The experience: Role playing…with roles!
The trick: Giving three different job options to players
Repeat value matters with theme park attractions. Ones that lack it rarely have longevity. With Smuggler’s Run, Disney’s done something unprecedented. They’ve introduced job classes for the attraction. You’ll select one of three cards moments before you enter the attraction.
Your choices are pilot, engineer, and gunner. You’ll actually have six different ride experiences rather than three, though. The cockpit has three rows, each with a left and right seat. The sides have slightly different roles. You can fly the Millennium Falcon six different times before you ever repeat a task!
The gunners have the most straightforward jobs on Smuggler’s Run. They fire lasers at TIE fighters and other enemies during the coaxium heist. Imagineers want guests to savor the environment, so they’ve made the assignment tasks extremely user-friendly. For example, auto-fire is the default setting, giving gunners a better chance of success.
How you perform directly correlates to what happens during your quest. When gunners fail to hit their targets, the ship may take damage. When this happens, the engineers come into play. These are the fixers in the cockpit. When something breaks, it’s up to the engineer to save the day. They’ll know that they’re up by seeing lights display in the cockpit, alerting them to impending dangers. The engineers are also in charge of the hooks that grab the trains carrying coaxium, which is arguably the most important job of all.
The strongest indication of the differences in jobs is in the pilot chairs. The left and right pilots control entirely different movements. On the left side, the pilot controls the horizontal motions of the Millennium Falcon, steering the vessel left and right. The other pilot controls the vertical, the up and down motions. This person also gets to perform the single most enjoyable action, boosting the vehicle into hyperspace.
Imagineers consciously decided to split the steering motions rather than giving a single pilot full control of the ship’s movement. They wanted to involve as many people as possible in determining the outcome of the mission. A pilot who could move the ship in all directions would have had too much influence on the final result of the smuggling quest.
The other remarkable aspect of the design is that each job role comes with a certain level of intensity. Engineering is the job that guests should pick when they want to do the least. The people in that job role can spend the largest amount of time admiring the beauty of the digitally rendered visuals.
The gunners fall into the middle category as a worthy choice for adrenaline junkies. The chance to blow up some members of the First Order is a lot of fun but not especially taxing for the most part. It’s the pilots who will feel the most frenzied during Smuggler’s Run. They must pay attention at all times, lest they drive into one of the environmental obstacles, thereby damaging the ship and lowering their final score. Speaking of which…
The experience: Working with your friends to aid the Resistance
The trick: Adding a gaming element to raise the stakes
You may not think of it that way, but when you ride Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run, you’re effectively inside a videogame. You’re a member of a six-player co-op team trying to steal some cargo in order to earn a few intergalactic credits from your pirate friend, Ohnaka.
When you enter the cockpit, you’re staring at a digital monitor. You won’t think of your perspective that way due to the quality of the immersive Imagineering techniques in place, though. The Millennium Falcon famously has a unique cockpit that juts out in a cone shape. The construction crew’s replica aided the gaming element of Smuggler’s Run. The angular sections of the cockpit became the viewing screen, just like in the movies. The difference is in what Disney does with them.
Disney asked ILMxLAB, Lucasfilm’s virtual reality entertainment team, to render the imagery that you see in the cockpit. It’s rendered in real-time using the Unreal gaming engine. That’s the same system utilized in blockbuster videogames like Fortnite Battle Royale, Gears of War 4, Kingdom Hearts III, Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds, and the Final Fantasy VII remake. In other words, it’s a hardcore gaming system for first-person perspective, which is also what Smuggler’s Run is.
In fact, this ride employs more complex graphics than anything that you can play in a videogame today. Eight NVIDIA Quadro P6000 GPUs power the digital film, and five QuadroSync projectors exhibit the film on the digital display monitors. That’s hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on the hardware alone. You’re watching the best possible video rendering of a Star Wars story, which explains why you’re so into it.
To amplify the adrenaline rush, Smuggler’s Run grades you at the end. You’ll receive a score that judges how well you’ve performed on the mission. You’ll earn bonuses for gaining additional coaxium, and you’ll have credits taken away from damaged incurred on the ship during the mission. Ohnaka has to pay for that, and he’ll pass the expense on to you.
The grading on this attraction is harsh because Smuggler’s Run is tough. Almost everyone fails their first few missions. Since it’s a co-operative game experience, you receive a group score…but it’s easy to tell who held up their end and who didn’t. You’ll never feel more embarrassed in your life than when the pirate overlord of Batuu kicks you out of the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon.
Comments
I think if the lines were not so long you could ride this thing a half dozen times and figure it out. From the engineers chair you get a blocked view and distracting lights. Apparently we did not do well (sorry to the other 4 strangers in board) and got teased with some alien life form and then kicked off the ship??? The land and the queue are magnificent, the 'ride' not worth the wait. Star Tours is a much more satisfying experience.