Disneyland's Star Tours: The Adventures Continue has proven to be one of the theme park's most versatile attractions.
While it may no longer be the groundbreaking technological marvel it was when it debuted in 1987, the flight simulator ride has changed with the franchise, bucking cultural trends and aligning with whatever version of “Star Wars” is popular at the moment, or that needs a marketing boost.
Star Tours' latest update brings the ride into the Disney+ era, with nods to series like “The Mandalorian,” “Ahsoka” and “Andor.” Most notable, at least to Disneyland visitors, is that the centerpiece of the latest improvements is a scene that provides a slight change in tone for the attraction, focused, however briefly, on slowing down and giving so-called passengers of the stellar speeder a look. of the most majestic creatures in “Star Wars”. Star Tours will now take guests directly to a moment that features a close-up of the purrgil, essentially large, mysterious space whales that move with galactic grace.
For three-dimensional attraction, it is a moment that provides respite. The motion simulator persists for a few seconds and our makeshift animatronic captain, the golden droid C-3PO, turns to face the passengers. C-3PO switches to tour guide mode, appearing amazed by the purrgil and commenting on how serene the animals are.
“This will be different from other sequences, to have a moment,” said Tom Fitzgerald, a top creative executive at Walt Disney Imagineering, the company's secretive arm dedicated to theme park attractions, when asked about adopting a Patient focus on the scene. “You don't have many moments. It's so compact. But it's a time to let people see the beauty of this, and 3-D gives you the scale of those creatures.”
The additions to Star Tours are arguably the centerpiece of Disneyland's “Star Wars” promotion, Season of the Force, which debuted last weekend and runs through June 2. The “Star Wars” festival also sees new droids making their way to Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge for the duration of the event, as well as the return of the Space Mountain Hyperspace Mountain overlay and a new free scavenger hunt that aims to get players Pay close attention to the minute details of Galaxy's Edge.
Fitzgerald has been with Star Tours since the attraction's inception and oversaw Star Tours' latest additions, which further divert the attraction from any strict “Star Wars” timeline and instead focus it on being a sort of “great successes” for the brand. The purrgil scene also features Rosario Dawson's Ahsoka Tano and the character's sleek, fast starship above the planet Seatos. Tano's ship inspired Imagineers to see if they could add some new tricks to the attraction, mainly in the way the simulator can move. When Tano's ship twists and turns, for example, the starspeeder tries to imitate it, striving to create the sensation of a 360-barrel spin. At other times, the starspeeder glides among the purrgil.
The key to Star Tours' longevity, and what makes it the rare motion simulator that doesn't seem rooted in the 1980s, is its ability to create new sensations through its movements. The attraction now has more than 250 story variations, and in adding attractions, Imagineers look for ways to heighten the contrast between its various scenes, both in tone and maneuvers. Although Star Tours are generally random, for the foreseeable future and definitely during Disneyland's Season of the Force spring promotion, all guests are guaranteed to visit the new location and receive an early broadcast of one of the characters' flight recently added.
A broadcast sequence of Din Djarin and Grogu was recently added to Star Tours.
(Disneyland Resort)
“How do we ensure that each of the places we go has a different color palette?” says Fitzgerald, who then recalls different “Star Wars” planets that may appear in the attraction's random programming. “Mustafar is all lava. Kashyyyk is all green jungle. So they feel very different when you get the combos. And then based on movement. Could we do a barrel roll? That's the fun of doing it, programming it and testing it. And we needed something more. What haven't we done? So with the purrgils, what if we skied through the tentacles? We had never done that. So those are the two big movement changes.”
The attraction is also enlivened by appearances by Dawson's Tano, Diego Luna's Cassian Andor and a masked Din Djarin from “The Mandalorian.” While the latter is played by Pedro Pascal in the Disney+ series, many have noted that Djarin in “Star Tours” features a slightly different vocal cadence than Pascal, and an Imagineering spokesperson says the company does not reveal its voice actors. for the series. attraction. However, “The Mandalorian” moment features some comic relief (and clever use of 3-D) courtesy of Grogu, known colloquially as “baby Yoda,” and his penchant for using Force powers to play and eat frogs.
All three appear as transmissions that help define Star Tours' suddenly urgent narrative. “Everyone is different,” says Fitzgerald. “Mando and Grogu play for comedy. And Andor is mysterious. You don't see his face. You see this thing coming towards you. Is he a friend or an enemy? And then he takes off his hood and the music changes.” Meanwhile, Tano arrives as an old friend who meets C-3PO and his droid companion R2-D2. Passengers are advised to pay close attention to the opening cinematic in a ship hangar, as there is a new random opening featuring Tano in a lightsaber battle against Stormtroopers.
As for why the new additions perhaps lean a little more toward “Ahsoka,” since it's that series that features the planet Seatos and the purrgil, Fitzgerald had a simple answer: Yes, it's the space whales.
With access to early Lucasfilm scripts, Fitzgerald says he highlighted the purrgil scenes. “Reading about it, not knowing what they looked like initially, I thought it was going to be really cool.” And, at least for a few seconds, relatively calming.
