Star Tours (real-world)

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.
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. 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.
==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 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 trilogy, modified to operate via Audio-Animatronics.Trahan, Kendra. Disneyland Detective: An Independent Guide to Discovering Disney's Legend, Lore, and Magic. Permagrin Publishing (2004).
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==
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.
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.
===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.
In April 2005, at the Star Wars Celebration III, Star Wars creator George Lucas confirmed that Star Tours: The Adventures Continue 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 20, 2011 at Walt Disney World, on June 3 at Disneyland, on May 7, 2013 at Tokyo Disneyland, and in Paris on March 18, 2017.
==Attraction facts==
*Designer: Walt Disney Imagineering, Industrial Light and Magic
*Simulators: 4 ; 6 
*Guests per simulator: 40
*Height requirement: 40 inches (102 cm)
*Sponsors:
**Disneyland: M&M's (1987–1995), Energizer (1995–2006)
**Tokyo Disneyland: Panasonic (1999–2009)
**Disneyland Paris: IBM (1992–2002)
**Walt Disney World: M&M's (1989–1995), Energizer (1995–2006)
*Show length: 4:30
*Ride system: Flight simulator with Audio-Animatronics, synced to film
==Marketing==
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.
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.George Lucas' Star Tours
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 Episode I, that store was replaced by Tatooine Traders, themed to resemble the buildings of Mos Eisley and Mos Espa. 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==
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, 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.Complete Guide to Star Tours
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 . Though early press material suggested the space station was a new Death Star appearing after Return of the Jedi, 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. 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. 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.
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.
===Legends references===
The Expanded Universe (now known as Legends) made a number of references to the fictional travel agency and its ships:
*Several aliens from the Star Wars theatrical films and offshoot productions make appearances in the opening safety video: Some Mon Calamari, a Gran, a Wookiee (a Chewbacca costume), and Teek from Ewoks: The Battle for Endor.
*In the PC game TIE Fighter, in the first TIE Interceptor historical mission, when the player uses sensors to identify a Lambda-class shuttle its name reads "StarTour 7," and its cargo is listed as "Tourists."TIE Fighter
*The StarSpeeder 3000 has been referenced in the novel Specter of the Past.Specter of the Past
*The article Endor and the Moddell Sector in Star Wars Gamer 9 explains that a short-lived travel agency offered trips to Endor before accidents and mismanagement drove them out of business. It also suggests that those trips happened in the New Republic era. The article includes an illustration of a StarSpeeder 3000 at a landing site on Endor.
*In the Star Wars Galaxies game, players encounter the crash site of the Star Tours ship Tzarina on Dathomir. The crash is blamed on an incompetent droid captain who got too close to what sounds like the Battle of Yavin.Star Wars Galaxies
*The ride's G2 repair droids are featured in The New Essential Guide to DroidsThe New Essential Guide to Droids and are mentioned in the novel Specter of the Past.
===Canon references===
*"Lightsaber Lost," an episode of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series, includes a holographic advertisement from Star Tours promoting travel to Glee Anselm.
*"Droids in Distress," an episode of the Star Wars Rebels animated series, features the heroes traveling in a civilian transport vessel rather similar to the StarSpeeder 3000, piloted by a droid of the same name and design as RX-24; Paul Reubens reprised his role as the voice of Rex.
*Oga's Cantina, a dining establishment and attraction at Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge at Disneyland and Walt Disney World, features Rex, now reprogrammed to be a DJ and renamed R-3X. The canon version of Rex also piloted a StarSpeeder 3000 for Star Tours at some point.
==Cameos==
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.
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).
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.
==Easter eggs==
===Ride queue===
*A number of inside jokes can be heard over the public-address system in the ride's queue:
**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. 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.
*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.
*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.
*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.
*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.
*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.
*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.
*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. 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.
==Media==
===Poster and advertising gallery===
File:1986StarToursPoster.jpg|Poster for Disneyland version
File:Star Tours poster Kriegler.jpg|Poster for Disneyland version
File:Star Tours DL print ad.jpg|Print advertisement for Disneyland version
File:Star Tours DL print ad 2.jpg|Print advertisement for Disneyland version
File:StarTours-DisneyMGMStudiosPrintAd.jpg|Print advertisement for Disney-MGM Studios version
File:Star Tours TDL poster.jpg|Poster for Tokyo Disneyland version
File:Star Tours DLP poster.jpg|Poster for Disneyland Paris version
==Credits==
==Appearances==
==Sources==
==Notes and references==
==External links==
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Category:Miscellaneous films
Category:Star Tours (real-world)