Star Tours 2 News

Opening day and night meet update for Hollywood Studios!

We're tweaking our meetups for Friday: If you're interested in meeting up before Disney's Hollywood Studios opens on May 20, we will meet at Picabu at the Dolphin Resort at 2:30am early Friday morning, and then line up for rope drop afterwards.

For those of you planning on joining us for our meet on Friday, May 20 at 1pm, we've changed the meet location to Studio Catering Company.

We can't wait to see everyone who is coming for the grand opening of Star Tours 2!

Print your own Star Tours style boarding passes

If you were lucky enough to attend the D23 Last Tour to Endor event, they handed out these nifty boarding passes to commemorate the event.  One of our readers, RurouniVash, sent us this pretty sweet looking replica that you can print out at home!

You can download the PDF and print them out by visiting this site.  Pretty cool stuff!

Star Tours 2 Ride Review from Disney's Hollywood Studios

Warning: This review contains LOTS OF SPOILERS!

This ride review comes from SloppyJoe, who sent it in after experiencing the Cast Member previews earlier this weekend

Cast of characters seen so far on ride: R2-D2, C-3P0, Darth Vader, Yoda, Jango Fett, Sebulba, Admiral Ackbar, Princess Leia (from Ep IV), Jar Jar Binks, and the Gungan Army General (forgive me for not remembering his name). 

Plus there are numerous lines taken from the entire saga, that are used by the characters in the que line (my personal favorite being the reenactment of the prison command center phone call Han had in Ep IV)

Oh and so far I have found hidden mickeys in two different spots (hint: look towards the bulkheads at the back of the hangar if you land in the rebel alliance frigate).

The time period of the ride is constantly switching from Galactic Civi War era to Clone Wars era, and it can be hard to keep up with at times, but it also leads to some cool character crossovers and makes sure you are able to expand the entire movie saga within each flight.

So much more to see and report about. Gonna go spend some extra time in the que area now and see what little bits I can find there!

This ride is the first Star Wars feature to have gotten me all giddy about Star Wars again since Phontom Menace. I love seeing the classic vehicles and scenes updated for this ride.

A few more details about the simulation itself:

-The ride is much smoother than before, and the seats are very comfortable. On top of that, the cast do a great job of making you feel like you are actually about to take a trip.

-the simulator tilts in more directions and larger angles than before. At one point we were tilted so far down, flying straigt down towards the ground of coruscant, that the only thing that kept everyone from falling out of their seat were the seat belts. My back was no longer touching the seat!

-the 3D is mostly the same stuff we've seen recently in Theaters. More depth percetion than anything, but there are a few of the tradition 3D gimmicks every now and then, but nothing too cheesy. The holograms in the middle of the ride actually come out from the screen though and look like they are right there in the middle of the craft which is very nice. 3PO even turns slightly towards the back of the craft to add to this effect.

-the smaller monitor on the right shows some cool 3rd person views from time to time (especially during the podrace), but I would recommend focusing on the main screen the first time through otherwise you will miss a lot of action. It also will show the person labeled as the "traitor" in most sequences, but not all as sometimesthat person's image is displayed via hologram.

-can confirm that each part of the ride can be different, although your more likely to get the same opening scenario with Darth Vader than anything else it would seem.

-finally, the best part has to be the "viewscreen" cause it is now very much an interactive part of the ride, this gives you much more of a definitive being inside a space ship feel than the first ride did. Many characters and objects will bounce, slide, splat, or breakthrough the "window" throughout the flight. This is a very nice touch. Also adds a good bit of comedy when characters get hit by the ship. Watching the water or snow run off effectively adds to the atmosphere. 

Video from inside Star Tours 2 queue at Disney's Hollywood Studios