Timeline troubles
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, things were about to change.
18 months after the ride’s debut – in October 2012 – Disney announced that it had acquired Lucasfilm and the Star Wars franchise for just over $4 billion. With complete creative control over the property, the universe was about to expand in a big way.
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 its mysteriously masked knight, 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, all living legends whose stories are told throghouout the galaxy), now in their 60s and 70s.
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 receive a transmission from a young Princess Leia, as she appeared before Finn was even born. See the problem? Disney and Lucasfilm – two indisputable masters of continuity in storytelling – accidentally blew up the timeline they’d carefully crafted for the new Star Tours.
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 as a “preview” before its opening). Soon after, Kylo Ren – conflicted 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.
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!)
While the separation of timelines is probably the lesser of two evils, it does mean that if your first scene is from the sequel trilogy, you can be sure that the rest of your ride will be limited to the few scenes that have been added one-by-one as film tie-ins, meaning far more repetition than the fully-stocked library of origial trilogy scenes. Altogether, that’s probably still better than the time-hopping alternative.
A New Hope
After the debut of the new version in Florida and California in May and June of 2011, international Disney Parks 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 – five years after the change in Florida! –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.
We’re unabashedly proud of the refreshed Star Tours. It ranked high on our countdown of the best “plusses” to Disney rides, and many 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 misadventure with cameos by characters you know and love. The ride redefined re-ride-ability more than 20 years after the Modern Marvel: Indiana Jones Adventure brought the practice into immersive storytelling with the three Gifts of Mara.
That said, fans can’t help but wonder what will become of the reimagined classic given that – at Disneyland and especially Disney’s Hollywood Studios – it’s physically cut-off from Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge… somewhat like if Universal had hyper-immersive Wizarding World… and an old Harry Potter ride in a soundstage a couple hundred feet outside of it. We’ll see…
Living Legacy
STAR TOURS wasn’t just an E-ticket. It fundamentally changed Disney Parks forever. If you don’t believe us, you’ve got some ready to do… After all,:
- It introduced non-Disney characters into Disneyland, modernizing Imagineering and ushering in the “Ride the Movies” era;
- It established the long-running partnership with George Lucas that would also produce Captain EO, Alien Encounter, and Indiana Jones Adventure;
- It singlehandedly gave rise to the Age of the Simulator, introducing a new technology that’s been adapted into… welll… nearly every E-Ticket across Disney and Universal parks since.
So when we saw STAR TOURS is the ride that changed Imagineering, we mean it. This sensational attraction born in a galaxy far, far away didn’t just bring George Lucas’ Star Wars universe to Disney Parks; it brought guests of Disney Parks into the Star Wars universe, setting the stage for the simulators, cinematic rides, and “living lands” we know today. de may be over, its legacy lives on…
As we find ourselves back at the terminal, it’s time to make a connecting flight to another exciting destination in our Lost Legends collection. Until next time, thank you for flying Star Tours. Buh-bye.
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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?