Star Tours (real-world)

Star Tours is a Disney simulator ride theme park attraction located at each of Disney's resorts except Hong Kong Disneyland. The ride is based on the successful Star Wars movie franchise created by George Lucas. This made it the park's first attraction that did not use Disney-designed imagery.

Groups of visitors, or "passengers", are taken on by the fictional travel agency known as Star Tours, via a space tour bus called the StarSpeeder 3000 and set in the Star Wars universe. Thanks to an inexperienced and thoroughly incompetent robot pilot named RX-24, what is billed as a leisurely tour to the Endor moon becomes a wild ride as the tour gets caught up in a battle between the Empire and the Rebels.

Although it has been in existence since 1987, it is considered by many aficionados to be the epitome of the ride form, melding a full sensory experience with the familiarity of a proven entertainment franchise. The first incarnation of the ride appeared in Tomorrowland at Disneyland in 1987, replacing the previous attraction, Adventure Thru Inner Space.

Synopsis
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 via the "Star Tours" travel agency. Much is made of this throughout the ride queue, and the design and theme of the inside holding area is convincingly modeled to look like a spaceship boarding terminal. This area is stocked with Audio-Animatronic characters that seem to interact with the ride patrons (including Mon Calamari technicians and versions of C-3PO and R2-D2, delivering a typical Laurel and Hardy-esque routine), as well as a life-size mock-up of the StarSpeeder 3000, the "starship" that guests embark on. 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.

Once guests reach the head of the line, the ride operators escort them into one of several ride theaters. As the doors close, the ship's bumbling RX-24 pilot droid, aka "Rex" (voiced by Paul Reubens), chats up the guests about the trip as he sets up. All goes well until a slight mistake on Rex's part sends the ship down the wrong tunnel and plummeting into a maintenance yard, just managing to escape into open space before a giant mechanical appendage nearly crushes the ship. That same scene features a tribute to the "Adventure Thru Inner Space" attraction: The "Mighty Microscope" is clearly visible to the right of the screen after the appendage sweeps by.

Once in space, the ship enters hyperspace, but Rex disengages its hyperdrives too late to stop at the ship's intended destination&mdash;and instead gets caught inside a comet field. The ship becomes trapped inside one of the larger comets and has to navigate its way out through a maze of passages and chambers. Just when all the trouble seems to be over, the ship encounters a Star Destroyer and finds itself caught in its tractor beam. However, a timely attack (providing assistance by destroying the tractor beam generator) by a Rebel X-wing fighter allows them to escape. Soon the ship and it's tourists find themselves accompanying the Rebellion on a massive assault on the Death Star (although it is unspecified which Death Star it is). Rex uses the StarSpeeder's lasers to eliminate TIE fighters while a Rebel destroys the Death Star in the same manner as Luke Skywalker does in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. A final light speed jump sends the StarSpeeder back to where it started, but not before a near-collision with a fuel truck in the spaceport.

Memorable quotes
"I know it's probably your first flight, and it's... mine, too. Heheh. Looks like we'll have a smooth flight to Endor, so just sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight."

"Stars Tours?! What are you doing here, this is a combat zone, it's restricted... ease off on your main thruster."

"Red 24, Red 40, follow me." "Oh boy! I've always wanted to do this!"

"All ships jump to lightspeed." "R2- LIGHTSPEED!"

Cast

 * Paul Reubens .... Captain RX-24, aka REX (voice) (uncredited)
 * Anthony Daniels .... C-3PO (Onboard video segment; voice only in queue area), Alien announcer (uncredited). Daniels was involved in motion capture, English and French voiceovers, and some of the public address announcements in Ewokese.
 * Steve Gawley .... Red Leader (onboard video) (uncredited)
 * Dennis Muren .... One of three ILMers visible in a Maintenance Bay window during the rear-projected simulator film, ducking as Rex almost careens into their building (uncredited)
 * Ira Keeler .... Supervisor who ducks under desk at the end of the ride-- mistaken by many to be George Lucas himself (uncredited)
 * Brian Cummings .... Vid-Screen Announcer (planetary destinations) (voice) (uncredited)

Crew
Muren, Gawley, and Keeler are all Industrial Light & Magic special effects wizards who worked on the attraction for Lucasfilm.

Characters

 * 3T-RNE
 * C-3PO
 * Dan Android
 * DL-X2
 * F-22
 * F-23
 * F-24
 * Frank
 * G2-3B
 * G2-4T
 * G2-9T
 * G3-5LE
 * GNK power droid
 * I. D. A.
 * Lady Droid
 * LGB
 * max-w-100
 * MSE-1T unit
 * P-6
 * R2 unit
 * R2-D2
 * R2-D7
 * R3-A2
 * R3-D3
 * R4 unit
 * R4-M9
 * R5 unit
 * R5-D2
 * ROX-N
 * RX unit
 * RX-24
 * S-4
 * SK-Z38
 * Space Cap Droid
 * T3
 * WEG-1618

Locations

 * Bogden
 * Panna
 * Tatooine
 * Yavin 4
 * Hoth
 * Geonosis
 * Coruscant
 * Bespin
 * Endor

Organizations and titles

 * Galactic Empire
 * Rebel Alliance
 * Star Tours travel agency

Sentient species

 * Ewoks
 * Gran
 * Humans
 * Mon Calamari
 * Tauntauns
 * Teek
 * Wookiees

Vehicles and vessels

 * Death Star
 * Star Destroyers
 * StarSpeeder 3000
 * Tie Fighters
 * X-Wings

Weapons and technology

 * Death Star
 * Lasers

Miscellanea

 * Asteroids

Development


The ride that became Star Tours first saw light as a proposal for an attraction based on the 1979 Disney live-action flop The Black Hole. It was planned as an interactive ride simulator attraction, where guests would have had the ability to choose the ride car's route. After preliminary planning, the Black Hole attraction was shelved due to its enormous cost (approximately $50 million US) as well as the unpopularity of the film itself. Instead of completely dismissing the idea of a simulator, the company decided to make use of a partnership between Disney and George Lucas that began in 1986 with the opening of Captain Eo (a 3D musical film starring Michael Jackson) at the California park. Disneyland then approached Lucas with the idea for the Star Tours amusement ride.

With his approval, Disney Imagineers purchased four large military 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 worked on 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, with the aid of a joystick, manually synchronized the movement of the simulator with the apparent movement on the film. On January 9, 1987, at a final cost of $32 million (almost twice the cost of building the entire park in 1955), the ride finally opened to throngs of patrons, many of whom dressed up as Star Wars characters for the occasion. In celebration, Disneyland remained open for a special 60 hour marathon from 10:00am on January 9, 1987 to 10:00pm on January 11, 1987.

Ride system
Star Tours utilizes a Thomson hydraulic motion base cabin featuring 3 degrees of freedom.

The film is front projected onto the screen from a 70mm film projector located beneath the cockpit barrier. George Lucas has mentioned that the next generation of the attraction will feature digital high definition video and motion bases capable of up to 6 degrees of freedom.

Attraction facts



 * Grand opening: Star Tours is located in the following Disney theme parks:
 * Disneyland in Anaheim, California: January 9, 1987
 * Tokyo Disneyland in Tokyo, Japan: July 12, 1989
 * Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida: December 15, 1989
 * Disneyland Park in Paris: April 12, 1992 (Opened with Disneyland Paris)
 * Designer: Walt Disney Imagineering, Industrial Light and Magic
 * Simulators: 4 (Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland); 6 (Disney-MGM Studios and Disneyland Paris)
 * Simulator's theme: Starspeeder 3000
 * Guests per simulator: 40
 * Height requirement: 40 inches (102 cm)
 * Sponsors:
 * Disneyland: Energizer (1998-2006), M&M's (1987-1998)
 * Tokyo Disneyland: Panasonic (1999-Present)
 * Disneyland Paris: IBM (1992-2002)
 * Show length: 4:30
 * Ride system: Flight simulator with Audio-Animatronics all synced to film
 * [[Image:FASTPASSAvailability.png|20px|FASTPASS Available]] (All parks excluding California, Anaheim, and Tokyo) (no longer offered)

Marketing
When the ride opened, Star Tours press kits were released to the press. They each contained interviews with George Lucas, Disney's Michael Eisner, and C-3PO. The video portion of the kit lasts about an hour, with a large part of it devoted to the ride's opening ceremony, and a play with actors dressed as Luke, Han, Leia, Chewbacca, and Darth Vader&mdash;dancing around and acting out several scenes from the Star Wars films.

There was also a TV special that aired around the time of the opening of the ride. The program&mdash;entitled A Vacation In Space and designed to promote the ride&mdash;aired in late 1986, and was hosted by Gil Gerard and Ernie Reyes Jr.. The show looks at how Star Tours was made, as well as the history of space travel and space-related films. Some highlights of the program include a segment at the beginning, where C-3PO and R2-D2 make an appearance and perform a rap song, as well as a segment at the end, where Reyes boards the StarSpeeder 3000&mdash;giving away some teasers of the ride itself.

As part of the Star Tours experience, upon exit of the StarSpeeder 3000, passengers are led to the Endor Vendors/Star Trader Store, which sells merchandise based on the ride. This includes action figures, clothing, etc.

Canonicity


The events of Star Tours clearly take place after Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back; After the "destination" of Hoth is advertised on the large video screen in the main entry point of the queue, C-3PO makes a mention of the events that take place during The Empire Strikes Back.

The Death Star seen in the ride video is considered by some to be the Death Star prototype, as explored in the Kevin J. Anderson novels Jedi Search and Champions of the Force and its destruction to be a depiction of the prototype's destruction at The Maw.

This interpretation does not hold up to close examination, however, as the Death Star in Star Tours is fully built, and the Death Star prototype was merely a skeletal construction. Geographically speaking, the Star Tours Death Star is very close to the Forest moon of Endor, while the black hole cluster of the Maw is near Kessel, another planet several light years away, in the aptly-named Kessel Sector.

Furthermore, R2-D2's presence on board the Star Tours StarSpeeder 3000 precludes the possibility of this being any other Death Star's destruction, as his whereabouts are accounted for at the Death Star explosions of the Battle of Yavin, Battle of Endor, and the prototype's destruction in the Maw.

The Death Star seen in Star Tours can be seen exploding in the cabin monitor at the right of the large forward viewscreen&mdash;it visibly blows up in a rear-facing view, with R2-D2 in the foreground. The logical conclusion is that this is a completely separate Death Star (called the Third Death Star by some), yet another in a long line of Superweapons built by the Empire.

Also, the StarSpeeder 3000, which is the "vehicle" that the riders are placed in during the ride, has been referenced and seen in-universe in the computer game Star Wars: TIE Fighter, as well as in Timothy Zahn's novel Specter of the Past. In Star Wars: Galaxies, a man claims to be a representative of Star Tours and wants you to view a spot for him as a quest. There is also a woman claiming that an oddly-shaped, out of control TIE Fighter (likely Darth Vader's TIE Advanced x1, as it was struck and sent away from the Death Star destruction) struck a Star Tours ship, designed much like a Rebel Blockade Runner, causing it to activate its hyperdrive and crash into the planet of Dantooine, killing nearly all of the passengers on board.

Plot holes filled
The origin of the third Death Star shown in Star Tours is frequently in dispute, as the details of its construction have gone unexplained for nearly twenty years. A fan explanation that it is the Death Star Prototype from the Jedi Academy trilogy is impossible, as the Star Tours experience is set only months after the Battle of Endor, well before the events of the trilogy, and the prototype was only destroyed at the end of that story. This theory also doesn't address the fact that the prototype consisted of a skeletal frame, superlaser, and basic propulsion units, rather than the more fully-completed version seen during the tour. Others have suggested that it is modified from one of the great habitation spheres that were under construction over Coruscant and converted for military use by a post-Endor warlord. Whatever its origin, this Death Star suffered from a design flaw similar to the first Death Star. Unlike the first Death Star, however, this flaw could be exploited with a surface impact by proton torpedoes, as opposed to them having to travel down an exhaust port all the way to the main reactor. How this surface attack resulted in the station's destruction is unspecified, but does suggest that the builders did modify the first Death Star's design to a certain disastrous degree.

Cultural references

 * In the Futurama episode "That's Lobstertainment!", some of the main characters are riding a tour bus in Hollywood with the name "Star Tours." Under the bus' logo, a disclaimer reads "NOTE: BUS DOES NOT LEAVE EARTH," a reference to the attraction.
 * In the 1997 film Starship Troopers, a ship resembles the StarSpeeder 3000, and the scene it appears in is similar to the Star Tours ride video.

Trivia



 * An Audio-animatronic "medical droid" used to be in one of the rooms before you get in the ride but was taken out for some reason.
 * At Disneyland in Anaheim, California, Star Tours replaced an attraction known as "Adventure Thru Inner Space", in which guests were notionally shrunk to microscopic size for travel through a snowflake. Exiting the first scene during the Star Tours film, the Mighty Microscope from "Adventure Thru Inner Space" can be seen.
 * While waiting in line, a voice announcement calls out for an illegally parked speeder license number THX-1138, which is the name of the first film made for commercial distribution by George Lucas.
 * On the PA system in the waiting area, a voice says, "Mr. Egroeg Sacul, Mr. Egroeg Sacul." The name is "George Lucas" spelled backwards.
 * On Rex, the robotic pilot of the StarSpeeder 3000, a bright red tag can be seen attached to his torso. The tag says "Warning! Remove before Flight".
 * This tag is an aviation reference. On parked aircraft, various parts and openings such as the pitot tube are protected by small covers. Since these parts would not function with the covers in place, they normally have red tags with "Remove before flight" inscribed on them.
 * On the PA system in the waiting area, a voice says a message for "Mr. Tom Morrow," who was a character in Flight to the Moon (he later became Mr. Johnson for the overhaul called Mission to Mars, which closed in 1992 ) and later became a separate character for the attraction Innoventions, which opened in 1998.
 * The G2 repair droids in the queue line are actually the skeletons of two goose Audio-Animatronics from America Sings. They were removed from the show for this attraction during the last 2 years of its run. They can be heard singing "I've been working on the same droid, all the livelong day." This is a reference to the other attraction in that the geese were among several Audio-Animatronic animals that sang "I've been working on the railroad, all the livelong day."
 * REX "has a very bad feeling about this" when the ship flies into one of the comets. This a running gag in the Star Wars films.
 * At least two revisions have been made to the script of Star Tours since its inception. The changes occur fairly close together, right after the StarSpeeder passes the Endor Moon. The original version had Rex asking R2-D2 "Now what's the matter? Oh no! Comets!", and did not contain the line "I have a very bad feeling about this". The current version has Rex asking the similar but different "Now what's the matter? Comets? COMETS!" and does contain the running gag "I have a very bad feeling about this". CD-quality source files exist of both versions.
 * The fuel tanker that the StarSpeeder 3000 almost runs into at the end has on its side a hazardous materials sign and registration number. The registration number is Lucasfilm's old office phone number.
 * Rex's voice belongs to Paul Reubens, who is best known for playing the Pee-wee Herman character in The Pee-wee Herman Show. Despite rumors that Reubens' voice was replaced by an unknown voice artist following the scandals of either his 1991 arrest or his 2002 arrest, in fact no such replacement has occurred. Prior to the release of Star Tours, Reubens lent his voice to the 1986 Disney film Flight of the Navigator, where he played the voice of a robotic commander of a self-piloted alien ship.
 * The baskets of parts in the Droidnostics Center in the queue for Star Tours at Disneyland and Disney-MGM Studios have hidden initials and birth dates of WDI and ILM team members who worked on the attraction.
 * On the pre-boarding video the passengers are Imagineers and their families.
 * The work crews shown in the docking bays and control rooms of the film are actually members of the Industrial Light & Magic model shop staff. ILM Visual Effects Supervisor Dennis Muren and his crew can be seen diving out of the way when Rex accidentally steers the StarSpeeder 3000 toward the control room on the right.
 * Contrary to popular belief, the horrified man in the landing bay who ducks in terror as Rex nearly crashes into him with the StarSpeeder 3000 at the end of the flight is not George Lucas, but in fact an ILM modelmaker named Ira Keeler.
 * During the ride, Rex says that he's always wanted to do this. In the Star Wars anthology book Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, one of the short stories states that there was a droid audible during the Battle of Endor assault on the second Death Star announcing it had "always wanted to do this."
 * Several aliens from the Star Wars theatrical films and offshoot productions make appearances in the opening safety video. Examples include some Mon Calamari, a Gran, and a Wookiee (The Wookiee costume is in fact Chewbacca) from the theatrical films, and Teek (from the TV film Ewoks: The Battle for Endor).
 * Several robots in the line area of the ride are very similar to Johnny 5, the robot from the Short Circuit series of films. Action figures of them have been released in the series of Star Tours action figures.
 * The StarSpeeder 3000 has several blast marks, one of which appears to resemble a Hidden Mickey.
 * When Energizer sponsored the Disney-MGM Studios version, the Energizer Bunny made a cameo appearance in the shop on a television screen.
 * In the queue, when you get to the above-head conveyer belt look down. You can see a Kermit the Frog made out of spare parts.
 * In the Walt Disney World version of the ride, the giant Imperial Walker outside the entrance will spray the crowd with water at certain intervals.

Sequel
In April 2005, at the Star Wars Celebration III, Star Wars creator George Lucas confirmed that a Star Tours II is in production. This new ride will reportedly be prequel-oriented. In a concept release, the sequel is described as being based on the Pod Racer sequence in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. The new ride system will consist of a glasses-free 3-D High-definition screen and an improved motion simulator.

The flight information board utilized in the ride queue promises forthcoming adventures to Hoth, Tatooine, and Dagobah and displays the text "Soon Endor Won't Be The End-All". These details, especially the clever tagline, are often mistaken as recent additions, used to support rumors of impending changes to the attraction, but have actually been in place since Star Tours opened.

Notes and references

 * The Star Wars Poster Book
 * The Star Wars Vault