Yesterday Disneyland swung open the doors to Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, an attraction with a name that sounds more like a movie than a theme park attraction
Anyone who has seen a Star Wars movie will remember the corridors of the dagger-shaped enemy Star Destroyers with their silently sliding blast doors and squeaky-clean floors lit by bright white lights glowing behind grills. Sitting in an eight-person vehicle in Rise of the Resistance, you’ll race down them as space pilot Poe Dameron did in 2015’s smash hit Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Try as you might, you won’t see any trace of a screen which the hologram is being beamed onto. Likewise, BB-8 doesn’t seem to move on tracks and its head appears to float on its body exactly as it does in the movies. However, this kind of special effects sorcery isn’t the real reason why the attraction is a blockbuster. It also challenges conventions which have so far been seen as immutable in the theme park industry....
Even the areas to rest during the queue don’t break the fourth wall as barrels have been conveniently left for guests to sit on and benches have been carved into the rocks. There isn’t much waiting around as the winding path soon leads to the briefing room and then the real fun begins. The ITS is just an extension of the queue as it channels guests between the cave-like corridors and the main attraction building which is one of the biggest Disney has ever built. However after a few moments inside the ITS something happens which has never been seen before in a theme park: the queue area begins to move.
“The Cast Members give you that sense of reality - that it’s real,” says John Larena, Imagineering’s executive creative director for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. “The Cast Members are such an important and integral part of the overall story and the experience would not be what it is without the Cast Members.”He adds that his favorite part of the attraction comes when guests get ushered off the ITS as they find themselves in a soaring hangar.
There is so much to see there that the Cast Members have to move guests along which is perfectly in-keeping with the fierce First Order officers that they are playing. This theme continues as you get funnelled deeper into the Star Destroyer. The Imagineers have recreated its labyrinthine network of stark grey hallways complete with their famous grills, pipes and glowing buttons on the walls. It feels confined compared to the hangar and that’s no coincidence.
You’re then united with a vehicle which looks like a troop transport and the final act begins. British actor John Boyega reprises his role of Finn the renegade Stormtrooper who tells guests via video that the droid in the driving seat has been reprogrammed to help them escape. He explains that the way out is on the upper deck of the Star Destroyer where there are escape pods which will drop them back down to Batuu.
Larena adds that “you will notice the music crescendos are right on the mark with the blaster fire. The blaster fire isn’t blasting over someone’s lines. You can clearly hear everything. Every special effect is perfectly lined up to your vantage point.” The vehicle enters the escape pod which uses every trick in Disney’s spell book. In another theme park first there’s a sudden drop as a screen up front shows you falling through the clouds. Then, before you have had time to catch your breath, the pod becomes a simulator and starts tilting in time to the on-screen action. With a jolt it finally lands back on Batuu.
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