Can two Star Tours attractions fix Disney’s issues with continuity?

Image: Disney

Splitting Star Tours into separate wings of the same spaceport — or, as others have suggested, physically transporting riders from Hollywood Studios’ Echo Lake into the adjacent Star Wars Land (a solution that wouldn’t work half as well in Disneyland’s Tomorrowland) — still doesn’t solve all of Disney’s continuity problems.

Here’s why.

With the exception of scenes and characters from Episode VII: The Force Awakens and Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, every Star Tours mission supposedly takes place between the end of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and the start of Episode IV: A New Hope. One of the missions takes riders through the construction site of the first Death Star, so it’s safe to assume that most adventures also occur before the main plot line of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

This didn’t cause any issues during the creation of the original attraction in 1987, which was deliberately set after the events of Episode VI: Return of the Jedi so that Captain Rex’s mission wouldn’t disrupt the existing canon (Episodes IV to VI). With the addition of Episodes I-III from 1999 through 2005 and the kick-off of Episodes VII-IX in 2015, the wealth of canonical material at a Disney Imagineer’s disposal only continued to multiply.

Image: Theme Park Tourist, Flickr (license)

Expanding the attraction’s scope in 2011 proved more problematic. George Lucas and Disney’s creative team wanted to utilize elements from the entire canon, and sandwiching Star Tours trips between the prequels and original trilogy seemed like a simple solution at first.

Problems arose when the Imagineers settled on Hoth as a potential destination. The Battle of Hoth takes place in Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, and one of its most iconic scenes involves the elephantine Imperial walkers taking on a Rogue Squadron of Rebel Snowspeeders. Because the battle is set outside of Star Tours’ established timeline, it wasn’t eligible for inclusion in the attraction. Disney tried to work around the issue, creating several alternative timelines that introduced riders to Hoth’s native wampas and tauntauns, but when they ran the idea by Lucas, he was dissatisfied with the result. In the end, they devised an elaborate backstory that involves a pre-Episode V Rebel team of scouts who encounter Imperial forces as they scope out the icy terrain.

Further complications emerged after the release of Episode VII: The Force Awakens. Not only was a non-canonical storyline created, during which Finn assists the StarSpeeder 1000 in fending off several First Order TIE fighters, but the scene was inserted at the beginning of every Star Tours flight during Tomorrowland’s “Season of the Force” revamping in 2015. Riders were subjected to fractured storylines that spanned the events of Episode III through Episode VII, sometimes featuring Finn and a very non-dead Darth Vader in the same trip.

Image: Disney

Following the addition of a skirmish on Crait and a brief jaunt around Batuu (uncharted territory within the Star Wars universe and the future site of Star Wars Land), it looks like Imagineers are trying to limit the potential mix-ups within Star Wars’ established timeline. Even if it’s not strictly canon, it certainly makes sense to confront Kylo Ren in the hangar, pal around with Finn on Jakku and take on the First Order AT-M6 walkers on Crait before seeking refuge on Batuu.

But that still leaves things a bit muddled during some of the Star Tours missions that feature familiar places and characters from Episodes I-VI. For example, passengers might run into Darth Vader while idling in the spaceport, then race alongside notorious Podracer pilot Sebulba in the Boonta Eve Classic and later receive a hologram from Princess Leia — a sequence that doesn’t exactly jive with Star Wars canon.

Aligning random Star Tours flights with Star Wars canon might be trickier than it seems

Image: Disney

Today, the issue with bringing all Star Tours missions back into their proper place within the Star Wars series is that it would potentially force Imagineers to eliminate much of the randomization that gives the attraction its unique appeal. Instead of completely randomizing the individual elements of the ride — opening sequence, primary destination, hologram and ending sequence — the elements would need to be prepackaged into missions that follow a more linear timeline.

With this model, far fewer adventures would be available and the basic plot of the ride would become much easier to predict once passengers glimpsed their first destination. While this presents an immediate challenge, especially for an attraction that relies on constant variation to stay fresh and exciting, it also offers interesting opportunities to further develop the beloved series. Entirely new plot lines could flourish, expanding Star Tours’ flight path to Endor, Bespin, Dagobah, D’Qar and Takodana, among other corners of the galaxy. Not only would guests get to choose between pre- and post-Episode VII flights, but they could partake in missions that more fully and accurately incorporate iconic moments in Star Wars canon.

Image: Disney

Given the many alterations Disney has made to the attraction over the last six years, a few more tweaks to its crisscrossing timelines could be well within the realm of possibility. On the other hand, maybe this is the real question: Does it matter? Aside from those who keep close tabs on the intricacies of a galaxy far, far away, does seeing Sebulba and Leia on the same voyage spoil most guests’ enjoyment of the ride? Should it?

The short answer: Probably not. After all, half the fun of Star Tours is its choose-your-own-adventure feel, even if that means it sometimes gets its wires crossed with the prequels and original trilogy. Preserving both the accuracy of the Star Wars canon and the element of surprise is certainly doable, but may not be a high priority on Disney’s list as they prepare to debut a slew of new attractions over the next two years. For now, all we can really do is sit back and enjoy the ride… even if it requires suspending our disbelief more than goofy Gungans and hyperspace travel already ask us to.