Star
Tours, Disneyland Paris
The films of the Star Wars
Trilogy are perhaps the most epic, profound and astounding scenes ever
set into celluloid, the most appreciated movies ever and the one of the
most well known pictures ever filmed, even twenty years on.
If done well, to theme a ride
after these films would be a recipe for success. It would be easy to
make a mess of the very name of Star Wars, but with the Disney
Imagineers at the helm of this galactic trek through the void of theme
park attractions, we were pretty much guaranteed a immersive attraction
doing justice to the films. After all, George Lucas is the movie-mogul,
Disney are the ride experts. A match made in the stars, perhaps.
Spreading like space-dust in the
big bang, simulators were the flavour of the month towards the end of
the 1980s. Although most were just the embarrassingly basic washing
machine experience, all-time greats such as Back to the Future dressed
the simulator in crown and robes, ready to throw the roller coaster off
the thrown to proclaim itself king of the park.
By the time Star Tours opened in
Paris, people had woken from their dream world, realised that the
simulator was only as versatile as the film inside, and the ride took
its place behind the roller coaster in the messy hierarchy of theme park
attractions.
Unlike most rides at Disneyland
Paris, Star Tours hasn’t evolved and is identical to the American (and
Japanese) versions, with even the queue being identical. The evident
difference is that the majority of dialogue is now conducted in French.
Although Disney is reputed to be
the market leader in theming, there are many strange divergences in
theming. Adventureland is perhaps the most obvious example, home to the
Swiss Family Robinson, the Pirates (of the Caribbean) and Indiana
Jones’ deserted campsite.
Another is that in contrast to
the lush and spectacular brass and gold Victorian architecture of
Discoveryland, nestled behind Space Mountain is the white panelled
‘Space Port’, the entrance of which is marked by an X Wing Fighter
arching over the queue-line.
The first part of the queue is
pure tedium. With the creativity of beans on toast, you zig-zag almost
endlessly. There is nothing to look at other than the back of Space
Mountain and the ramp going up to the Disneyland Railroad station above.
The queue gets far better though.
You soon enter the building, and like something from Space Station Zero
(previously Thorpe Park), intergalactic maps of the universe light the
inky darkness.
In a large hall, the queue
zig-zags up and around a series of ramps. Promotional footage plays on a
video wall above – ‘come ride a tauntaun!’, ‘visit Endor!’ –
airport-style announcements in French, English and Alien and a galley of
aliens look down on proceedings below.
More familiar to some, droids
service a Star Speeder 3000. R2D2, the loveable bleeping rubbish bin,
stands upon the roof, C3PO, more camp than a row of tents, watches over
proceedings. As if you watch the film, like a couple of fishwives, the
two spend more time chatting than servicing, hardly bolstering your
confidence in Star Tours. Lights flash aggressively on the control panel
that C3PO looks over, smoke fires out of split pipes.
Though a small tunnel, you enter
a workshop with an overhead track taking baskets of spare parts around
your head. Below, parts of robots are scattered, droids await repair and
lay discarded.
It is after this that you enter
the main terminal. A member of staff will ask the obligatory question of
how many of you there are, before sending you to a relevant gate.
Each gate consists of a row of
five numbered doors. Riders queue up as the riders before enjoy the ride
on the opposite side of the doors. Above, televisions continue to
promote the services offered by Star Tours before continuing with safety
announcements.
The safety announcements are a
pleasure to watch. Like many Disney safety films, tongue-in-cheek humour
is evident throughout. Everyone watches, and by the time it is time to
load, everyone is au-fait with how to secure loose articles and, indeed,
themselves.
The doors open and you board your
Star Speeder, like the one the droids were earlier maintaining. You
cross the gantry and though the doors into the plush interior.
Rows of seats span the cabin, and
once seated, you pull the retractable seatbelt across your lap, stowing
your loose bags and coats under your seat. A ride operator briefly
checks everyone is comfortably secured before the doors swing shut.
A small screen on your right
bursts into life. Rex, our pilot introduces himself. Looking like
something ‘made earlier’ on Blue Peter, he hardly bestows confidence
– ‘Your first flight? Mine too!’
Before we depart for the moon of
Endor, the cockpit shield lowers to show the Star Speeders’ wide
windscreen and Rex in real life to our left. Our navigator, R2D2,
appears on the screen to our right, and we begin taxiing though the
space-ports’ corridors.
We follow an identical Star
Speeder which heads towards the launching area, and in a flurry of radio
announcements, our Star Speeder veers suddenly to the left towards the
maintenance bay. We soon drop down violently off the edge of the taxiway
in the maintenance bay before swooping out into space.
As soon as we’re stable again,
we accelerate up to light speed. As a corridor of streaking stars
envelops our craft, and we are pinned back into our seats as we head
through darkest space.
Not long after this acceleration,
‘Approaching Endor’ appears on the television screen to our right.
Soon after, ‘Leaving Endor’ replaces it. Anything else want to go
wrong? Too right it will.
As we slow, we approach a field
of comets. As we violently dodge around them, few hit before we have no
option but to go into the larger one that would have invariably
destroyed our ship.
We now slalom around the
innermost crystallised catacombs of this meteor, before we head towards
a wall, when the end seems inevitable we smash violently through the
wall of ice and back into space.
Phew.
As we recover, the ship pitches
to the right and to the dramatic Star Wars theme, is pulled towards an
Imperial Star Destroyer and into the midst of a dogfight between the X
Wing Fighters and Tie Fighters.
Video contact is made by an X
Wing pilot who instructs us to ease off the tractor-beam and follow him.
As we do, we head down towards the surface of the Death Star into one of
the trenches formed by the many openings and gaps in the structure.
Dodging fellow X Wing Fighters, in a blaze of laser fire we dodge
explosions and blasts from Tai Fighters desperately (and in vain)
protecting Death Star.
As we pass the exhaust of the
Death Star, an X Wing fires shots down before we pull up, a wall of
flames erupting from the Death Star, engulfing the whole man-made
planet-destroyer in an explosion of incredible proportions. As we pull
away, on the X Wing pilots’ orders, we accelerate up to light speed,
pinned once again against our seats before we slow, approaching the Star
Tours space port, joining the queue of Star Speeders taxiing back. As we
head steadily towards a tanker marked ‘flammable’, Rex brakes, and
just as a collision seems inevitable, we jolt to a sudden halt before we slowly go down to the
point where we boarded.
As the partition rises, and we
say goodbye to Rex, the doors on our right swing open and we follow the
long corridor back to relative normality.
Star Tours exhibits the full
capabilities of a simulator, how the simulator can form an integral part
of an experience as opposed to forming the entire basis of an
attraction.
Unlike many film-orientated
attractions, no familiarity of Star Wars is required, no knowledge of
the rides’ plot is needed. This is made all the more impressive when
the general contour of the ride is conveyed through the queue-line with
such touches as the promotional intergalactic holiday footage and the
‘final boarding for flight 11-19’ type announcements.
For kids too young to pick up
these subtle touches, the bickering droids, R2D2 and C3PO will more than
entertain, as will the many other humorous effects.
And then the actual simulator
part ties in perfectly, more so than perhaps on any other. Like boarding
a flight, you get the safety announcements, the queuing at the door, the
pre-flight announcements, belting yourself in, the captain introducing
himself…
And the film that goes with the
ride is perfect. It is entertaining enough not to intimidate children,
dark and dramatic enough not to make a mockery of the film, and
oscillates successfully between smooth space flight, accelerating up to
light speed and rough dogfights and meteor storms.
The ride is perfectly timed to
the film, so people won’t be reaching for sick-bags, and although you
are thrown around, it remains smooth enough so that you don’t come of
with bruises.
If you lift your feet up, and are
in the back where movements seem to be more dramatic, it feels just out
of control. Although the ride is best in the front seat, the rows of
people in front don’t detract from the ride.
You don’t go skiing, for
example, on a chair in a room full of people. The whole guise of the
ride, whereby you are in a spacecraft works well, and means it feels far
more real than any of these supposed Sky Master simulators that are more
popular than Sunny Delight on a hot day.
A lot of work has clearly gone in
to make the simulator as apt as possible. The flawed flight will leave
everyone entertained, and Star Tours is perhaps the most thrilling
family ride in the whole park.
MS Undated
Good points:
▪ A good ode to the Star
Wars films
▪ Entertaining queue
line
▪ A ride that the whole
family can enjoy
▪ Very re-ridable
Bad points:
▪ Simulator technology is now
fairly dated
▪ People who do not
enjoy Star Wars will not enjoy this ride
▪ If you do not speak
French, the subtlety of the attraction may be lost
|
|