Star Tours: The Adventures Continue

Star Tours: The Adventures Continue is the second incarnation of Star Tours, a film-based motion simulator attraction based on the Star Wars film series. Star Tours: The Adventures Continue has appeared at Disney's Hollywood Studios and Disneyland, replacing the original version, which closed on July 27, 2010. The Disney's Hollywood Studios version opened May 23, 2011, with the Disneyland version opening a few weeks later on June 3. This updated version features 3-D technology, multiple destinations, and will be set inbetween the timelines of Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope.

Development
Star Tours was always intended to receive occasional updates, though various factors would serve to delay the project. The initial development proper on a Star Tours II began in 1997 when George Lucas invited Imagineer Tom Fitzgerald to Skywalker Ranch and showed him the Podrace sequence of the in-development Episode I: The Phantom Menace, suggesting it would be perfect material for a new Star Tours attraction. Imagineers developed an attraction concept with a podrace as it's centerpiece, but held off on it to wait and see what the other prequels could offer. With a branching storyline in mind, Fitzgerald went to Fox Studios Australia in 2003 during the filming of Revenge of the Sith to pitch the multi-branching storyline to George, quickly getting his approval to move forward. Work proper finally began in 2007 with Fitzgerald and other Imagineers regularly visiting Skywalker Ranch to show them their progress.

At the inaugural D23 Expo in Anaheim, California, on September 12, 2009, Jay Rasulo and Darth Vader announced that Disneyland's Star Tours attraction would be closing in October 2010 to make way for an updated version, which will open in 2011. Tatooine was the first of the new destinations revealed, showing a sample of the Podracing sequence.

Attraction
The attraction will feature 54 different ride experiences, including several different planets from the Star Wars universe such as Coruscant and Tatooine. With The Adventures Continue serving as a prequel to the original Star Tours, guests will board StarSpeeder 1000 spacecraft simulators, forerunners to the StarSpeeder 3000 simulators found in the original attraction. With the attraction set in an earlier timeframe than its predecessor, this earlier Star Tours travel agency utilizes AC-series pilot droids, and therefore, RX-series pilot droid Captain Rex will not appear as the ship's pilot, instead appearing in the queue as a defective droid). Through a series of mistakes, though, the AC-series pilot droid will not appears as the ship's pilot either, as the aerophobic C-3PO finds himself at the helm of the StarSpeeder 1000. Characters set to appear include, but are not limited to: C-3PO, R2-D2, Darth Vader, Boba Fett, Yoda, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, and new characters such as AC-38, Aly San San, and Imperial skytroopers.

Cast

 * Anthony Daniels as C-3PO
 * James Earl Jones as Darth Vader
 * Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca
 * Alison Janney as Aly San San
 * Patrick Warburton as G2-9T
 * Tom Kane as Admiral Ackbar