10 Fun Facts to Discover About Star Tours

Happy Star Wars Day my fellow Padawans! To celebrate this historically galactic anniversary, I thought we’d unearth some fun facts about that great Star Wars experience at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Not Galaxy’s Edge (not to say that’s not great!), but the one that started it all…Star Tours! And no, I don’t have a bad feeling about this. Ready? Then punch it, Chewie!!

 

 

1. Touring the Galaxy

Star Tours originally debuted at Disneyland in 1987 and came to Disney-MGM Studios on December 15, 1989, after the park opened in May of that year. According to the backstory, Star Tours is a galactic travel company with its own spaceport, offering sightseeing tours of celestial bodies throughout the galaxy. In the original attraction, Guests were on a typical spaceflight to Endor on the StarSpeeder 3000.

 

 

2. Captain Rex

Your inexperienced pilot (it was his first flight and he was still getting used to his programming), was RX-24, known as Captain Rex. Unfortunately (though predictably), Rex went the wrong way, getting the ship caught in a tractor beam, then took you “safely” through an asteroid field at light speed…right into a battle between the Rebellion and the Empire. Unwittingly, Rex gave the squadron of X-Wing fighters a hand and helped them to destroy the Death Star. The film for the attraction was produced by George Lucas and the team at Industrial Light & Magic.

 

 

3. A New Adventure

In September of 2010, Guests took one “Last Tour to Endor” as the attraction prepared for a major refurbishment. At Walt Disney World, Star Tours – The Adventures Continue opened on May 20, 2011, with a special midnight event and an Imagineer Q&A session. The next day, a grand opening celebration was held with several dignitaries from around the galaxy in attendance.

 

 

4. C-3P0 and R2-D2

In the updated attraction queue, Guests walk into a bustling spaceport and are greeted by the famous droid duo, C-3PO and R2-D2. Guests are also introduced to AC-38, a hotshot droid pilot known simply as “Ace,” and Aly San San (voiced by actress Allison Janney), the “spokesbot” for the spaceport. After winding through the spaceport, Guests board the StarSpeeder 1000 spacecraft for Star Tours Flight #1401. Through a series of mishaps, C-3PO finds himself in the pilot’s seat instead of Ace, and it’s up to him and R2-D2 to navigate you through the galaxy.

 

 

5. New Worlds

The renovated attraction gave Guests the chance to visit new destinations in the Star Wars universe, including the ice planet of Hoth, the underwater Gungan world of Naboo, the lush jungles of Kashyyyk, podracing on Tatooine, and more. Original movie favorites such as Boba Fett, Princess Leia, Admiral Ackbar, Darth Vader, Yoda, and others now made appearances aboard the StarSpeeder 1000 in the 3D attraction. Over the years, new destinations and characters have been added at various times, often to tie in with the release of a new Star Wars film. These have included First Order villain Kylo Ren, menacing bounty hunter Boba Fett, ace pilot Poe Dameron, plus many more. Today you might encounter Ahsoka Tano, Cassian Andor, or the Mandalorian and Grogu.

 

 

6. What’s Up with Our StarSpeeder Number?

Why is the current StarSpeeder numbered 1000, when the previous version was numbered 3000? Shouldn’t it be higher? Well, with the inclusion of many new scenes that established the timeline for this attraction as taking place before the events of the original Star Tours, the ship was “back-numbered” accordingly!

 

 

7. You Are Part of the Rebel Alliance and a Traitor!

Also, Guests just might find themselves being accused of being the “rebel spy” that the Empire is looking for while aboard the speeder. (If they pick you, just act casual…perhaps they won’t notice!)

 

 

8. A Universe of Possibilities

The updated attraction randomly combines different scenes and characters, meaning Guests can ride the attraction multiple times without ever experiencing the same adventure twice. Indeed, much of the fun now is in seeing which characters and locations will pop up next, and many fans will ride numerous times in order to “collect” the experiences. Altogether, there are more than 250 possible ride scenarios. (How many have you seen?)

 

 

9. Your Flight Number

In case you were wondering, the 1401 flight number came from the number of the street address for Walt Disney Imagineering in Glendale, California.

 

 

10. Defective Rex

And for those nostalgic for the original Captain Rex, he can still be found in the attraction. Since the events of the new attraction predate those of the original, Rex is not yet a pilot, but he can be found in the pre-show security area called “Droid Customs,” being “returned to sender” for defects, which actually explains a lot for those who enjoyed the original attraction.

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