Star Turns

Star Turns 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 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 to 1987, she is regarded by many fans as the height of this type of attraction. She interferes an experiment all the directions with a universe already known and appreciated. The first version of attraction appeared in the Tomorrowland of Disneyland in 1987, to replace Adventure Thru Inner Space .

The concept and history

Announced like l'" Ultimate adventure of Star Wars! " , Star Turns takes along the visitors in the role of a tourist of space on the way towards the forest moon of Endor thanks to the travel agency Star Turns.

All is made in the queue so that one feels in the zone of loading of a space terminal. The zone counts several characters Audio-Animatronics who interact between them. Thus on with dimensions the C-3PO and R2-D2, into true Laurel and Hardy of space, " discuss mécanique" in front of a counterpart cuts real StarSpeeder 3000, the spaceship/flight simulator of Star Turns. According to the book " Disneyland Detective" by Kendra Trahan, the costumes of the characters would result from the objects of original film on a body audio-animatronic.

Then according to the versions, a scene proposes to see others droïdes with work in the technical zones of the space terminal. One can there see droïdes 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 StarSpeeder 3000, a cinema coupled to a simulator of vol. After being itself installed in one of the seats of the vessel a droïde pilot of typr RX-24, called Rex (English voice by Paul Reubens, French voices by Luc Hamet), familiarly accommodates the traveller on a TV screen located in top on the right. Then a panel opens with before revealing the cockpit with Rex on the left and a screen/pane giving on a corridor of the space station. Rex concedes us that he is stressed a little for its first voyage.

All occurs well until the moment when by error the pilot takes the bad corridor and fall into the zones of maintenance located downwards. He manages however to avoid a catastrophe while leaving in space before a gigantic mechanical arm crushes the vessel.

This scene includes/understands a homage to attraction Adventure Thru Inner Space : the " Formidable Microscope" is clearly visible on the line of the screen after the mechanical arm is avoided. It resembles the machine invented by professor Szalinski in Chérie, I narrowed the children , who uses also the same principle.

Takeoff is thus tumultuous but even after a jump in the hyperspace the adventures are not finished. Rex forgets to stop the hyperspace too late and instead of joining the base of destination, the vessel is found in a field of Comet S. After having avoided after a fashion the largest asteroids - certain small ran up against the vessel - it takes along us in the maze of the cavities of an enormous planetoid. The wall of finer ice at a place allows by breaking it to leave the labyrinth.

But it is not finished yet: a stellar destroyer grinds in trimmings, because it is a not very sure zone. It launches a ray tractor on the vessel to attract it with him. Thanks to a X-wing of the rebellion, undoubtedly controlled by Wedge the Antilles which offers its assistance, the passengers can escape.

Rex decides to take part in the attack of the Rebellion against Star of Death, because it is one of its dreams. The pilot uses the lasers of StarSpeeder (strange for a vessel with regular commercial practice) to destroy the Chasseurs Tie while a rebellious vessel destroys Star of Dead like Luke Skywalker at the end of the Épisode IV - a New Hope.

After the explosion, StarSpeeder sets out again thanks to a jump hyperspatial towards the space starting base but comes very close to collision with a transport of fuel right to the turning of a corridor. Rex wishes to re-examine us soon for a new tour.

Star Turns II

Star Turns II is a project of Disney already going back to before the decision of George Lucas to make a new trilogy. The principle was to renew attraction or more commercially " to offer news destinations".

The new trilogy precisely makes it possible to add new worlds, new decorations, new vehicles and new characters. This project, always being studied according to the little of filtered information, could doubtless take us along on Tatooine. But currently, of the negotiations are in hand between the WDC (Walt Disney Company) and LucasFilm for the realization of one (even perhaps 2) new films. The project would not lead before 2010.

Technology

Principal technology used is that of the simulators of vol. It is a room laid out on six jacks which incline the room according to the three axes. There exist simulators using only four jacks but the effects of side slope and diagonal are less marked. StarSpeeder make it possible to accommodate 40 people while the film is projected in front of the cabin. The weight of the cabins is approximately 25 tons.

The attraction which became Star turns was born initially like a proposal from attraction based on the film the Black hole from 1979. But this one did not obtain discounted success. Attraction was to be an interactive simulator in which the visitors would have had the possibility of choosing the way of the vessel. The estimated cost of the project put a term at attraction, more than 50 million dollars, increased by the unpopularity of film.

Disney had concretized in 1986 a project with George Lucas, Captain EO, the futuristic film in 3D presenting Michael Jackson under the direction of Francis Ford Coppola. The idea of the flight simulator in the universe of Star Wars was thus proposed with its creator, who approved.

Following this agreement, Walt Disney Imagineering bought four simulators with the American army, with 500.000 dollars part. They were improved and during this time, George Lucas and her team of specialists in the special effects (Industrial Light & Magic) worked on film with a sight with the first anybody who would be projected in the simulators. The teams of film re-used the decorations created for films of Star Wars. When a simulator and the film was finished, a programmer was installed in the vessel and thanks to a joystick synchronized manually the movement with that apparent of film. Disney patented a system allowing a loading/simplified unloading of the passengers, this system allows to retract the footbridges above volume allowing the movement of the simulator.

The January 9th 1987 attraction opened with Disneyland for a total budget of 32 million $ is twice as much as construction of the park. The opening ceremony accommodated many fans disguised like their favorite characters of the saga Star Wars.

Since attraction was duplicated in almost all the Disney fields. Two other attractions use same technology: Body Wars with Epcot and StormRider with Tokyo DisneySea. The latter is an improvement of technology used.

Attractions

Attraction in itself does not differ whatever the park, it is the same film projected in the same simulator. But around attraction the decoration differs enormously.

Disneyland

Star Turns is located just at the entry of Tomorrowland on the line. It takes again the queue of attraction Adventure Thru Inner Space but the remainder of the building was emptied to accommodate the four simulators. Two droïdes G2 located in the queue come from attraction America Sings and were at the origin of geese.

Opening: January 9th 1987
Design: Walt Disney Imagineering
special Effects: Industrial Light & Magic
Many simulators: 4
minimal Size necessary for the access: 1,02 Mr.
Partner: Energizer (1998-aujourd' today), M&Ms (1987-1998)
Lasted: 4 min. 30 dryness.
Standard of attraction: flight simulator with audio-animatronic

Attraction had a system FastPass of 2000 in January 2006.

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