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This article is about the original real world attraction. You may be looking for the current version of the ride, the fictional company Star Tours, or the Star Wars Insider article.
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"Star Tours is one of the best spin-offs or spins-off to come from the world of Lucas."
Anthony Daniels[5]

Star Tours was a Disney simulator ride theme park attraction located at Disneyland at Disneyland Resort in California, Disney's Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World in Florida, Tokyo Disneyland at Tokyo Disney Resort in Tokyo, Japan and Disneyland Park at Disneyland Paris in Paris, France. It was the park's first attraction that did not use Disney-designed imagery.

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

The first incarnation of the ride appeared in Tomorrowland at Disneyland in 1987, replacing the attraction Adventure Thru Inner Space. The original Star Tours closed in 2010 (July 27 in Disneyland, September 8 in Disney's Hollywood Studios) while Disney engineers built the updated and renovated ride, Star Tours: The Adventures Continue, which opened on May 20, 2011. Tokyo Disneyland's version of the original ride closed in April 2012 to make way for the updated ride in Spring 2013.[6] Disneyland Paris's version closed on March 16, 2016 to make way for the update.

Some footage from the original ride appeared years later as part of a flight simulator in the Star Wars: Millennium Falcon themed area of the Disney Dream cruise ship.[7]

Plot summary[]

The Star Tours logo

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, as well as a life-size mock-up of the StarSpeeder 3000, the "starship" that guests embark on. The figures of C-3PO and R2-D2 in the Disneyland park are actual props from the original film, modified to operate via Audio-Animatronics.[8]

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, a.k.a. "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.

Once in space, the ship enters hyperspace, but Rex disengages its hyperdrives too late to stop at the ship's intended destination—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 its tourists find themselves accompanying the Rebellion on a massive assault on the Death Star (which Death Star is unspecified). Rex uses the StarSpeeder's lasers to eliminate TIE/LN starfighters 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.

Development[]

Starspeeder 3000 specifications

Technical specifications for the StarSpeeder 3000 (from the Disney's Hollywood Studios version of the ride)

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.[9] 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.[source?]

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 (ILM) 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 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.[1]

Ride system[]

Star Tours utilized a Thomson hydraulic motion base cabin featuring 3 degrees of freedom. The film was front projected onto the screen from a 70mm film projector located beneath the cockpit barrier. George Lucas mentioned that the next generation of the attraction would feature digital high-definition video and motion bases capable of up to 6 degrees of freedom.

Sequel[]

The flight-information board in the ride queue promised forthcoming adventures to Hoth, Tatooine, and Dagobah and displays the text "Soon Endor Won't Be The End-All." These details, especially the tagline, were often mistaken for recent additions, used to support rumors of impending changes to the attraction, but have actually been in place since Star Tours opened.[10]

In April 2005, at the Star Wars Celebration III, Star Wars creator George Lucas confirmed that Star Tours: The Adventures Continue was in production.[11] This new ride is set in the time between Episode III and Episode IV. The sequel includes 54 different story combinations and travel to a number of planets from the entire film saga. The new ride system features a 3D film and an improved motion simulator. The sequel opened on May 20, 2011 at Walt Disney World, on June 3 in Disneyland and on May 7, 2013 at Tokyo Disneyland.

Attraction facts[]

StarToursEntrance96 wb

Disneyland Star Tours entrance in 1996 before Tomorrowland makeover

  • Designer: Walt Disney Imagineering, Industrial Light and Magic
  • Simulators: 4 (Disneyland); 6 (Disney Hollywood Studios, Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland Paris)
    • Simulator's theme: StarSpeeder 3000
  • Guests per simulator: 40
  • Height requirement: 40 inches (102 cm)
  • Sponsors:
  • Show length: 4:30
  • Ride system: Flight simulator with Audio-Animatronics, synced to film

Marketing[]

Star Tours

Star Tours at Disney's Hollywood Studios

When the ride opened, Star Tours press kits were released. 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—dancing around and acting out several scenes from the Star Wars films.[12]

There was also a TV special that aired around the time of the opening of the ride. The program—entitled George Lucas' Star Tours and designed to promote the ride—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—giving away some teasers of the ride itself.[13]

As part of the Star Tours experience, upon exiting the StarSpeeder 3000, passengers are led to a store which sells merchandise based on Star Wars and the ride itself. This includes action figures, clothing, etc. At Disneyland the store is The Star Trader.[14] At Disney's Hollywood Studios, the store was originally called Endor Vendors, and had a theme based on Endor with a facade modeled after the back door of the Endor shield generator bunker. Around the release of Episode I, that store was replaced by Tatooine Traders, themed to resemble the buildings of Mos Eisley and Mos Espa.[15] Both stores included some exclusive merchandise sold only at Disney theme parks, including action figures of the various droids seen in the ride and queue and StarSpeeder 3000 toys.

Continuity[]

StarToursEntrance98 wb

Disneyland Star Tours entrance in 1998 after makeover

Initially a date for the events of the original Star Tours was not specified. Press materials at the time of the attraction's opening did place it after the events of Return of the Jedi,[16] while C-3PO's dialogue refers to his visits to various planets as happening in the past, including the events of his capture by the Ewoks. The Complete Guide to Star Tours booklet made available at Tokyo Disneyland further confirmed the setting.[17]

Some were led to question whether or not the ride was canon in the Star Wars universe, mostly due to the inclusion of an attack on the Death Star, including a trench run similar to that seen in Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. Though early press material suggested the space station was a new Death Star appearing after Return of the Jedi,[18] no sources that followed offered an explanation for that station for many years.

In 2005, Lucasfilm's Leland Chee first used the term "Death Star III" and placed its destruction a few months after the Battle of Endor in a blog post.[4] This was later confirmed as canon in the article Convenient Daily Departures: The History of Star Tours on StarWars.com, though no explanation was given for the station. That article also set the events of the ride during the Nagai–Tof War, shown to be happening months after Return of the Jedi in the Marvel Star Wars comic series.[19] Some fans had speculated that the Death Star could have been modification of one of the habitation spheres seen under construction over Coruscant. This was later confirmed in Supreme Commander Ennix Devian's entry for the second part of the blog series The Imperial Warlords: Despoilers of an Empire.[20]

As with all material released prior to April 25, 2014, questions of canonicity regarding Star Tours apply only to the continuity of the Expanded Universe, now known as Star Wars Legends, and its story is considered entirely non-canon within the current continuity.[21]

Legends references[]

STours

Map with some of the locations Star Tours operated on, including Earth

The Expanded Universe (now known as Legends) made a number of references to the fictional travel agency and its ships:

Canon references[]

Cameos[]

Star Tours - Muren Eddy Mullaly cameo

Muren, Eddy, and Mullaly

Many background characters seen in the pre-flight videos and the ride film itself are portrayed by ILM employees who worked on the attraction. In the pre-ride video, modelmaker Bill Beck is a technician performing the final pre-flight walk-around of the StarSpeeder.[1]

Star Tours Ira Keeler EE

Ira Keeler

Visual effects supervisor Dennis Muren, camera operator Selwyn Eddy and modelmaker Claudia Mullaly appear at the beginning of the ride as crew members working in the maintenance area of the starport when RX-24 nearly crashes the ship into their office, sending the trio diving for cover behind a desk. Another worker seen ducking behind a desk before Rex crashes into a fuel truck towards the ride's end was played by modelmaker Ira Keeler (the character was in the past erroneously identified as being played by George Lucas).[1]

The more prominent character of X-wing pilot Red Leader, seen shouting a warning to the speeder on the in-cabin video screen, was played by model shop supervisor Steve Gawley.[31]

Easter eggs[]

Ride queue[]

Kermit The Frog Star Tours

Kermit The Frog Droid

  • A number of inside jokes can be heard over the public-address system in the ride's queue:[32]
    • The announcer calls out for an illegally parked speeder with license number THX 1138, which is the name of the first studio film made by George Lucas.
    • The announcer pages a "Mr. Egroeg Sacul." The name is "George Lucas" spelled backwards.
    • A voice says there is a message for "Mr. Tom Morrow," who was a character in Disneyland's now-defunct Flight to the Moon attraction and later became a separate character for Innoventions at Epcot and Disneyland Park in 1998.
  • The StarSpeeder 3000 has several blast marks, one of which appears to resemble a Hidden Mickey.
  • The G2 repair droids in the queue line are actually the skeletons of Audio-Animatronic geese from an old Disneyland show, America Sings. They were removed from the show during the last two years of its run.[1] The droids can be heard singing "I've been working on the same droid, all the live-long day," a reference to the geese singing "I've Been Working on the Railroad" during America Sings. The New Essential Guide to Droids nicknamed the G2s "Goose droids" as a nod to this show.[32]
  • In the queue, you can see a model of Kermit the Frog made out of spare parts when you get to the overhead conveyor belt.[33]
  • The baskets of parts in the Droidnostics Center in the ride queue at Disneyland and Disney's Hollywood Studios have hidden initials and birth dates of Walt Disney Imagineering and ILM team members who worked on the attraction.[33]
  • When Energizer sponsored the Disney's Hollywood Studios version, the Energizer Bunny made a cameo appearance in the shop on a video screen.[source?]
  • On the pre-boarding video, many passengers are Imagineers and their families.[source?]
  • The woman sitting next to Teek in the preshow video is wearing a cast member costume for EPCOT Computer Central, an attraction formerly located in Epcot's CommuniCore pavilion.
  • The exit of the Tokyo Disneyland version features a "Tourscan" kiosk that uses the footage from the multiple endings of the discontinued Epcot attraction Horizons to portray other Star Tours excursions. The sets for the endings footage, and by extension the locales featured at the exit, were developed by David Jones, who also did special-effects work for Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.[34]
  • One of the droids, DL-X2, was a modified version of an Imagineer-developed prop for the robot TK4600 from the NBC police drama series Hill Street Blues.

Ride film[]

  • 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. Exiting the first scene during the Star Tours film, the Mighty Microscope from the old ride can be seen.[1]
  • On Captain Rex, a bright red tag can be seen attached to his torso. The tag says "Remove before Flight." This tag is a reference to similar labels placed on some aircraft parts.[32]
  • Rex "has a very bad feeling about this" when the ship flies into one of the comets. This is a running gag in the Star Wars films.
  • At least two revisions have been made to the ride's script since its inception. After the StarSpeeder passes the moon of Endor, the original version had Rex asking R2-D2 "Now what's the matter? Oh no! Comets!" The modified line is, "Now what's the matter? Comets? Comets!" and adds "I have a very bad feeling about this."[source?]
  • The fuel tanker that the StarSpeeder 3000 almost runs into has a registration number on its side. The number is Lucasfilm's old office phone number.[source?]
  • Rex is voiced by Paul Reubens, best known for playing the character Pee-wee Herman. Despite rumors that Reubens' voice was replaced following his 1991 or 2002 arrests, no such replacement occurred.[1] One of the droids in the queue says, "You got a camera. Why don't you take a picture? It'll last longer!," which is a Paul Reubens quote.
  • During the ride, Rex says "I've always wanted to do this!" In "One Last Night in the Mos Eisley Cantina: The Tale of the Wolfman and the Lamproid," Lak Sivrak hears a droid announce it had "always wanted to do this" during the Battle of Endor.[35]

Credits[]

By type
Cast Uncredited cast Crew Uncredited crew Special thanks

Cast

  • Paul Reubens .... Captain RX-24, a.k.a. Rex (voice) (uncredited)
  • Anthony Daniels .... C-3PO (onboard video segment; voice only in queue), Alien announcer (uncredited) — Daniels was involved in motion capture, English and French voice-overs, and some of the public-address announcements in Ewokese.[36]
  • Stephanie Taylor .... Safety video spokesperson appearing just before riders board (uncredited)
  • Steve Gawley .... Red Leader (onboard video) (uncredited)
  • Dennis Muren, Selwyn Eddy, Claudia Mullaly .... Maintenance workers 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 for George Lucas (uncredited)
  • Bill Beck .... Technician carrying out the pre-flight walk around in queue video (uncredited)
  • Brian Cummings .... Vid-Screen Announcer (planetary destinations) (voice) (uncredited)
  • Tom Fitzgerald .... G2-9T (voice) (uncredited)
  • Mike West .... G2-4T (voice) (uncredited)

Crew

  • Directed by — Tony Baxter, Dennis Muren[1]
  • Produced by — Tom Fitzgerald, George Lucas[1]
  • Written by — Tom Fitzgerald, George Lucas[1]
  • Music by — Richard Bellis, including music by John Williams[1]
  • Camera operators — Selwyn Eddy, Scott Farrar[1]
  • Camera operator assistants — Ray Gilberti, Bob Hill[1]
  • Model shop supervisor — Steve Gawley[1]
  • Supervising model maker — Larry Tan[1]
  • Senior model makers — Mike Fulmer, Ira Keeler[1]
  • Model makers — Bill Beck, Claudia Mullaly (miniatures), Eric Christiansen, Lorne Peterson[1]
  • Matte paintings — Richard Vander Wende[1]
  • Optical compositors — Jon Alexander, Don Clark[1]
  • Puppeteer — Lynette Eklund (Mon Calamari supervisor - Tokyo only)[37]
  • Various - Walt Disney Imagineering — Mike West, Orlando Ferrante, Stan Abrahamson, Shim Yokoyama, Greg Wilzback, Gil Keppler, Chris Tietz[1]


Gallery[]

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Appearances[]

By type
Characters Organisms Droid models Events Locations
Organizations and titles Sentient species Vehicles and vessels Weapons and technology Miscellanea

Characters

Organisms

  • Aucfan (Picture only) (Tokyo only)

Droid models

Rx24

RX-24, pilot of the StarSpeeder 3000

Events

Locations

Star Tours in Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland included "Arrivals/Departures" boards that listed destinations other than Endor, and Tokyo also included weather reports.


Organizations and titles

Sentient species

Vehicles and vessels

Weapons and technology

Miscellanea

Sources[]

Notes and references[]

  1. 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 1.20 1.21 1.22 1.23 1.24 1.25 1.26 1.27 1.28 SWInsider "Star Tours: Taking Off on a Star Tour" — Star Wars Insider 104
  2. This Week in Star Wars logo This Week! in Star Wars The Bad Batch Returns, Your Photos of The Child, and More! on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
  3. This Week in Star Wars logo This Week! in Star Wars LEGO A-Wing Starfighter Reveal, Star Wars: The Clone Wars Anthology Book Cover, and More! on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
  4. 4.0 4.1 StarWarsDotComBlogsLogoStacked "Death Star timeline" — Keeper of the Holocron's BlogLeland Chee's StarWars.com Blog (backup link)
  5. StarWars Unknown Thread on StarWars.com Message Boards. (content obsolete and backup link not available)
  6. EndorExpress favicon Star Tours: The Adventures Continue opening in Tokyo Spring 2013 on EndorExpress (backup link)
  7. YouTube Classic Star Tours on the Millennium Falcon on the Disney Dream on the The DIS YouTube channel (backup link)
  8. Trahan, Kendra. Disneyland Detective: An Independent Guide to Discovering Disney's Legend, Lore, and Magic. Permagrin Publishing (2004).
  9. EndorExpress favicon Creating Fantasies on EndorExpress (backup link)
  10. YouTube Disneyland Star Tours queuing in Line 2008 on the xurbition YouTube channel (backup link)
  11. StarWars 5 of the Best Reveals in Star Wars Celebration History on StarWars.com (backup link)
  12. YouTube Star Tours Press Kit VHS on the The Imperial Academy YouTube channel (backup link)
  13. George Lucas' Star Tours
  14. D23 logo Disney A to Z's Star Trader page on D23.com (backup link)
  15. D23 logo Disney A to Z's Tatooine Traders page on D23.com (backup link)
  16. 16.0 16.1 HyperspaceIcon Bantha Tracks #35 on Hyperspace (content removed from StarWars.com and unavailable)
  17. Complete Guide to Star Tours
  18. StarlogLogo "Star Wars: The Disneyland Journey, Part One" — Starlog 118
  19. StarWars Convenient Daily Departures: The History of Star Tours on StarWars.com (article) (backup link)
  20. StarWars The Imperial Warlords: Despoilers of an Empire, Part 2 on StarWars.com (article) (backup link)
  21. StarWars The Legendary Star Wars Expanded Universe Turns a New Page on StarWars.com (backup link)
  22. TIE Fighter
  23. 23.0 23.1 Specter of the Past
  24. SWGamer-icon "Endor and the Moddell Sector" — Star Wars Gamer 9
  25. Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided
  26. The New Essential Guide to Droids
  27. TCW mini logo Star Wars: The Clone Wars — "Lightsaber Lost"
  28. Rebels-mini-logo Star Wars Rebels — "Droids in Distress"
  29. GalaxysEdgeLogo icon Star Wars: Galaxy's EdgeOga's Cantina
  30. StarWars-DatabankII DJ R-3X in the Databank (backup link)
  31. Vaz, Mark Cotta. Industrial Light & Magic : into the digital realm. Del Rey, 1996. (web archive)
  32. 32.0 32.1 32.2 D23 logo 9 Out of This World Facts about Star Tours' Over 30 Years of Continued Adventures on D23.com (backup link)
  33. 33.0 33.1 Veness, Susan. The Hidden Magic of Walt Disney World. Adams Media, 2009. ISBN 1-60550-063-1. (web archive)
  34. The Horizons Story, Part III: Disney's House Of Magic by Crawford, Michael on The Horizons Story (September 24, 2011) (archived from the original on September 24, 2011)
  35. "One Last Night in the Mos Eisley Cantina: The Tale of the Wolfman and the Lamproid" — Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina
  36. StarWars Unknown Thread on StarWars.com Message Boards. (content obsolete and backup link not available)
  37. EndorExpress favicon Interview with the Mon Calamari puppet builder on EndorExpress (backup link)
  38. 38.0 38.1 HasbroInverted Star Wars: Star Tours (Pack: Star Tours Boarding Party) (backup link)

External links[]

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