factory." After passing another droid screening passengers, G2-4T, guests reach the boarding area and watch video screens that display the outside of the starspeeder maintenance area where C-3PO speaks with the ships' pilot droid, AC-38, also known as Ace. C-3PO needs to sit in the pilot's seat to repair the binary motivator. Ace leaves to inspect the outside of the ship and then gets called away from the area. Guests then watch a safety video hosted by Aly San San. Ace does not return before the ship is elevated to the passenger boarding level, leaving C-3PO and R2-D2 on board the flight with passengers. Star Tours Flight 1401 is then cleared for take off despite C-3PO's protests, and R2-D2 takes control of the vessel.

Spaceport escape
This segment includes one of two scenes:
 * Darth Vader and a group of stormtroopers arrive to prevent the ship from leaving. A video screen identifies one of the passengers as a Rebel spy. Vader uses the Force to stop the ship until R2-D2 fires the laser cannons, and the StarSpeeder exits the hangar backwards and is a chased by TIE fighters. The ship then evades Star Destroyers and escapes into hyperspace.


 * While the StarSpeeder is docked near the Millennium Falcon and Han Solo, a droid scans the ship and one of the passengers is identified as a Rebel spy, while outside Solo gets into a firefight with stormtroopers. The StarSpeeder then follows the Falcon as it flees the hangar and flies past Star Destroyers (causing severe damage to the bridge of one) before entering hyperspace.

Planet 1
The ship exits hyperspace above one of the three planets:
 * The ship reaches the surface of Hoth and follows snowspeeders in an attack run on an AT-AT. The ship hits the ground and slides down an icy mountain before flying back into space.


 * On Kashyyyk, the ship is caught in a speeder bike chase through the forest with some Wookiees. Chewbacca is thrown from his bike and hits the ship's windshield. The speeder then leaves the forest and heads for space.


 * The ship arrives at Tatooine and drops through the atmosphere into the middle of a pod race. After getting stuck to a pod racer and crossing the finish line, the ship heads back into space.

Hologram message
Once back in space, the StarSpeeder receives a holographic message from either Yoda, Admiral Gial Ackbar or Princess Leia, who explains that you must help get the Rebel on board safely to a rendezvous point, and then sends the coordinates to R2-D2.

Planet 2
After jumping through hyperspace, the ship reaches one of three destinations:
 * The ship ends up in the middle of a battle high above Coruscant, and is attacked by Buzz droids. R2 takes care of one droid, while the others are knocked off in the battle. The ship then flies through the city traffic below before reaching a landing platform.


 * The StarSpeeder reaches Naboo in the middle of a space battle. The ship then follows a group of N-1 starfighters to the surface, and eventually land in the ocean near a Gungan city. After traveling through the planet core and encountering dangerous sea creatures, the ship launches back to the surface and crash lands in a Rebel hangar, where it crashes into an N-1. The N-1's tail ends up inside the craft, as a pit droid angrily shouts at Threepio.


 * In the Geonosis asteroid belt, the StarSpeeder is chased by Boba Fett in Slave I. The ship escapes but then encounters the incomplete, first Death Star while pursued by Vader and his TIE pilots. The ship escapes by flying right through the unfinished Death Star, but are then met again by Boba, who shoots a seismic charge at the ship. The starspeeder shoots it back, evading him and then heads into hyperspace to meet up with the Rebel fleet and land in the Home One's hangar bay.

Development


After years of rumors and speculation of an updated version of Star Tours, it was confirmed in April 2005, at the Star Wars Celebration III, where creator George Lucas announced that a Star Tours II was in production.

It was confirmed at the 2009 D23 Expo, the official Disney fan convention, that there will not be a second ride introduced, but that instead the existing ride will be updated and improved. The original rides closed in 2010 (July 27th in California and September 8th in Florida) to allow Disney engineers to begin the updates and renovations. This new iteration of Star Tours re-opened on May 20th, 2011 at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Florida, and June 3, 2011 at Disneyland in California.

The new ride is in 3-D, and features the StarSpeeder 1000, bursting into the Boonta Eve Classic pod race. In a high resolution image of the scene provided to various media outlets, the 1000 designation on the speeder can be seen. It has also been confirmed that the new ride will also take passengers to Coruscant among other destinations, and there are rumors that the Endor flight will be reworked as well so that passengers will actually be going to Endor this time around. A new queue video "commercial" for the attraction was released in August, 2010 at Celebration V which showed the Starspeeder traveling to Bespin, Endor and Alderaan, though it was not confirmed that these will actually be destinations within the ride. In April, the final destination list was released, adding Naboo, Geonosis with the Death Star I under construction, Kashyyyk, and Hoth joining the already announced Tatooine and Coruscant.

In September, the official Disney Parks Blog revealed two droids from the new attraction: a pilot droid from the AC Series named Ace (a predecessor to RX-24 from the original) and a "spokesbot" named Aly San San, voiced by actress Allison Janney. The blog also revealed that the ride's storyline takes place between Episode III and Episode IV (19 BBY and 0 BBY). At the Destination D23 event these new droids were announced at, it was also revealed there will be 54 different experiences on the attraction.

In October, it was revealed that, although Star Tours uses AC Droid pilots, it will be C-3PO who will pilot the Starspeeder 1000 in the attraction, through some chaotic mistake. The article also reveals that RX-24 would return as well, due to his popularity with thousands of fans.

The background music score of the ride was composed by Oscar-winner Michael Giacchino, who, according to some reports, was a big fan of the original attraction.

In January, it was announced that Star Tours: The Adventures Continue would open on May 20th, 2011 at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Florida,. In February, it was announced that the ride would open on June 3rd, 2011 at Disneyland in California. That same month, the Disney Parks Blog revealed that ride passengers would encounter Darth Vader, Boba Fett and Imperial Sky Troopers. A May 2011 interview with Tom Fitzgerald revealed that Jar Jar Binks would also appear, and that James Earl Jones and Frank Oz would reprise their roles as Vader and Yoda. The interview also revealed that the StarSpeeders will travel underwater and slide on ice.

On May 14th, almost one week before its official opening, early previews of the ride began at Disney Hollywood Studios in Florida.

In November 2011, it was announced that the new ride will open at Tokyo Disneyland in Spring of 2013.

Easter eggs
The idea of going to Kashyyyk was suggested by John Lasseter, principal creative adviser at Walt Disney Imagineering, and chief creative officer at Disney and Pixar Animation. During the droid's scan in the stormtrooper opening, two of the images that flash by in the video hologram are photos of John Lasseter and George Lucas.

In the scene on Coruscant, a video billboard can be seen advertising "Tomorrowland" in Aurebesh. Disneyland's Star Tours attraction is located in that park's Tomorrowland themed area.

References to the original ride are included when Threepio echoes a line from RX-24, saying, "I've always wanted to do this," (referring to a pod race, instead of the original's Death Star trench run) and again when he yells "Brakes! Brakes!" while careening through the Naboo hangar.