Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin

**Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin** is a shooting dark ride in the Tomorrowland's in Magic Kingdom, Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Park, Hong Kong Disneyland, Disneyland Park in Paris and Shanghai Disneyland.

## Plot

The back story of the ride revolves around the attempts of Evil Emperor Zurg (voiced by Ken Mitchroney in Space Ranger Spin and Andrew Stanton in Astro Blasters with Tesshō Genda and Laurent Gamelon in international languages) to steal the batteries (known as "crystallic fusion cells") used to power the space vehicles of the "Little Green Men" (voiced by Jeff Pidgeon with Toshiharu Sakurai and Christophe Lemoine in international languages). Participants are "Star Command" raw recruits sent to defeat Zurg. The queue area is awash in the chartreuse, white, and bright blue hues of Buzz Lightyear himself (voiced by Pat Fraley, who did the voice for all the English language Buzz Lightyear attractions [with Minoru Inaba and Richard Darbois in international languages]). Since Buzz Lightyear is a toy, the attraction is cleverly scaled to give the illusion that one has just been reduced to the size of an action figure, featuring such detail as giant, exposed Philips screw heads and an explanation of the interactive phase of the ride that resembles a toy's instruction sheet, only on a gigantic scale. An Audio-Animatronic Buzz Lightyear figure and giant Etch-a-Sketch (Disneyland) and/or View-Master (Disney World) provide the explanation of the "mission" to destroy Zurg's secret weapon with your blasters. While his body is audio-animatronic, Buzz's face is actually a screen with a projection of computer animation, allowing better lipsync and more expressive features, making him look like a more realistic representation of the character from the films.

## History

### Magic Kingdom

The Magic Kingdom's version of the ride, known as Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, and the first version of the Buzz Lightyear attractions altogether is the third Omnimover ride to operate in Tomorrowland's south show building.

The layout and systems of the ride date all the way back to 1972. This space was originally home to If You Had Wings, an aviation-themed ride sponsored by Eastern Airlines. Eastern Airlines dropped sponsorship of the ride for financial reasons in early June 1987. All Eastern themes were moved, and the ride was renamed If You Could Fly. If You Could Fly closed down in January 1989.

Six months after If You Had Wings/If You Could Fly closed down, the ride reopened as a completely redressed ride called Delta Dreamflight, sponsored by Delta Air Lines. Delta sponsored the attraction until January 1996, when, due to financial reasons and sponsorship of the 1996 Summer Olympics, they withdrew their sponsorship. The ride was renamed simply Dreamflight until June 1996 when the ride became known as Take Flight. Take Flight closed in January 1998 to be transformed into Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, which opened ten months later. Space Ranger Spin thus has a combination of the elements of its predecessors and all new scenes (the speed tunnel is the original speed tunnel from If You Had Wings and Delta Dreamflight). Three of the chickens from the barnstorming segment of Dreamflight are now residents of Planet Z, recoloured as green space chickens that are among the targets in that area.

### Disneyland Park

Disneyland's version of the ride is called Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. Like the Magic Kingdom version, it also uses infrastructure from previous attractions. The space the ride takes up was first occupied by the Circle-Vision 360° theatre. The space was transformed in 1997 when Tomorrowland received a major makeover, and the Circle-Vision theatre became part of the queue line for the infamous Rocket Rods. The Rocket Rods were prone to breakdowns and ran from 1998 to 2000. After closing, the queue line stood empty for several years until Astro Blasters opened in 2005. Astro Blasters occupies the space formerly used by the Rocket Rods' queue. A key difference between Astro Blasters and Space Ranger Spin is that in Astro Blasters, the laser guns can be removed from their mounts to allow for more accurate shooting (similar to Men in Black: Alien Attack at Universal theme parks), while in Space Ranger Spin, they cannot be removed from their mounts and have limited movement.

On April 30, 2021, Disneyland Resort reopened after being temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic; however, Disneyland's version of the attraction remained closed, until June 26, when it reopened.

### Tokyo and Hong Kong Disneyland

The Tokyo version of the ride is called Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters and it is the original version of the second version of the ride and all of the ride's audio is in Japanese. At Hong Kong Disneyland, the ride was called Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters and a highly identical clone of the Tokyo version with a more elaborate queue, with its entrance Buzz Lightyear statue being taken from the defunct DisneyQuest Chicago's Astro Blasters bumper car attraction. The Hong Kong version was also entirely in English, and only trilingual for safety rules. Those two versions also featured a floating Planet Z outside of the DreadNought. Their version's cruisers are called XP 38. On March 3, 2017, Disney announced that the attraction would be closing and replaced by Ant-Man and The Wasp: Nano Battle! as the second Marvel themed ride at Hong Kong Disneyland. The ride closed on August 31, 2017. In 2023, the attraction is set to become part of Stark Expo. However, Tokyo Disneyland's version is still operating today.

### Disneyland Paris

At Disneyland Paris, Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast replaced the Circle-Vision 360° production Le Visionarium, which closed in 2004 after plans to place the attraction in Walt Disney Studios Park's Animation Courtyard were rejected. This version of the ride is much like the Disneyland version, Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, except for the presence of a tribute to Le Visionarium: When you are in the robot attack scene at the beginning, if you look beneath the left arm of the Box-O-Bot, you may be able to see 9-Eye (the Circumvisual Photodroid from Le Visionarium) hiding there. However, it is easy to miss this tribute.

### Shanghai Disneyland

The most recent version of this attraction is called Buzz Lightyear Planet Rescue. Heavily based on the opening scene of Toy Story 2, the attraction takes place on the planet where Zurg has his lair set up with the same style of robots as featured in the film, as well as featuring Buzz Lightyear heavily via the use of screens.