Disney's Star Tours: A Star Wars Fan's Dream

Star Tours is an attraction of the Disney parks. It was conceived by the teams of Walt Disney Imagineering and Lucasfilm under the direction of George Lucas. It is a dynamic cinema flight simulator in the fantastic world of Star Wars. It is also the first to use an imaginary world apart from the Disney productions. Although attraction goes back to1987, many fans regard the ride as the height of this type of attraction. The first version of attraction appeared in Tomorrowland in Disneyland in 1987, to replace Adventure Thru Inner Space. Announced as the "Ultimate adventure of Star Wars! ", Star Tours puts the visitors in the role of a tourist in space on the way towards the forest moon of Endor thanks to the travel agency Star Tours.

The queue feels like the loading zone of a space terminal. R2-D2 and C-3PO talks to each other in front of a StarSpeeder 3000, the spaceship/flight simulator from Star Tours. Next there are droids dissatisfied with their work conditions and want to strike. The version in France seems even a little sarcastic. Power cuts are also frequent.

Then the visitor is directed towards one of the StarSpeeder 3000. Then a panel opens revealing the cockpit with Rex on the left and a screen showing the space station. Rex admits that that this is its first voyage.

The pilot takes a wrong turn and falls into maintenance zone. He manages however to avoid a catastrophe. This scene includes a homage to attraction Adventure Thru Inner Space: the "formidable Microscope" is clearly visible on the screen after the mechanical arm is avoided. It resembles the machine invented by professor Szalinski in Honey I Shrunk The Kinds.

Takeoff is tumultuous but even after a jump to hyperspace the adventures are not over. Rex forgets to stop too late and instead of going to out destination, the vessel goes into a comet field. After having avoided the largest asteroids it takes us in the maze of the inside of one. The wall of ice breaks allowing us to leave the labyrinth.