Here at Theme Park Tourist, we’ve spent the last few years filling up our library of Lost Legends: in-depth features that tell the full, behind-the-scenes stories of beloved-and-lost attractions to make sure these masterpiece experiences aren’t ever forgotten. With your comments, we’ve glimpsed tomorrow aboard Epcot’s Horizons, survived an onslaught from the gods aboard TOMB RAIDER: The Ride, merrily traveled to Nowhere in Particular on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, lived through an ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter, toured along the highways of Walt’s Tomorrowland on the Peoplemover, met Dreamfinder on Journey into Imagination, and so much more.
Image: Disney / Lucasfilm
But today, we’ll explore the outer reaches of the galaxy en route to the forest moon of Endor as we remember a ride so prolific, it sincerely changed the course of Disney Parks forever. STAR TOURS was more than just a cutting-edge E-Ticket thrill ride: it was a purposeful test to see if Disney Parks could become teen-friendly places where guests of all ages could “ride the movies.” While you probably already know the ending, you won’t believe the story that gets us there…
And it all starts a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. Star Tours announces the boarding of the Endor Express, non-stop Starspeeder service to the moon of Endor. All passengers please prepare for immediate boarding.
Liquid Space
Image: Disney
As is always the case with our Lost Legends entries, the real story behind Star Tours begins long before the interstellar adventure carried its first passengers. And like so many legendary Disney attractions, it’s tied closely to storied Imagineer and Disney Legend Tony Baxter. The creative force behind everything from Indiana Jones Adventure to Journey into Imagination, Baxter is revered by Disney fans for bridging the gap from Walt’s original crew of brilliant designers to the second generation who moved in in the late 1960s to prep for Walt Disney World… a generation who had experienced Disneyland as guests first, giving them a tie to the park that the original design crew just couldn’t have.
Baxter’s story closely resembles the one that many Disney Parks fans wish for: discovered by Imagineering when one of his college portfolio projects was seen by the right person, Baxter was whisked away from his part time job operating Disneyland’s Submarine Voyage, hired by Imagineering, and paired with Disney legend Claude Coats to design Florida’s version of the sub ride.
Image: Disney
Their first issue was timing. At Disneyland, the Submarine Voyage would glide through the crystal lagoons of Tomorrowland – fittingly futuristic for audiences of the 1950s and ‘60s, for whom the technology behind submarines was as futuristic and mysterious as space travel. But as designers planned for Magic Kingdom’s 1971 opening, they recognized that submarines were no longer the stuff of “tomorrow.”
Image: Disney
So the ride was relocated to Fantasyland and, under Baxter’s brilliant design, was recast as a cinematic underwater fantasy as told in Jules Verne’s famed adventure novel. You can dive deep into the full story of the sunken Fantasyland favorite in its own Lost Legends: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea feature that’ll tug at the heartstrings of Walt Disney World guests.
But what has a voyage through liquid space have to do with an adventure among the stars? Stay with us…
Discovering gold
Image: Disney
When Tony Baxter returned from Magic Kingdom’s opening to California, he was handed his next task: to fix “the Frontierland problem.” While legends of the Old West, cowboys and Indians, and The Lone Ranger had been all the rage at Disneyland’s 1955 opening, by the 1970s the public and pop culture had simply lost interest in the idling, dusty past. Frontierland needed a new lease on life, and Baxter had a plan.
In fact, he crafted an entirely new narrative that would extend Frontierland’s story and excite a new generation. At the intersection of Fantasyland and Frontierland, Baxter planned for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, a wild runaway mine train adventure through glimmering gold mines that would add excitement and kinetic energy to the park. But that wasn’t all. Designers posed a thoughtful question: “What would those 1860s miners do with the gold they found in Big Thunder Mountain?” Would they settle down in the sleepy town of Frontierland and bask in their newfound riches? Of course not! They’d continue on westward with their fresh fortunes and establish a bustling city of wonders on the coast!
Image: Disney
Which is why this intersection of Fantasy and Frontier would now act as a portal into an entirely new themed land on the north shore of the Rivers of America: Discovery Bay. A sort of fantasy, steampunk version of San Francisco in the late 1800s, this harbor of golden rocks, glass towers, lighthouses, zephyrs, bubbling lagoons, inventions, and submarines would be like a seaside port straight from a Jules Verne novel. And best of all, it was official. A model of Discovery Bay was on display on Main Street announcing its 1976 opening at Disneyland.
One of its headlining, anchor attractions would test the limits of the era’s technology. Captain Nemo’s Adventure would allow guests to board underwater pods right from the Nautilus and descend into wild adventures through serene reefs, lost ruins, and into the arms of a giant squid. But unlike the more traditional Submarine Voyage over in Tomorrowland, Captain Nemo’s Adventure would use a cutting edge ride system: “motion simulators” attached to motion bases, with the pods rocking, bouncing, and jostling along to a synchronized ride film to give guests the uncanny impression that they were truly piloting through the ocean.
Image: Disney
We chronicled every last detail we know about Disney’s most incredible lost land in a full Possibilityland: Discovery Bay article that’s a must-read for Imagineering fans. But you know the ending already: Discovery Bay was canned. The primary reason was because the land’s other E-Ticket was unfortunately based on The Island at the Top of the World, Disney’s 1974 adventure film that bombed at the box office and changed Hollywood’s approach to fantasy for decades. It also seemed that the plans for Nemo’s Adventure were simply too ambitious, as Imagineers physically lacked the technology to bring this motion base attraction to life. Discovery Bay and Nemo’s Adventure were shelved.
But it’s often said that good ideas never die at Disney, and a decade later that proved to be true when a new CEO made a brilliant connection… Read on…
Eisner
Image: Disney
Unfortunately, The Island at the Top of the World wasn’t Disney’s only critical and box office failure in the 1970s and ‘80s. For a time, the company’s cinematic future truly looked bleak. Year after year, The Black Hole, The Watcher in the Woods, Return to Oz, Condorman, and The Black Cauldron failed to make an impression on critics or on the box office – or worse, made the wrong impression. While it’s hard to imagine now, it seemed that The Walt Disney Company might be doomed.
The all-important test of what the company would do without Walt at the helm seemed to have been failed. Disney endured a number of takeover attempts as its fortunes turned, and Disney’s once-golden name was beginning to rust.
That’s when we arrive at a pivot point that shows up in many of our Lost Legends features (and, to be fair, our Disaster Files stories, too): the arrival of Michael Eisner.
Image: Disney
And yes, Michael Eisner’s tenure at Disney is riddled with controversy, and his later time at the company eternally tied his legacy to cost-cutting, burnt-out lightbulbs, demolished classics despite guest outcry, box office bombs, and putting penny-pinching executives into positions that crippled the parks for decades. And it’s true that Eisner’s term was ended by a much-publicized “Save Disney” campaign led by Walt’s nephew Roy E. Disney that successfully convinced Eisner to resign in such disgrace that he willingly gave up his contractual right to an office at Disney’s headquarters and continued use of a private plane.
But what we often forget is that when Eisner joined Disney in 1984, he was the breath of fresh air that the company needed. Eisner had just left his post as CEO of Paramount Pictures, and thus had a keen understanding of the film industry. It was under Eisner’s guidance that Disney turned around its animation and movie studio and began to churn out hit after hit after hit from Oliver and Company to Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It was also Eisner’s coup that Disney returned to its fantasy roots and kicked off what’s often known as the Disney Renaissance, starting with The Little Mermaid and moving through Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, and Tarzan, all the while joined by Pixar’s Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, and Monster’s Inc.
Meanwhile, at Imagineering
But it wasn’t just the company’s ailing film industry that Eisner was set to revive.
The story goes that soon after taking his new role at Disney in 1984, Eisner was excited to visit Disneyland and see what the park had to offer. He invited his pre-teen son Breck along, but Breck rolled his eyes and insisted to his dad that Disneyland was just for little kids. Eisner was horrified by the idea that young adults might rebuke Disneyland and made it his personal mission to make sure the theme parks were relevant and attractive to every member of the family… even teens.
Image: Disney
That’s why Eisner took a great interest in Imagineering and planned a trip to their model shop to see what Disney’s designers had developed. Eisner admitted that this was the element of Disney he knew the least about, and he was eager to learn more. Of course, the Imagineers were floored that Eisner would bother to show an interest in what they were working on. But even more importantly, new leadership meant that old, forgotten ideas had a second chance at life.
Knowing that this was their chance to woo the new CEO, Imagineers brought models, mock-ups, and sketches of once-rejected concepts back from the warehouse where they’d been abandoned and cleaned them up to make them look like they were current projects. Eisner, they hoped, would see the merit in the concepts that former leadership had axed and green light these forgotten passion projects!
This legendary tour of Imagineering is said to be the day when Eisner green lit projects left and right, leading to a boom of building at the parks.
Image: Disney
(Famously, as Imagineers crowded around the old Discovery Bay model and made an impassioned plea to Eisner to finally fund it, Breck wandered off and found a model in the corner of another Tony Baxter project: Zip-a-Dee River Run. Breck was infatuated with it and, when asked by his father, said that this flume ride designed for Disneyland’s Bear Country looked like it would be the most fun to ride of all the models there. Five years, a name change, and nearly $100 million later, Splash Mountain was born. Just that easy!)
Eisner’s goal was simple: Disney theme parks needed to be infused with rides and attractions that would be new, fresh, and thrilling. He wanted to change the parks from relics of Walt Disney’s time to destinations packed with current properties and attractions that could bring in families – even families with pre-teens and teenagers!
But how to do it? While Eisner’s cinematic résumé would breathe new life into the company’s studios, he imagined that it could also reinvigorate the theme parks… The formula was simple but unprecedented: he intended to turn Disney theme parks into places where guests could “ride the movies!” Even more controversial, he didn’t necessarily believe that they needed to be Disney movies.
Hip-and-Happening
Imagineers explained to Eisner that they were on board with the idea of modernizing Disney’s theme parks with the stories, characters, and settings that resonated with modern audiences. They, too, wanted to super-charge Disneyland and make it relevant to everyone – even teens! There was one problem: the massive Splash-Mountain-scale projects Eisner had seen at Imagineering would be years and years away from becoming realities. If Eisner wanted to hasten the transformation from Walt’s storied, traditional parks into cutting edge destinations, he needed something that could come online as soon as possible.
Image: Disney
At once, Eisner greenlit a simple transformation that would transform Disneyland’s remote Fantasyland Theater venue into Videopolis, a trendy “teenage video dance club.” Just 105 days after its design began, the $3 million project opened in June 1985, with a 5,000 square foot dance floor alight with a custom lighting package, 70 television monitors, and two cutting-edge 12-by-16 foot video screens showing the revolutionary music videos of the era. The fusion of Disney and MTV must’ve seemed unthinkable to the generation who’d grown up with Walt’s park, but it signaled a shift that would last. Put simply, this wasn’t your grandfather’s Disneyland anymore.
This was the key to making Disneyland relevant again, and Eisner thirsted for another quick fix that could bridge the gap to larger projects. Of course, one man reigned over the top-40 lineup in Videopolis: the unchallenged King of Pop had redefined music videos as an art form with 1983’s Thriller, and Eisner happened to know that Michael Jackson was a devoted lifelong fan of Disneyland. (So much so that he’d create his own theme park at Neverland Ranch, including a replica of Disneyland’s Main Street Station and Railroad.)
Image: Disney
Eisner invited Michael Jackson out to Imagineering and proposed something radical: a custom, big-screen music video to populate the new, cutting edge 3D theater under construction in Tomorrowland. Jackson was on board with one condition: he wanted a reputable filmmaker attached… someone like Steven Spielberg or George Lucas.
Eisner must’ve breathed a sigh of relief at the latter suggestion… As luck would have it, Eisner had been the one as CEO of Paramount to green light George Lucas’ Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Lucas was as much a fan of Disneyland as Michael Jackson was. It was all coming together. If Eisner could convince George Lucas to join Disney’s newest push to modernize the parks, he could secure both the immediate gratification of a Michael Jackson attraction and access to George Lucas’ growing library of box office gold.
Stars Aligned
Image: 20th Century Fox / Lucasfilm
George Lucas, the creative force behind Star Wars and Indiana Jones, was eager to partner with Disney (a collaboration that had been in the initial stages even years before under former CEO Ron Miller with Tony Baxter at his side). Lucas had ambitious plans for what the Disney partnership could evolve into, and how the intellectual properties controlled by Lucasfilm (and largely distributed by 20th Century Fox and Paramount) could become anchors of Disney’s parks.
For one thing, Lucas envisioned a roller coaster based on Star Wars to fit into Tomorrowland: an epic, indoor, dueling coaster where riders on board would choose either the Light Side or the Dark Side of the Force, encountering characters along the way as they clashed. Problem was, a project of this size and scale would be another on Disney’s “five year” list, and that didn’t help solve Eisner’s problem.
Tony Baxter came to bat with a brilliant idea to recycle a forgotten concept: even if his plans for Discovery Bay had been sunk a decade earlier, technology had finally made its planned star – the Nemo’s Adventure simulator – into a practical possibily. This could be the key: a simulator ride could be assembled in no time, and might just be the perfect way to bring Star Wars to life.
Image: Disney
All in one visit, George Lucas signed on to produce Michael Jackson’s Captain EO (even bringing along famed director and mentor Francis Ford Coppola) and signed on to a simulator-based attraction for Disney theme parks based on Star Wars.
Now all they needed was a concept.
Faced with the task of developing Star Tours, George Lucas’ team and Disney’s divided responsibilities and split up.
Image: Disney
Disney Imagineers got to work and purchased four large ATLAS simulators with enough room for 40 guests. These ATLAS (Advanced Technology Leisure Application Simulators) pods represented a massive technological leap, utilizing sincerely military-grade technology for… well… fun.
The enormous simulator platform was attached to six hydraulic actuators providing six-degrees-of-freedom: tilting forward and backward (pitching), tilting side to side (rolling), and turning left and right (yawing). But the simulators alone couldn’t tell the story.
Image: Disney
Disney also created and installed full-sized props, sets, and animatronics, including four copies of the ride’s pilot, RX-24 (one for each Starspeeder). Originally, designers proposed that this pilot – affectionately known as Rex – would have the personality of a grizzled, burnt-out Vietnam veteran who’d be triggered by horrible memories of the war and unintentionally put riders in jeopardy. Ultimately, it was decided that the unhinged pilot would be too intimidating for families, so he was reimagined as a well-intentioned and eager rookie who just couldn’t quite seem to get anything right.
Image: Disney
For this Rex, they found the perfect voice actor: Paul Reubens, best known for his role as Pee-wee Herman.
While Disney installed the pods and readied the ride building, George and his team at Lucasfilm were moving forward, too, working alongside Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic (ILM, the brilliant designers behind many modern movie wonders) to develop models, sets, and special effects for the ride. Ultimately, the $6 million, 5-minute ride video was shot on 70mm film at 30 frames per second (for flicker-free images). At the insistence of Disney Imagineers, the ride culminated in a trench-run through the Death Star (just like the finale of the film) allowing guests to become the heroes of the story they knew and loved.
Image: Disney / Lucasfilm
When the simulator pods were installed in the ride building at Disneyland, it was discovered that the ceiling needed raised to allow for proper clearance as they lifted, shuffled, rocked, and accelerated (still visible today in aerial imagery).
With the pods in place and the 70mm ride film installed in rear-positioned projectors inside the simulator, Disney Imagineers had the enviable (and nauseating) task of sitting in one of the pods with a joystick, manually programming the movement of the pod along the ride film over and over and over to perfection. (After all, it’s the well-synchronized relationship between the visuals and the movement that prevents motion sickness… if what the inner ear felt was too off from what the eyes saw, guests would make a mess of the ride right out the gate.)
Opening day(s)
Image: Disney
Star Tours opened in Disneyland Park on January 9, 1987. The star-studded event brought Michael Eisner, George Lucas, Mickey Mouse (in his best EPCOT Center space suit), and a literal army of Star Wars characters to the new space terminal in Tomorrowland, prominently set among the land’s main entry under the sleek white highways of the Peoplemover.
In celebration of the grand opening, Disneyland remained opened for 60 continuous hours, from 10 AM January 9 through 10 PM on January 11th. (And you thought the 24-hour parties were wild.) Altogether, the ride has cost a reported $32 million.
And as for the winning concept that would bring Star Wars believably into Disney Parks?
Spaceport THX1138
Image: Disney
If you’ve glimpsed into the world of Star Wars on the big screen, you know that the heroes and villains of the series are always moving about the galaxy on starships, cruisers, and freighters. But what about you and I? What about the normal, everyday folks who live, work, and play on Naboo or Coruscant? Certainly if we lived in the Star Wars universe, we wouldn’t have our own interstellar freighters. If we wanted to get away and see the sights, we’d need someone else to get us there, right?
This simple premise is part of what makes Star Tours so effective and so deadpan. Here, amid the excitement and energy of Tomorrowland – a bustling world on the move – we’re invited into… airport security. Make that spaceport security. Sure, the baggage is transported by droids, and the arrivals / departures board is in English and Aurebesh, but the ingredients here will be familiar to anyone who journeyed to Disneyland from afar… the “general public” in the Star Wars universe travels just the way we do: cramped shoulder-to-shoulder on airlines.
Image: Disney
Welcome to Spaceport THX1138 – the intergalactic spaceport for all Earth System flights, and hub of Star Tours and their luxurious line of Starspeeder 3000 cruisers, carrying 40 passengers in about as many square feet. As you enter, you’ll see a parked Starspeeder 3000 ahead, with C-3PO and R2-D2 carefully reviewing it as a massive overhead screen advertises the airline’s destinations. In a control booth overhead, Mon Calamari flight controllers carefully look between control panels as announcements pages passengers and note gate changes.
(If this room looks familiar to Disneyland fans, there’s a good reason: its largely unchanged since its time as the queue for another Lost Legend: Adventure Thru Inner Space. The Mighty Monsanto Microscope that once lorded over the queue is now a Starspeeder. As luck would have it, the four simulator pods take up quite a bit less room than the old Omnimover dark ride, providing enough room for the rest of the queue, the ride, and a gift shop in what used to be the dark ride showbuilding! In a fun twist, this iconic queue was duplicated at each subsequent Star Tours installation, meaning that the DNA of Adventure Thru Inner Space lives on in Florida, Tokyo, and Paris, too, despite the ride never even being there!)
Image: Disney
Around the corner, you’ll continue back and forth along an ascending ramp, passing through the starport’s luggage carousel and Droid Repair Bay, stacked high with suitcases. Of special note to Disney fans is the G2-9T droid unit fixing the R2 unit, above. The unusual droid and an identical twin in the room have some storied Disney history behind them. Just down the avenue in Tomorrowland’s revolving Carousel Theater was America Sings, the replacement show for the Carousel of Progress when that Walt Disney original moved to Florida.
Populated with more than 100 Audio Animatronic animals, America Sings was a victim of progress. It closed in 1988 so that it’s Animatronic cast could be re-used in the under-construction Splash Mountain. Most of the show’s 115 creatures were taken to Critter Country, redressed in southern duds, and reprogrammed to sing along to the Song of the South melodies. But from Star Tours’ opening in 1987 to America Sings’ closure in 1988, America Sings’ serenading trio of geese became a solo act. That’s because two of the geese were relocated to the starport, stripped to their circuits, and reprogrammed as droids. However, these “goose droids” still betray their feathered origins upon close inspection of their feet – an Easter egg that delighted parks fans.
Image: Studios Central.
At the top of the ascending ramp, a Star Tours agent will direct you to one of four lettered gates (at Disneyland; six at subsequent installations) for a brief safety video. Then, the announcement sounds: “Star Tours announces the boarding of the Endor Express, non-stop StarSpeeder service to the moon of Endor. All passengers, please prepare for immediate boarding.” Ready to launch? Read on…
Lightspeed to Endor
As the orange doors swing inward, there it is: a parked Starspeeder 3000, docked for boarding. (Cleverly, eagle eyed fans will note that the ATLAS simulator is truly a huge box that extends above and well in front of the apparent “Starspeeder” shape. The shape and details of the starship are painted in glowing ultraviolet paint lit by blacklight, making the rest of the “box” concealing the height of the vehicle and its on-board projection system in front seem to disappear!)
Image: Studios Central.
Once seated and buckled into the Starspeeder, the face of our pilot, REX, appears on a rectangular video screen to the right in the cabin. “Welcome aboard! This is Captain REX from the cockpit. I know this is probably your first flight, and it’s… mine, too! Haha!” Gulp. “Well, it looks like we’re going to have a smooth flight to Endor, so I’ll go ahead and open the cockpit shield.”
The large metallic shield at the front of the cabin recedes, revealing REX in person (“Hi there!”) and a corrugated steel wall before us. On the screen to the right, we see R2-D2 being lifted by crane into his position on the Starspeeder. “I see they’re loading our navigator Artoo-Detoo, and then we’ll be on our way. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight!”
The motion base kicks in, synchronizing to the video on screen as our Starspeeder rises, apparently parked on a lift. This very first motion is sure to earn squeals from the audience and excitement builds. Up and up and up we rise as final pre-flight checks are announced over the PA system. Finally, the lift jolts to a halt as, directly in front of us, another Starspeeder advances forward and through a doorway flashing “LAUNCH.” We follow close behind, but just before REX can pass our Starspeeder through the same bay, the vehicle jams to the left and bursts through a flashing doorway marked “MAINTENANCE BAY – NO ADMITTANCE.”
Great.
Image: Disney / Lucasfilm
The vehicles jostles and rumbles over mechanical scaffolds as a massive dropoff appears ahead. REX cries out in one of his most iconic lines: “Brakes… Brakes…! Where are the brakes?!” It’s too late. The Starspeeder crashes over a metal railing and nosedives ten stories down toward its parked sisters below. At the last possible second, REX pulls up, narrowly avoiding a control tower of panicked workers, slaloming past a swinging robotic arm, and nearly smashing into a massive, mighty microscope.
Finally, REX manages to spot an open hangar door and navigates the Starspeeder into open space. The Starspeeder ahead of us just moments ago appears through the viewport and jumps into lightspeed, disappearing in a stretched tunnel of stars. “Uhh… I meant to do that! A little shortcut!” REX laughs with the unmistakable cadence of Pee-wee. “Artoo, lightspeed to Endor!” Now it’s our turn.
The Starspeeder rears back as stars stretch around us, giving way to a pulsating blue tunnel. G-force plasters riders into their seats as the mix of visual and physical convincingly suggests we’re blasting through space. And then, appearing in the distance: Endor! Then, disappearing as we jettison right past… Endor.
“Artoo, we passed the Endor moon!” R2-D2 chirps and whoops in alarm. “Now what?” Icy crystals appear, tearing through space with fiery blue tails. “Comets? Comets! Ladies and gentlemen, there may be some turbulence up ahead, please make sure your seatbelts are fastened!” Drawing closer, the steaming rocks take on the appearance of jagged, icy crystals. REX dodges left and right, but it’s too late. The comets strike against the windshield, shattering into dust. Then, a massive crystal geode appears ahead. With a shriek, REX pilots the ship into an opening on the crystal, the Starspeeder sliding and scraping through icy tunnels. With a burst of power, we blast out the other side.
Image: Disney / Lucasfilm
REX turns triumphantly toward riders. “Well, you can relax now!” The ship begins to tilt to the right. “Everything’s under control,” he promises, as the ship leans more and more, “and we’ll be on our way to the Endor moon without any further delay!” Now dangling to the right, REX looks out the windshield to see Star Destroyers on the horizon. The Imperial March echoes as the Starspeeder jolts. “Oh no! We’re caught in a tractor beam!” Drawn closer and closer to a looming Star Destroyer overhead, X-Wings begin buzzing around us as a transmission comes in. “Star Tours!? What are you doing here? This is a combat zone! It’s restricted! Ease off on your main thruster.”
Free from the tractor beam’s pull, the Starspeeder curves through space, right into a battle between the Rebellion’s X-Wings and Empire’s TIE Fighters. R2-D2 readies our own cannons, blasting the Empire’s ships. On the horizon, the impossible, looming Death Star appears. Before it can even come fully into view, we’re hit! “Artoo, get the stabilizer fixed… and hurry! We’re losing altitude fast!” The ship spirals downward, twisting and spinning as it hurdles toward the Death Star.
Stabilizing behind a set of X-Wings, the squadron leader radios in: “Red Twenty-Four, Red Thirty, follow me.”
Red Twenty-Four? RX-24? Close enough. REX chatters, “O-kay! I’ve always wanted to do this! We’re going in!”
Image: Disney / Lucasfilm
The Starspeeder follows the X-Wings along the surface of the planet-sized Death Star, then leaps down into the industrial trenches that make up its exterior. Sliding and leaping to avoid oncoming obstacles and blaster fire, we slam left and right and dive through the trenches. As the X-Wing fighter in front of us drops two shots down the Death Star’s exhaust port, a massive, blinding explosion erupts from within. The Starspeeder narrowly skims over the fiery cloud, pulling up to rendezvous with the Red Squadron. “All ships, jump to light speed!” the leader calls out.
As the four X-Wings disappear into the stars, REX steadies himself. “Hang on back there! Lightspeed!”
The ship jumps again, warping through space and arriving quite suddenly back at the starport. As REX guides it back into a set of hangar doors, a fuel truck glides by ahead. “Brakes!”
Image: Disney / Lucasfilm
The ship grinds to a halt, mere inches from a Supervisor working behind a window. The Supervisor (played by ILM’s cheif modelmaker Ira Keeler) simply shakes his head in disapproval. As the Starspeeder re-engages with a left and begins to sink back into its resting position, REX breaths a sigh of relief. “Hey, sorry folks. I’m sure to do better next time. It was my first flight, and I’m still getting used to my programming!” Before he can continue, the automatic sheild raises back up as he cries out, “Hey! Hey!”
C-3PO appears on the cabin’s video screen. “We do hope you enjoyed your tour of Endor, and will come back soon. Now please remain seated until the captain has opened the exit doors. You may then unlatch your safety restraints by pressing the release button on your left. Oh, and do make sure you have your personal belongings. Thank you. Goodbye!”
As John William’s “Main Theme” erupts, the cabin doors open and guests exit back into Tomorrowland.
To finish us off, here’s a video to capture the experience of riding the original Star Tours:
New Space Terminals
Following the ride’s runaway (or, blastoff) success at Disneyland in January 1987, its duplication across the Disney Parks chain was all but assured.
Two years later, it opened in Tokyo Disneyland’s Tomorrowland.
Image: Disney
It did not come to Tomorrowland at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. That’s because Eisner had already greenlit a third theme park for the Floridian resort, this one themed to the magic of movie making, with a real working movie studio. Of course, the story of what was the Disney-MGM Studios Park could be its own standalone epic, but suffice it to say that when the park opened in 1989, Star Tours was already under construction. It would open on December, 6 just five months after the park and 6 months after Tokyo’s version. To fit the park’s moviemaking style, the ride’s exterior is a studio soundstage with a forest moon of Endor movie set as the queue.
Image: Disney
The final version opened alongside Disneyland Paris in Discoveryland, the European park’s fantasy-oriented, Jules Verne style version of Tomorrowland (where it was admittedly a stylistically odd fit among golden towers, submarines, zephyrs, and Jules Verne styling like the headlining Lost Legend: Space Mountain – De la Terre à la Lune).
(If you’re really counting, you might imagine that there’s a fifth Star Tours. “The Roller Coaster Capitol of the World,” Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, yearned for its own piece of the Star Wars pie, and blatantly copied elements of Star Tours’ queue and ride experience in an indoor coaster that was equal parts knock-off and ’70s adventure… despite being built in the 1990s. This “Disaster Transport” was so odd, it earned its own in-depth feature in our series Disaster Files: Disaster Transport. If you’re interested in how an amusement thrill park could try its best to copy Star Tours on a low budget coaster, check it out.)
Star Tours was a hit. But there’s a reason Star Tours ranks among our lineup of Lost Legends. Out of four resorts where it was present, there are no longer any Disney Parks on Earth with this Star Tours adventure. Why? We’ve got the full details about what happened next on the last page.
Prequels
From soon after Star Tours’ launch, fans were clamoring for more. They called for the ride to be updated and upgraded for years, and in 1998, it almost happened. George Lucas contacted Imagineering to report that he had the perfect segue to update Star Tours at Disney Parks – an in-production scene from the upcoming fourth installment, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.
Image: Disney / Lucasfilm
Imagineers traveled to Skywalker Ranch to view the scene Lucas had in mind: the Podrace on Tattooine. Disney’s designers got to work storyboarding the new adventure that would’ve seen Star Tours’ destination (but not its timeline) reset, with guests visiting the Boonta Eve Classic on Tattooine as observers. Guests’ first clue that something was different about their experience would be when the Starspeeder (still piloted by REX) would depart through the correct launchway. Upon arriving on Tattooine, guests would enjoy watching the Podracers take their marks when (you guessed it) something would go horribly wrong, forcing the Starspeeder into the race.
From the start, this updated version of the attraction was imagined as a 3D experience, with guests wearing replicas of Anakin Skywalkers’s goggles.
Image: Disney / Lucasfilm
Of course, this refreshed version of Star Tours never took shape. To hear Imagineer Tom Fitzgerald tell it, the reason is simple: designers knew they’d have only one shot at refreshing Star Tours to compliment the highly anticipated prequel trilogy, so before Imagineers could retrofit the ride to the Episode I scene, they wanted to know what would happen in Episode II. Then, when Episode II debuted, they didn’t want to do anything to the ride until they saw Episode III.
It became clear that, whichever route Disney took and whichever scenes they were inspired by, they’d run into a major hurdle: the ride would instantly date itself by being rigidly connected to one of the new films, and re-ride-ability would suffer. People would quickly develop a “been there, done that” attitude. And by late 2003, as George Lucas was filming Episode III, Imagineers had devised a perfect solution.
After a run of 23 years, Star Tours closed forever in July and September 2010 at Disneyland and Disney’s Hollywood Studios, respectively. While fans lamented the loss of the classic, the “Last Tour of Endor” special events weren’t your typical Disney Parks attraction funeral. Star Tours would return better than ever…
The Adventures Continue
Image: Disney / Lucasfilm
“It has been a long time since the end of the Clone Wars, and the evil Sith Lord Darth Vader continues to tighten his grip on the Empire as the galaxy moves closer to the brink of a great civil war.
A new intergalactic spaceline, Star Tours, seeks to preserve the unrestricted intergalactic travel in this age of tyranny. Freedom fighter Captain Raymus Antilles has assigned two droids, See-Threepio and Artoo-Detoo, to help launch the spaceline, fueling Imperial suspicion that Star Tours is part of the Rebel Alliance.
Star Tours is about to open its first intergalactic space terminal in the Earth System as rumors of a fearsome weapon of mass destruction dash all hope for peace and freedom in the galaxy…”
Image: Disney
Star Tours – The Adventures Continue opened May 20, 2011 at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and two weeks later on June 3 at Disneyland. The refreshed ride is all-new in both story and substance. Working with Lucasfilm, Imagineers also created just the right placement for the ride in the series’ intricate and carefully-studied timeline. Now set between Episode III and Episode IV (earlier than the original ride’s time), the new Star Tours was essentially a “prequel” to the original, with guests riding in Starspeeder 1000s (compared to the 3000s-model from yesteryear).
Subtle changes mark the difference in the queue, from the sleek red Starspeeder 1000 being evaluated by C-3PO and R2-D2 to new droids conducting security scans of luggage and passengers as entertainment.
Image: Amy, Flickr (license)
In a fun nod to the first Star Tours, guests will also pass a malfunctioning droid half-packed away at Droid Customs, being returned to the manufacturer to correct defects. The sparking, shortcircuiting robot is none other than Rex, with a skipping audio track reciting his beloved lines from the original ride!
Among the ride’s noteworthy additions: the 70mm film of yesteryear was, of course, replaced with Dolby high-definition digital projection and new in-cabin special effects. And while fans will always miss REX, there’s something wonderful about your pilot being the unwitting C-3PO, stuck behind the wheel when the Starspeeder’s autopilot launch sequence kicks in while the unwitting droid is on board to repair the drive system. (“Flight 1401, you are cleared for launch.” “1401? That’s us! We can’t take off – the captain isn’t on board!”) But the ride’s starring feature now? The adventure itself.
Image: Disney / Lucasfilm
The ride re-opened with thirteen segments (2 opening launch scenes, 3 main destination options, 3 potential hologram transmissions, and 3 possible ending segments) that were randomly shuffled to allow over 90 unique ride combinations, each blending seamlessly into the next. The wonderful randomization does more than just encourage re-rides; it makes the intergalactic escape feel legitimately wild.
So upon launching, you might be cornered by an Imperial probe droid who scans your vehicle to find a Rebel Spy (cleverly, an actual passenger on board… it could even be you!) or Darth Vader himself may arrive, gripping your Starspeeder in a Force hold with a backwards blast thrusting you into space.
After escaping the port and launching to lightspeed, you may find yourself on Tattooine (locked head-to-head in a Podrace with Sebulba), slaloming through a snowy AT-AT battle on Hoth, or blasting through the treetops of the Wookie’s home planet Kashyyyk.
Image: Disney / Lucasfilm
Similarly, your wild race to escape the Empire with the Rebel Spy onboard may take you to Naboo and the underwater Gungan city of Otoh Gunga, send you swerving through the traffic of Coruscant, or bring you face-to-face with the still-under-construction Death Star and the menacing Boba Fett.
Though naturally, fans will forever miss the original Star Tours, Rex, and its tried-and-true journey through space, The Adventures Continue expanded Star Tours to match the breadth and depth of the massive and ever-growing Star Wars universe! And in fact, perhaps it overexpanded…
Timeline troubles
Image: Disney / Lucasfilm
When the new Star Tours – The Adventures Continue debuted in 2011, the “randomized” encounters throughout the Star Wars universe were, of course, among the ride’s most talked-about features. But despite the new version of the ride officially establishing itself between Episode III and Episode IV, Disney’s newly-acquired ownership of Star Wars and the expanding canon around it was unstoppable.
In 2015, Disney’s first official entry into the Star Wars canon debuted: Episode VII, The Force Awakens. Set 30 years after the Galactic Civil War and the fall of Darth Vader, the film introduces a new totalitarian government (the First Order and the mysteriously masked Kylo Ren) battling against a new ragtag trio of heroes (Rey, Poe, and Finn) representing the Resistance. Along the way, they reunite with the original triology’s Rebel heroes (Han, Luke, and Leia), now in their 60s and 70s.
Image: Disney / Lucasfilm
As promised, a new destination was added to Star Tours’ ports-of-call: Jakku, the expansive desert planet and homeworld of The Force Awakens hero, Rey. As the Starspeeder blasts its way through Jakku and its graveyard of ships, it’s joined in flight by the Millennium Falcon! But it’s not Han Solo at the controls; it’s Finn, the defected First Order Stormtrooper. But consider this: Finn and his cinematic flight through Jakku couldn’t happen until thirty years after Darth Vader’s death… when Darth Vader might’ve been featured on the ride’s first scene!
Similarly, after our tussle on Jakku, we’ll jump to lightspeed and recieve a transmission from a young Princess Leia, as she appeared before Finn was even born. See the problem? Disney – categorical masters of continuity in storytelling – accidentally blew up the timeline they’d carefully crafted for the new Star Tours.
Image: Disney / Lucasfilm
Another new scene was added in 2017 to promote Episode VIII, The Last Jedi, featuring the red mineral planet Crait (then cleverly landing on Batuu, the forested planet on which Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is set). Soon after, Kylo Ren – apparent “villain” of the sequel trilogy – became a possible opening act, as well as new hologram messages from BB-8, Poe Dameron, and other modern characters.
For a while, those new options theoretically provided for four opening segments, four primary destination segments, six hologram message segments, and four ending destination segments, yielding an amazing 384 possible combinations. Unfortunately, almost all of those options, by design, would inevitably send your Star Tours flight jumping back and forth over 30 years with no explanation… a mortal sin in the hyper-studied world of Star Wars mythology, timeline, and canon.
Image: Disney / Lucasfilm
Thankfully, though, Disney seems to have cooled the randomizer’s time-jumping abilities such that rides are still randomized, but stick to either the original trilogy or sequel trilogy’s characters and destinations. That’s especially important due to the final update (for now) in December 2019. To promote Episode IX, The Rise of Skywalker, the newest Star Tours destination is Kef Bir, the ocean moon and wreckage site of the destroyed Death Star… (The very one guests can see under construction in another Star Tours scene!)
A New Hope
Image: Disney
After the debut of the new version in Florida and California in May and June of 2011, international Disney Parks around the globe followed suit and took their existing Star Tours rides to the next level with “The Adventure Continues” overlays, each with its own flavor.
The refreshed ride opened in Tokyo Disneyland’s Tomorrowland on May 7, 2013. (In place of the standalone Rex cameo in the queue, Tokyo’s version features three droids who look suspiciously familiar to fans of the Haunted Mansion, above.)
The last holdout of the original Star Tours rides – Disneyland Paris’ – finally closed on May 16, 2016 officially making Star Tours a global Lost Legend. France’s Star Tours – The Adventures Continue opened March 26, 2017, bringing all four rides into sync.
Image: Disney / Lucasfilm
We’re unabashedly proud of the refreshed Star Tours. It ranked high on our countdown of the best “plusses” to Disney rides, and our readers seem to agree! Sure, some fans lament the loss of the original and its iconic trench run, and a generation who grew up with 1987’s Star Tours could hardly be bothered with the notion that its film was grainy and its effects dated. And we understand and appreciate the deserved enthusiasm that those fans have.
But to put it simply, Star Tours – The Adventures Continue is the right way to plus a beloved attraction. It represents the tremendous leap forward in filmmaking and storytelling that technology has provided while referencing the original and keeping the wonderful spirit of an intergalactic mishap with cameos by characters you know and love. The ride redefined re-ride-ability more than 35 years after another Lost Legend: EPCOT’s Horizons, gave visitors a way to manipulate their own ride, and more than 20 years after Indiana Jones Adventure brought the practice into immersive storytelling with the three Gifts of Mara.
Legacy: the Light Side
Image: Disney
Star Tours: The Adventures Continue expanded and innovated on the original ride, but we ought not forget the transformative power that the original Star Tours had. Right from its opening, Star Tours had hit it out of the galaxy. The perfect fusion of storytelling, tongue-in-cheek humor, thrills, and pop culture satisfaction ensured that this attraction felt 100% Star Wars and yet entirely Disney.
And think about it – as Eisner’s first real, big-budget foray into the world beyond Disney’s own catalogue of characters and stories, Star Tours would set a new precedent. Especially in Disneyland – Walt’s park! – the involvement of an outside property was a risk that, today, might’ve earned the outrage and vitriol of Disney Parks’ social media fans and followers.
Image: Disney / Lucasfilm
Captain EO and Star Tours, then, marked a shift. They served to prove Eisner right – Disney could be a place where guests could “ride the movies,” even if they weren’t Disney movies! Star Tours allowed for the existence of most every modern movie attraction that came after… If not for Star Tours precedent (and its success), the partnership with George Lucas might not have continued to develop into Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular, Lost Legend: ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter, or Disneyland’s triumph, Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye. Disney might not have reached outside of its own studio to build attractions based on Pixar films, Jim Henson’s The Muppets, or CBS’s The Twilight Zone.
Legacy: the Dark Side
Which isn’t to say that the precedent hasn’t also hurt or diminished Disney Parks… Many fans cite the elephant in the room: PANDORA – The World of Avatar. Taking Eisner’s movie acquisition to its extreme (and, admittedly, probably just to try to combat Universal’s striking Harry Potter lands), Disney gobbled up the worldwide exclusive rights to James Cameron’s Avatar without even seeing if the film would remain a pop culture phenomenon. (It hasn’t, largely disappearing from public consciousness, leaving Disney with one very big and very beautiful land themed to a film from which most people can’t name a single character. Even with no less than three sequels reportedly on the way, people just don’t seem to care about Avatar, and if Disney hadn’t snatched it up in a knee-jerk reaction, they would’ve seen that. Here on Theme Park Tourist, we chronicled the in-depth story of what that land was supposed to be used for in our Possibilityland: Beastly Kingdom feature.)
Image: Disney / Marvel
The same quick, knee-jerk decision to shoehorn current properties into Disney Parks before they’re proven timeless seems to be the impetus behind the almost universally-despised, short-sighted decision to permanently close Disney California Adventure’s Twilight Zone Tower of Terror to turn it into the odd Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! despite scathing outcry from fans, guests, and the media. A 1920s Hollywood hotel looming over Hollywood Land in a California themed park that just got $1 billion to reinforce its Golden Age of California story will now become (we’re quoting here) “a warehouse power plant fortress” from a futuristic sci-fi superhero movie. We’ll tell the whole story in our upcoming feature, Lost Legends: The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.
Ultimately, Disney Parks fans would find it tough to recall the most recent major story-driven attraction based on an original concept. U.S. Disney Parks aren’t in the business of building Pirates of the Caribbeans, Haunted Mansions, Jungle Cruises, or Mystic Manors anymore. Rather, we see a lot of shoehorning box office hits into fan-favorite classics, like in our Lost Legends: Maelstrom feature, or any number of recent additions at Disney Parks.
Conclusion
Image: Disney / Lucasfilm
In any case, it’s clear that Star Tours’ success crafted the Disney Parks style that we know today, topping off with the highly-celebrated 2019 opening of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge immersive lands at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and (more controversially) Disneyland Park. (Ironically enough, this Star Wars land at Disneyland is located on the exact plot of land once set aside for Discovery Bay with its motion simulator into liquid space.)
Also odd, fans now debate the future of Star Tours, given that at both Disneyland and Disney’s Hollywood Studios, the ride is physically (and narratively) separated from Galaxy’s Edge… a bit like if Universal had massive, immersive, themed lands dedicated to Harry Potter, plus a single standalone Harry Potter ride by itself in a studio soundstage building next to the Despicable Me ride. Of course, we’d be much happier to see Star Tours simply relocated than removed, so we’ll keep an ear to the ground to listen for how this one develops.
Image: Disney
At the end of the day, Star Tours was a brilliant ride that redefined Disney Parks by bringing new stories, new characters, new thrills, and new technologies into parks that risked becoming stale. If it weren’t for Star Tours, we probably wouldn’t have the modern, thrilling, film-based rides and lands we know today. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing, we’ll let you decide. In any case, Star Tours did more than redefine where Disney Parks could take us – it thrilled a generation of fans and gave us our first chance to step into the Star Wars universe. That is a feat worth celebrating.
In the meantime, visit our In-Depth Collections Library to set course for another Lost Legend, then use the comments below to let us know – where does Star Tours fit within our library of Lost Legends? Was it truly an industry-changing gem that defied time? Or was it a tired, dated remnant of the 1980s whose time had come? Is The Adventure Continue a worthwhile replacement? Or does the jumbled new-age version lack what made the 1980s original so special? What other closed masterpiece attractions would you like to see in our Lost Legends series?
