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Star Tours
Star Tours Entrance DLR
Disneyland
Land Tomorrowland
Designer Walt Disney Imagineering
Manufacturer Rediffusion Simulation
Attraction type Flight simulator
Theme Star Wars
Soft opening date December 1986
Opening date January 9, 1987
Closing date July 27, 2010
Music Richard Bellis
Ride duration 4:30 minutes
Replaced Adventure Thru Inner Space
Replaced by Star Tours: The Adventures Continue
Star Tours
MGM - Star Tours
Disney's Hollywood Studios
Land Echo Lake
Designer Walt Disney Imagineering
Manufacturer Rediffusion Simulation
Attraction type Flight simulator
Theme Star Wars
Opening date December 15, 1989
Closing date September 7, 2010
Music Richard Bellis
Ride duration 4:30 minutes
Replaced by Star Tours: The Adventures Continue
Star Tours
Tomorrowland TDL
Tokyo Disneyland
Land Tomorrowland
Designer Walt Disney Imagineering
Manufacturer Rediffusion Simulation
Attraction type Flight simulator
Theme Star Wars
Opening date July 12, 1989
Closing date April 2, 2012
Music Richard Bells
Ride duration 4:30 minutes
Replaced by Star Tours: The Adventures Continue
Star Tours
Download (27)
Disneyland Paris
Land Discoveryland
Designer Walt Disney Imagineering
Manufacturer Rediffusion Simulation
Attraction type Flight simulator
Theme Star Wars
Opening date April 12, 1992
Closing date March 16, 2016
Music Richard Bells
Ride duration 4:30 minutes

Star Tours was a flight simulator attraction at Disneyland Paris, Disneyland Park, Tokyo Disneyland, and Disney's Hollywood Studios themed after George Lucas' popular film franchise, Star Wars.

History[]

The attraction that became Star Tours was first proposed as a flight simulator for the 1979 Disney film, The Black Hole. If the attraction opened instead of Star Tours, guests would be able to choose their own flight route. However, the Black Hole simulator ride was shelved and scrapped due to its enormous cost ($50 million) and the low popularity of the film. Instead of completely scrapping the motion simulator idea, Disney decided to make a partnership with George Lucas and Lucasfilm. Lucas created the popular Star Wars movie franchise, and Disney wanted to bring it to the parks (starting with Captain EO in 1986). Disney then explained to George Lucas the idea of a Star Wars flight simulator attraction at the Disney parks. Lucas loved the idea, and with his approval, Disney bought four military-style simulators to start working on the structure of the attraction. While constructed started at Disneyland in 1985, George Lucas and a team of special effects technicians started to work on the film that would be projected on the ride. When the simulator and film were finished, a programmer sat inside the simulator holding a joystick to control the simulator's movements. On January 9, 1987, the first Star Tours simulator ride opened at Disneyland Park with a final cost of $32 million. To celebrate, Disneyland remained open for 60 hours straight from January 9, 1987, at 10:00 AM to January 11, 1987, at 10:00 PM. One year later, the attraction opened at Tokyo Disneyland and Hollywood Studios. Finally, the last Star Tours ride opened with Walt Disney Studios Paris on March 16, 2002.

Star Tours: Tour to Endor[]

Queue[]

The entire plot of Star Tours was to put guests in the role of a space tourist who was en route to the planet Endor (via Star Tours travel agency). The planet made an appearance in the climactic fight scene in the fourth Star Wars movie. Much of the travel agency was shown to guests via ride queue, which was made to look like a boarding terminal for spaceships. Guests could spot posters advertising different planets and a giant movie screen advertising to guests a short film about the benefits of vacationing on Endor. The queue also displayed to guests Audio-Animatronic replicas of C-3PO and R2-D2, who interacted with guests. The queue also had a life-size replica of the Starspeeder 3000, the spacecraft that riders were about to fly to Endor. Guests then entered a small maintenance area of the queue where a G2 droid performed repairs on another droid robot. The G2 was a bit annoyed by the guests, and another droid to the right of the queue pointed out the flaws of the Starspeeder 3000 and its RX pilots. A ride attendant then escorted guests to their spaceship vehicle, where they waited to ride. A television screen showed guests a small film about the instructions while the flight was in progress.

Ride[]

Riders then entered their fictional Starspeeder 3000 vehicle. Shortly after the doors close, an animatronic replica of RX-24 (a.k.a. Rex) chatted to guests about his excitement of flying the plane to Endor. Rex then lowered the cockpit shield, and a crew activated the flight platform. Everything went well until Rex made a mistake and sent the vehicle crashing into the doors of the maintenance bay. The Starspeeder 3000 plummeted into the maintenance yard. Rex was very close to crashing the plane into a mechanical arm, but the spaceplane then swerved away. Rex then activated the lightspeed mode, sending the plane into a blue tunnel. Rex overdid the lightspeed activation, and the Starspeeder 3000 flew past Endor (Rex moaned in frustration). The spaceplane then got caught in a comet storm, and the plane flew into the body of a comet. The ship then got thrown off its course by getting hit by several other comets. The plane escaped the comet's body by crashing into a thin wall of ice. After escaping the comet, the plane encountered a Star Destroyer vehicle. The ship then got caught in the Destroyer's tractor beam, but the plane got loose when an X-wing rebel fighter provided assistance to the Starspeeder by crashing his plane into the tractor beam's generator. Soon after, the Starspeeder accompanied the Rebellion on an assault on the Death Star. Rex used the plane's lasers to stall several TIE fighters while another rebel fighter destroyed the Death Star by firing two proton torpedoes into the exhaust port. The X-Wings lightspeed away from the Death Star to avoid the explosion and a final lightspeed sent the Starspeeder 3000 onto Endor's spaceport. Shortly before, the vehicle almost went crashing into fuel truck in the hangar. The ride then stopped, and C-3PO instructed guests to remain seated until the doors opened.

Last Tour to Endor[]

On August 14, 2010, the Hollywood Studios installation of the ride hosted "Last Tour to Endor", a special event that was hosted for Celebration V guests from 8:00 PM to 1:00 AM the next morning. Entertainment for the event included George Lucas, appearances by characters, Jedi Training Academy, Death Star Disco, Bespin Stage Dance Party, a live show, Hyperspace Hoopla, a fireworks show, and the Star Tours shutdown ceremony on September 7, 2010. The shutdown ceremony was the official closure of the Hollywood Studios installation, and several characters from the movie included Boba Fett, Darth Vader, C-3PO, R2-D2, and several Stormtroopers. The ride isn't simply shut down by R2-D2, but Boba Fett blows the ride up with a thermal detonator (a.k.a. pyrotechnic fireworks).

Star Tours: The Adventures Continue[]

On July 27, 2010, Disneyland Park closed its installation of the simulator, explaining to guests and fans of the ride it would be rethemed and renamed to Star Tours: The Adventures Continue. Riders would board the Starspeeder 3000 vehicle and would get chased down by Darth Vader, who is looking for a spy onboard the Starspeeder (a.k.a. a guest). Guests would also be piloted by C-3PO instead of Rex, and it would be a new 3-D experience. The Hollywood Studios installation closed with an official shutdown ceremony on September 7, 2010. Two years after, Tokyo Disneyland closed their Star Tours on April 2, 2012 to let the ride go into its retheming. The ride reopened at Disneyland Park on June 3, 2011 and at Hollywood Studios on May 20, 2011. The installation of the ride at Tokyo Disneyland will reopen on May 7, 2013. The Paris installation was announced to close in late 2015 or early 2016 for a 2017 reopening.

Trivia[]

  • The G2 droids in the queue of the Disneyland installation are actually the skeleton of two geese from the show, America Sings, that closed in 1988.
  • The Disneyland version of the ride had four simulator vehicles, while the other three had six simulators.

Photo Gallery[]

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