RX - 24 / Legends RX - 24 , nicknamed Rex , was an RX - Series pilot droid manufactured by Reubens Robotic Systems . The masculine - programmed droid was purchased by the Star Tours travel agency at some point after the rise of the Galactic Empire , and prior to 1 BBY , but he was defective as of 1 BBY and saw no service until after the company upgraded its fleet of StarSpeeder 1000 spacecraft to the newer StarSpeeder 3000 sometime around the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY . By that time , RX - 24 had been repaired , and the company placed him into service . His initial duty to Star Tours constituted multiple firsts : Rex ' s first flight as a pilot , the first official Star Tours use of the StarSpeeder 3000 shuttle , and the first outing of the Endor Express with non - stop service to the Forest Moon of Endor . With the astromech droid R2 - D2 as his copilot , Rex took off on Star Tours Flight 45 . He never reached Endor . Instead , Rex nearly crashed the shuttle leaving the spaceport , emerged from hyperspace too late and overshot the Forest Moon , stumbled into a comet field , wandered into a battle between New Republic and Imperial forces , and joined an attack run on an Imperial battlestation . The pilot droid then returned to the spaceport from which the flight originated . Rex ' s programming and appearance were standard for the RX series . He had a segmented body with wider sections of burnished metal trimmed in gold and purple , and narrower sections in black . He had three arms with clawed hands , blue photoreceptors that glowed with a white light , a retractable purple visor , and a repulsorlift generator at his base to facilitate movement . Rex was friendly with organic beings , and he affected a brave demeanor even during his disastrous flight to Endor . He was in a romantic relationship with a fellow droid , ROX - N . Biography . RX - 24 was an RX - Series pilot droid manufactured by Reubens Robotic Systems . The droid was one of several purchased by the galactic travel agency known as Star Tours circa 1 BBY . RX - 24 was shipped to the agency defective ; once removed from his shipping crate , the droid was almost completely non - functional , muttering random phrases in Basic , speeding up and slowing down his speech at irregular intervals , and sparking at the neck . With a decal reading , " " and " " on his base , he sat outside his crate up to the time of Star Tours Flight 1401 , which took place at some point between 2 and 0 BBY . Nevertheless , Star Tours decided to keep RX - 24 at the company and had its in - house repair droids restore him to working order . By 4 . 3 ABY , shortly after the Battle of Endor , RX - 24 had been brought online as a fully functional pilot droid . He also struck up a romantic relationship with another Star Tours droid , ROX - N . Star Tours had upgraded its fleet of StarSpeeder 1000 passenger starships to the newer StarSpeeder 3000 model . Seeking to cash in on the moon of Endor ' s sudden fame after the defeat of Galactic Emperor Palpatine by the Alliance to Restore the Republic there , Star Tours assigned RX - 24 , now nicknamed " Rex , " to captain the StarSpeeder 3000 on its maiden voyage , taking it to the forest moon with a full complement of passengers as part of the newly implemented Endor Express service . Rex was to follow the Sanctuary Pipeline , a hyperlane that had been created by the Galactic Empire to bring supplies to the Endor system during the construction of the Death Star II battlestation . Without the Empire to maintain the hyperroute , however , the Pipeline began to decay soon after the battle had ended . Nevertheless , Star Tours gave the go - ahead for Rex to pilot Star Tours Flight 45 ( ST - 45 ) . Only the protocol droid C - 3PO , temporarily working for the travel agency , saw the folly of the plan , noting that Rex still had his " Remove Before Flight " factory tag on him . Rex took his post in front of the StarSpeeder ' s cockpit shield . Promising a smooth ride , the droid lowered the shield and greeted his passengers as his navigator , R2 - D2 , was loaded into the craft ' s astromech slot . With approval from control , Rex lurched the starship into motion but then took a wrong turn while still inside the Star Tours spaceport . Unable to find the StarSpeeder 3000 ' s brakes , he nearly collided with a wall before wrenching the craft up and over the obstruction and into space . Despite this inauspicious beginning , RX - 24 then ordered R2 - D2 to launch the craft into hyperspace . The pilot ' s next mistake was to come out of lightspeed too late , passing Endor completely and inadvertently moving the StarSpeeder into a field of icy comets instead . He deftly piloted the craft through the comet field only to emerge within a restricted combat zone , where several New Republic X - wing starfighters were in the midst of a battle with an Imperial Star Destroyer and its complement of TIE / LN starfighter s . Rex found his passenger craft caught in the Star Destroyer ' s tractor beam , but a tip from one of the New Republic pilots to ease up on his main thruster allowed the droid to escape capture . The voyage nearly came to an end when an Imperial fighter shot the ship and caused it to lose altitude , but R2 - D2 repaired the damaged stabilizer on the Captain ' s orders . Rex then moved the starship to join the New Republic ' s Red Squadron in an attack run against a massive Imperial battlestation . After following two X - wings through a giant trench and helping them shoot down enemy TIE fighters , Rex and his passengers saw that the attack was a success . Rex then ordered R2 - D2 to take the craft to lightspeed ; they returned to the spaceport from which Flight ST - 45 had originated , scathed but intact . RX - 24 ' s flight proved something of a harbinger for the future of the Star Tours travel agency . Within months of the Battle of Endor , accidents and poor management drove the company to go out of business . Characteristics . RX - 24 was a standard RX - Series model , making him a second - degree droid , that is , one of a category of droids who aided in spaceflight and vehicle or starship maintenance . He possessed standard equipment for his model , including three clawed arms with which to manipulate starship controls , a heuristic processor to facilitate learning and creativity , two photoreceptors with which to see , a repulsorlift platform at his base for locomotion , and a vocabulator with which to speak . The droid was programmed with a masculine personality , and he was able to speak and understand Basic and Binary . Rex ' s photoreceptors were blue unless illuminated , which made them shine with a white light . The wider sections of his chassis were burnished metal trimmed with gold and purple ; between these were narrower sections in black . Rex ' s clawed fingers , upper anterior facial plating , and vocabulator were also gold . The droid pilot had a retractable purple visor that he could lower over his photoreceptors . Upon his arrival at the Star Tours travel agency , RX - 24 suffered from severe factory defects , sputtering random phrases and shorting out frequently . Once restored to normal working order , Rex enjoyed the same programming as other RX units . He was skilled at starship piloting , ship maintenance , and computer use . His photoreceptors had great acuity to allow him to efficiently locate obstacles in spaceflight , and his dexterity enabled him to fly through dangerous situations . Nevertheless , Rex had yet to become accustomed to actual spaceflight on his first mission ; indeed , he exhibited some confusion and insecurity on the flight , nearly crashing the StarSpeeder 3000 and narrowly escaping several other hazards . Ultimately , his reflexes and daring allowed him to return to the Star Tours dock intact . Similarly , the fully functional Rex exhibited his model ' s ease of interaction with organic beings . He was friendly and upbeat even in dire situations . When his first flight went awry , he tried to keep a professional veneer of calm , claiming that some of his mistakes had been intentional . Still , his anxieties manifested at particularly harrowing moments in screams and cries of exasperation . Despite his claims that he wanted to keep his passengers safe , RX - 24 showed a daredevil streak on his maiden voyage ; for instance , when he stumbled upon an Imperial battlestation , he chose to join a New Republic attack on it rather than retreat to safety . The pilot droid interacted smoothly with other mechanicals , such as his first navigator , R2 - D2 , as well as RX - 24 ' s romantic interest , ROX - N . Behind the scenes . When Lucasfilm Ltd . and the Walt Disney Company teamed up to create an attraction for the theme park in , the two sides chose to use flight simulator technology to allow the park guests to feel like they were traveling into space on a passenger liner . Creating the film to be projected to audience members proved a challenge , since all the drama had to come from either the visuals created by Industrial Light & Magic or from dialogue ; the ride , therefore , needed a compelling and sympathetic narrator . George Lucas proposed a droid pilot for the role to help connect audience members to the greater experience the ride was intended to mimic . Lucas ' s original idea for the robot was to call him " Crazy Harry " and make him a sarcastic , wisecracking veteran of the Clone Wars , an idea based on the skippers of the attraction in the park ' s area in the 1980s . However , the ride ' s director , Tony Baxter , suggested the pilot be more of a jittery beginner and that the ride ' s harrowing narrative arise from the pilot ' s beginner ' s blunder ; such a character would be more sympathetic , Baxter suggested . The team ran with the idea , also making the robot a stand - in for the audience members . For instance , the team felt that the pilot ' s insistence on participating in an attack run on a Death Star — along with his exclamation , " I ' ve always wanted to do this ! " — would mirror the feelings of anyone who had seen Luke Skywalker ' s trench run in . The team then had to find a voice actor to perform the droid ' s lines . The idea that Rex had lost control of the StarSpeeder suggested the character would need to scream frequently on the audio track . Tom Fitzgerald , lead writer and producer on the project , and Mark Eades , media producer for the ride , have both claimed credit for eventually casting comedian Paul Reubens for the role . Fitzgerald says that he thought Reubens might fit the bill after seeing the comedian ' s television special as the character , a role that required Reubens to scream frequently and humorously . Fitzgerald felt the actor would fit the idea of a slightly comical , inexperienced pilot well . Eades ' s version of the story says that in seeking a voice actor who could portray a " slightly cracked ' character , they auditioned over two dozen talents , including and Frank Welker . When Eades heard Reubens as the voice of a robot spaceship in the Disney film " " , he thought the comedian would suit the part . Reubens soon signed on to the project . Lucas provided basic ideas for Rex ' s physical appearance . Based on these , Chris Runco sculpted a prototype Rex puppet from green foam . Two other ride designers , Larry Sheldon and Lance Updyke , used this template to create the Rex puppets from aluminum . With four separate StarSpeeder 3000s that audience members might board in the attraction after its opening in 1987 , four separate animatronic Rex puppets were also needed . The character first appeared in a 1986 TV promotion that aired on ABC ' s Sunday Night Movie feature , shortly before the ride officially opened at the start of the next year . The " Star Tours " ride spread to other Disney parks , which required more Rex puppets to be created . With the opening of " Star Tours " at , the designers added a new robot to the queue area of the attraction , ROX - N , whom they designed as Rex ' s girlfriend . Expansion to new parks meant finding new voice talents for non - English versions of the ride ; for Disneyland Paris , the company cast voice actor Luq Hamet to portray Rex . When Lucasfilm and Disney teamed up again to update " Star Tours " in 2005 , designers decided to set the new version in the era between and " Star Wars Episode IV : A New Hope " , well before the timeframe of the original ride . To preserve continuity with the original ride , wherein Rex tells guests that it is his first flight , the team decided to create a new pilot . The droid AC - 38 ( " Ace " ) was the result , and the new pilot exhibits similar physical and behavioral features to Rex . Nevertheless , the newer ride ' s plot sees the protocol droid C - 3PO replace Ace by mistake . As a nod to the original ride , the designers included an RX - 24 animatronic puppet in the queuing area audience members must pass through as they wait to board the attraction . There , the pilot - to - be is non - functioning and marked defective , uttering lines from the original " Star Tours " seemingly at random . " " opened to the public in 2011 . Sources disagree as to the manufacturer of the RX line of pilot droids . According to " Scum and Villainy " and " Scavenger ' s Guide to Droids " , sourcebooks for the Saga Edition of the " Star Wars Roleplaying Game " from Wizards of the Coast published in 2008 and 2009 respectively , RX - Series pilot droids were produced by Industrial Automaton ( IA ) . However , RX - 24 ' s entry in 2008 ' s " The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia " notes that he was manufactured by Reubens Robotic Systems . This article assumes that despite the different manufacturer , as a factory - new droid , RX - 24 still had all the standard features outlined in the roleplaying sourcebooks for IA ' s RX droids . The short story " , " written by Judith and Garfield Reeves - Stevens and published as part of " Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina " in 1995 , includes a montage that sends the lovers Lak Sivrak and Dice Ibegon skipping through time . At one point , they arrive at the Battle of Endor . As Alliance General Lando Calrissian orders all fighters to attack the Death Star , Sivrak hears a droid exclaim that it " had always wanted to do this , " mimicking Rex ' s line from " Star Tours " . The story leaves the question of whether or not it is RX - 24 unanswered , however .