So, here's a fun fact about me, my dad was actually part of the team that helped developed and design the Original Star Tours. Yeah, and the current ride along with Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run and the little bit in Rise of the Resistance that has us use an "Escape Pod" still use the software of the original ride. Updated to be sure but still basically the same system.
As such when me and my sister when to Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World we naturally went to ride it as a way to honor our dad. Sadly the ride has gone down in both popularity and quality.
Originally when the ride was first released it was obviously a big hit but as is often the case it declined in popularity over the years so Disney with the help of George Lucas himself (who also helped worked on the original ride) came in to redesign the ride to revitalize it's popularity. The new gimmick of the ride was that instead of taking on a preset path you would now go around the galaxy in a randomized adventure where would see every planet from every movie of every era of Star Wars but limited to the movies.
This worked for a time as it was a novel experience that helped the ride feel fresh... but sadly the cracks in this ride soon started to show as the pacing of the ride was ruined in order to keep things moving to accomedate for the random areas we would be going.
It didn't help that the ride would jump between eras meaning we can be on Hoth one moment trying to evade Storm Trooeprs only to end up on Naboo aaaannddd we're now dealing with battle driods.
Yeah, the whole thing quickly turned into a mess but at least it was a consistent mess and was still trying to keep the spirit of the original ride... And then we get to the Disney Era of the Franchise and the whole thing has really gone to shit now.
See, when Lucas helped redesign the ride he wanted it to be something new that could show what rides could be. It didn't work but you see what he was trying to aim for. The Disney Era version is now pretty much a commercial for Star Wars Properties made at any given time. When my sister and I went on it we were confronted by Darth Vader, got caught in the middle of the Battle of Hoth, then got a message from Andor before running into Ahsoka while dodging space whales.
And when I was there in 2017 the ride was set exclusively during the events of The Last Jedi (this was a few months before the film came out) and I'm sure you can see the problem here.
While both Rise of the Resistance and Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run both tie into the bigger story and are being used as a sort of marketing gimmick both still work as a standalone ride with a simple premise that once the film and or show it's marketing is over it can still go on to be a fun ride in and of itself. I know this is the case because while at Galaxy's Edge I went on both rides again and both were still as much fun as I remember.
Honestly all of Galaxy's Edge is still great and ranks as one of my favorite parts of any Disney Theme Park I've ever been to. But Star Tours has honestly gone down in the world and has lost what made it so much fun before.
I honestly think that Disney should re-redesign the ride, get rid of the "Random Adventure" element and just make a single story that could take place around the time of the Original Trilogy. Bring back Captain Rex (with a new voice actor obviously) and I'd say get rid of R2 and replace him with a new Astromech Droid (something new and distinctly Star Tours in design).
However, I honestly wonder if the ride is going to be closed down. Even during May 4th, aka May the 4th Be With You aka Star Wars Day, the ride had a 10 minute wait which is usually a bad sign as it means you're just waiting for the ride to finish before anyone can go on which means there's no real line to speak of.
The last 4 times I've been at WDW Star Tours was basically empty with hardly anyone going on it throughout the day. By contrast ROTR and MFSR were both packed with both lines taking about half and hour to an hour to get through. Both these rides have been out for almost 8 years and they're still going strong.
And given that Star Tours is located outside of Galaxy Edge that just makes it seem like it's not that important. Even Muppet Vision 3D still had a fully packed theater every time I've gone there and I think that attraction is older then Star Tours.
I'm hoping I'm wrong because this ride is a direct tie to my dad and I would rather see it simply redesigned to try and attract newer and older fans. Just make a single story that takes us to few locations where our tour guide Rex tries to get us there while having to deal with the Empire and the galaxy trying to kill us.
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