On May 20, 2011, Disney’s Hollywood Studios became the first of three Disney theme parks (so far) to host an updated version of arguably the most iconic motion simulator ride in existence.
Star Tours: The Adventures Continue (aka Star Tours II) replaced the original attraction that (officially) debuted on January 9, 1987. The updated attraction’s debut represented the culmination of roughly 13 years (!) of work by Disney Imagineers who had spent the entirety of the Star Wars prequel trilogy planning how to incorporate the new ideas into a better ride simulation. Let’s go Behind the Ride to determine exactly what was changed and what steps were required to achieve one of the most impressive and unprecedented rides, even to this day.
1. The Experience: Updating a 3D simulation of a Star Wars vacation gone awry
The Trick: Over a decade of planning
The origins of the original Star Tours are amusingly mundane. Star Wars creator George Lucas happened to ask what Disney’s Imagineers were working on when he visited. They indicated that they were building a new flight simulator. He casually asked for ideas on how to implement a similar ride with Star Wars characters. Two years later, they presented a collated list to him. The rest is theme park history.
In 1986, the parties agreed that enough of a premise was in place to build an unforgettable attraction bearing the Star Wars and Disney brands, a union that would pay dramatic dividends for both parties a couple of decades later. The new attraction known as Star Tours came with a price tag of $32 million, but its instant popularity was unmistakable. Disneyland operated for 60 straight hours to handle the immediate, constant demand for their new signature motion simulator.
Approximately a decade later, the old version grew stale, and consumers often requested an update. In 1998, Lucas’ people contacted Disney to say that he was working on Episode One and knew the sequence that should become the basis of Star Tours. The ride was the Pod Race, and he was correct that it was a worthy follow-up as a ride experience.
Disney boarded out the entire attraction as this one part, presuming the Pod Race the complete ride experience. In 1998, they’d already decided to make the ride in 3D with glasses similar to Anakin’s to further tether The Adventures Continue to the planned Star Wars prequel. They had no idea at the time that the film itself would break the hearts of many moviegoers.
Alas, fortune was in their favor. Nothing happened with the actual design of the ride until October 2003. Since the Imagineers had no advance knowledge of what would be in Episode 2 or 3, they decided to wait until the new trilogy ended. After their release, however, Disney’s employees couldn’t pick their favorite sequence from these films, either. They knew that for Star Tours II to surpass its grandiose expectations, more oomph was needed.
2. The Experience: 54 Different variations of the same ride
The Trick: A storytelling slot machine
Have you heard of the Choose Your Own Adventure books by Edward Packard and R.A. Montgomery? Disney’s Imagineers recognize that Star Wars was a global phenomenon unlike any other. Its fans hungered for an original experience that would allow them to enjoy multiple visits into the fertile imagination of George Lucas. The designers settled upon a “storytelling slot machine” premise.
Their pitch to Lucas involved a five-part story of a take-off sequence for a ship, a journey to a new land, a detour caused by shenanigans, a transition away from this area, and a main event that would comprise the body of the ride time. The trick they embraced was revolutionary for the time and remains largely novel today.
There is a random calculation made to determine which of multiple options each ride will employ. The initial pitch called for four possibilities on take-off, six on the travel segment, 12 on the detour, an undetermined amount for the transition, and another dozen for the main event. I’ll save you the math here. As originally envisioned, The Adventure Continues would have offered at least 3,456 potential variations and probably somewhere around 13,824, presuming that there were at least as many transition possibilities as take-off segments.
Alas, such lofty ambitions demanded too much legwork for the time. As it was, Star Tours II required new 3D as well as digital technologies, neither of which was well established during the design phase. Filming another 30-34 potential ride mechanics would have taken far too much time. They eventually settled upon providing enough random variations to offer 54 permutations of Star Tours – The Adventure continues. That’s 53 more than virtually any other ride on the planet.
3. The Experience: Recreating parts of the Star Wars universe to the satisfaction of hardcore fans
The Trick: Picking the right combination of Star Wars favorites
The problem Imagineers faced after narrowing their focus to the appropriate number of ride options was picking the correct ones. The designers presented George Lucas with a Story Matrix entitled Star Tours 3.5. It is largely the one in use today.
The Story Matrix offers two options during the introduction, an encounter with Darth Vader or Storm Troopers. Then, it randomizes a trip to Tattooine, Hoth or Kashyyyk. If you’re not familiar with Kashyyyk, it’s also known as Wookiee World. Its inclusion was suggested by none other than Pixar’s John Lassester. The implementation of Kashyyyk is particularly fun for Imagineers, because it’s a creation of a world that is largely not seen in the films. So, they had more freedom with it than with the well-established planets of Tattooine and Hoth.
After you reach one of the three planets, there are three people you may interact with: Yoda, Admiral Ackbar, or Princess Leia, creating a total of nine divergent branches for the ride during this phase. Two of those encounters go better than the other one. Finally, you travel to one of three ultimate destinations: Coruscant, Naboo, or the Death Star. So, in a perfect world, you run into Darth Vader, decipher the backwards talk of Yoda, and narrowly escape a Death Star. If everything goes wrong, you meet Storm Trooper flunkies, look at Ackbar’s HD-unfriendly face, and try to avoid thinking of the quote, “Hold me like you did by the lake on Naboo,” as you exit the ride. The sheer volume of possibilities is remarkable.
4. The Experience: Filming new Star Wars moments
The Trick: Trusting the wizardry of Team Lucas
With The Adventure Continues, Disney employees met with Lucas every three weeks, a stark contrast to the first version where Lucas only participated in only a handful of meetings. His input paid particular dividends with regards to making the ride more user-friendly. The Star Wars creator queried Imagineers about whether a person could participate more directly in the ride. He suggested that the ride capture an image of a random guest, enabling them to become part of a show by getting inserted into the movie. It’s the dream of so many Star Wars fans to become a part of the universe, and they can do just that in Star Tours II expressly thanks to Lucas’ suggestion.
Of course, there was a lot more to developing the ride than this. Disney had to film key scenes in order to create new action sequences. Stunt people in costumes had to bring life to the new ideas from the Star Tours II script. My favorite is that there is video of a Wookiee hitting a windshield, as shown on the set. At some developer conferences, Imagineers display it to help the viewer understand what it looks like when a guy in a glorified cosplay outfit charges at a camera during principal photography. It’s utterly ridiculous to watch. Then, they reveal the same effect as how it looks during The Adventure Continues thanks to a bit of film magic. You can see the final result at roughly the 1:20 mark of this video. As we learned once again with the debut of a new Star Wars trailer, every second of original Star Wars footage is examined as carefully as the Zapruder Film. The fact that Disney received authorization to film this much Star Wars footage with the blessing of George Lucas is amazing.
5. The Experience: Crafting a better pre-show
The Trick: Enhancing and evolving an established classic
The invention of the FastPass caused some frustration for Imagineers. The original design of Star Tours was predicated upon show times. Each ride kept to a specific schedule. So, they could control the amount of time needed for pre-show interactions with Star Tours. Once FastPasses changed all that, some park guests found themselves waiting in line for more than 10 minutes, a longer period than anticipated by Imagineers.
With Star Tours: The Adventures Continue, Disney employees took a more forward thinking approach. They planned for extended visitation time in the pre-show, understanding that even if guests were stuck there for an hour, entertainment options should distract them for a lot of the time. In order to achieve this goal, they went back to basics.
The core concept of Star Tours is that it’s the Star Wars universe’s equivalent to an airport. It’s a launching pad to any tourist destination in existence. What changed in terms of airport travel in the interim between Star Tours and Star Tours II? Security. So, some of the old favorites from the first iteration such as G2-9T and G2-4T, previously worker droids, transferred over as security bots.
Since the Lucas-founded Industrial Lights & Magic always enjoys original opportunities to play in the sandbox, they too got involved. As usual, they also overachieved. Pay attention to their little touches throughout the pre-show area. For instance, note the droids in charge of windshield wiping. They need instructions on the best way to proceed. Since ILM had an internal debate about this, they offered several versions, all of which are incorporated into the pre-show functionality. It’s almost a prelude to the multitude of random events in The Adventure Continues itself.
Along those lines, a different pilot was requested as a dramatic change from skittish Rex as voiced by Pee Wee Herman in Star Tours. A gung ho pilot named Ace was intended to replace him as captain. There was even a competition among Imagineers to come up with the winning look for Ace. All of that was rendered irrelevant when Lucas suggested that the stark contrast between Ace and Rex was too dramatic. He determined that Disney should unearth another option to captain the ship. Amusingly, one was right under everyone’s nose. One employee had the epiphany that nervous flights were kind of C-3PO’s thing, and Lucas adored the idea. So, a Star Wars favorite was incorporated in lieu of a new character. Still, Imagineers loved Ace so much that he (?) is a staple of the pre-show routine.
The other major change involved sound quality. Composer John Williams let people know that he was a huge fan of the ride. He told Lucas and Lucas told Disney, who was thrilled to bring him onboard. It was the first time Williams ever worked with Disney. In addition, composer Michael Giacchino, who is already only a Tony away from an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony award), is also a huge fan of Star Wars. He asked to handle the pre-show, and he created what he describes as travelogue versions of many classic Star Wars sounds. If you can, try to listen to some of these greatest hits during the hectic, loud pre-show sequence. With Williams and Giacchino handling the sounds, The Adventures Continue makes the audio in the original Star Tours sound like an eight-bit videogame.
One final touch in the pre-show is something you can explore during your ride wait. There are several hidden enhancements placed in plain sight for the alert guest. They include some of WALL-E’s prized possessions (including the plant!), some of Captain EO’s robots, a representation of Madame Leota, some audio shout-outs to people such as Lucas, his film THX 1138, a Disney fireworks show, a hidden Mickey (natch), and even a competing movie universe’s Starship Enterprise. The best enhancement of all is subtle, though. There is an image of a carbonite prison slab containing Jar Jar Binks, fulfilling the dream of yousa and meesa.
