Star Tours ( real - world ) Star Tours was a Disney attraction located at at in , at in , at in , and at in , . 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 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 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 in 1987 , replacing the attraction " " . The original " Star Tours " closed in 2010 ( July 27th in , September 8th in at ) while Disney engineers built the updated and renovated ride , " " , which opened on May 20th , 2011 . version of the original ride closed in April 2012 to make way for the updated ride in Spring 2013 . Disneyland Paris ' s version closed on March 16th , 2016 to make way for the update . Plot summary . 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 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 . 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 starfighter s while a Rebel destroys the Death Star in the same manner as Luke Skywalker does in . 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 . The ride that became " Star Tours " first saw light as a proposal for an attraction based on the 1979 Disney live - action flop " " . 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 , 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 " utilized a Thomson motion base cabin featuring 3 degrees of freedom . The film was front projected onto the screen from a projector located beneath the cockpit barrier . George Lucas mentioned that the of the attraction would feature digital high - definition video and motion bases capable of up to 6 degrees of freedom . Marketing . When the ride opened , " Star Tours " press kits were released . They each contained interviews with George Lucas , Disney ' s , 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 . There was also a TV special that aired around the time of the opening of the ride . The program — entitled " A Vacation In Space " and designed to promote the ride — aired in late 1986 , and was hosted by and . 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 . 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 . 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 , that store was replaced by Tatooine Traders , themed to resemble the buildings of Mos Eisley and Mos Espa . Both stores include some sold only at Disney theme parks , including action figures of the various droids seen in the ride and queue and StarSpeeder 3000 toys . Canonicity . The canonicity of the events depicted in " Star Tours " has been disputed for many reasons , the most obvious being the inclusion of the Death Star . Since R2 - D2 ' s presence aboard the StarSpeeder precludes the events taking place during the Battle of Yavin or the Battle of Endor , the Death Star seen in the ride video has been considered by some to be the Death Star prototype , as seen in " Jedi Search " and " Champions of the Force " , and its destruction to be a depiction of the prototype ' s destruction at The Maw . However , it does not match that prototype ' s skeletal construction , and R2 - D2 is accounted for during that event . Also , the " Star Tours " Death Star is close to Endor , far from the Maw ' s location . This may indicate it is a so - far - unrevealed Death Star , or that the ride ' s events are simply not canonical . Leland Chee , in a timeline he created , implied that the first possibility was true . Others have suggested that the Death Star is a modification of one of the habitation sphere s 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 events of " Star Tours " may take place after since after the destination of Hoth is advertised on the large video screen in the queue area , C - 3PO mentions the events of the film . In 2005 , Lucasfilm ' s Leland Chee tentatively dated the events of the ride at 4 . 3 ABY . This was later confirmed in the 2013 blog , which also explained R2 - D2 and C - 3PO ' s presence at Star Tours as being their being loaned to the company by their owners during the latter stages of the Nagai – Tof War . 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 of canon . Legends references . While the events of the ride themselves may be questionably canonical , the Expanded Universe ( now known as " Legends " ) made a number of references to the fictional travel agency and its ships : Sequel . The flight information board utilized 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 clever tagline , were 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 . In April 2005 , at the " Star Wars " Celebration III , " Star Wars " creator George Lucas confirmed that " " was in production . 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 20th , 2011 at Walt Disney World , June 3rd in Disneyland and on May 7th , 2013 at Tokyo Disneyland .