Disneyland Star Tours 2 Soft Opening Report

This report comes from one of our readers, Dean Clark:

 got to test the new Star Tours at the Disneyland Park out here in Southern California. All I can say is its awesome. The line experience is completely updated and you pass under a GIANT LCD screen displaying flight information and short CGI videos introducing you to Star Tours and the benefits of taking one of their flights.

Also you pass through an area where you are "scanned" by a droid who interacts with the people in the line by talking to them, of course he doesn't respond to you he just kind of tells you to keep moving and cracks jokes. The scanner is a camera that is linked to another LCD screen and shows the crowd in different colors... closest thing I can describe it as is like a negative image, the colors are reversed.

Then you walk a small distance and grab your 3D glasses and board the ride, the experience I got started inside a hangar of sorts(sorry I don't know many Star Wars terms") and C3P0 accidentally ended up pilot of out craft, on our way out of the hangar bay we were stopped by Darth Vader and a bunch of clone troopers, our craft was being tossed about by Vader who was using the Force.

Darth Vader was apparently searching for a rebel agent that was on our craft. We escaped Vader and proceeded out into space where we received a message from friendlies who wanted us to deliver the rebel aboard our craft to certain coordinates. We complied and entered lightspeed... or hyperspace... anyways when we came out we were directly in the middle of a giant space battle above a planet.

We weaved in and out of ships and avoided fire from enemy crafts, eventually some Buzz Droids attached to our craft and climbed on the front window, this is one of the moments the 3D really shines. It was amazing to see them scurrying around on the window drilling on the glass while a battle raged on behind them.

From here we had R2D2 eliminate the buzz droid and we were hit by enemy fire and began to plummet to the planet below. We fell through the atmosphere and ended up getting power back to out engines just feet before we would hit the ground. It was a snowy planet and there was a battle going on involving those giant 4 legged walker things and other crafts. We again dodged fire and flew closely under a walker that was falling and one's foot that lifted up just at the right moment to let us fly through.

From there we proceeded to end up teetering off the edge of a cliff and slid down the face of it like a Olympic skier doing one of those giant jumps.

We took off into the sky and away from the planet... from here I don't remember details but we ended up docking again and safely delivered our rebel agent.

Overall I was greatly impressed by the improved CGI and the 3D was top quality. Star Tours 2 is a step up from what we are used to seeing at Star Tours, from the newly redone interior to the ride itself, this is sure to impress Star Wars fans.