George Lucas’ beloved characters from the epic space saga first flew onto Disney property on January 9th, 1987 at Disneyland in California. The first simulator ride of it’s kind in a theme park replaced the omnimover ride, Adventures thru Inner Space. The new thrill ride had a final cost of $32 million. It was double the amount it cost Walt to build all of Disneyland in 1955. Needless to say, the collaboration between George Lucas and Disney paid off and the attraction became a smash hit. But it seems that Lucas always intended the ride to be upgraded. To change from time to time, traveling to new exciting worlds. Yet the attraction never saw an upgrade until nearly 25 years later. Let’s look back on a history and the relationship between the film director and the mouse himself with the popular attraction known as Star Tours.
Captain EO was the first attraction to open at a Disney park with George Lucas’ name attached. The 3D film was a new story story about a space captain, played by Michael Jackson, and his ragtag space crew delivering a gift of song and dance to an evil supreme leader. The movie experience opened at Epcot on September 12th, 1986 and at Disneyland, right below Space Mountain, just six days after. To the public, this was the first Lucas/Disney collaboration. But Lucas began working on the original Star Tours attraction a few years prior to Captain EO’s premiere. At a press conference in 1987, Lucas said that he always wanted to work on an attraction with Disney, and he believed his talents and imagination would naturally fit for an attraction in Tomorrowland. He referred to Disney as the ‘Rolls-Royce’ of amusement parks and he was only willing to allow a company of that status to even come close to his characters from Star Wars. This opening day press conference at Disneyland is fascinating from today’s perspective. Lucas made three clear points throughout the press event. First, that the attraction would make no sense if it was in 3D. Secondly, that the attraction was intended to be upgraded from time to time. Finally, he expressed his confidence that his Star Wars attraction was the best Disney had ever developed. In fact, he half-way arrogantly boosts that Star Tours was far superior to attractions such as Space Mountain.
His comment about the attraction not suited for 3D came out of a question related to Captain EO. The public loved that the visionary director helped developed Disney’s 3D based attraction. It was natural for them to think that Lucas and Imagineers would continue down that path of using 3D with an attraction such as Star Tours. After all, this is a ride based on a film that pushed the boundaries of visual effects. But Lucas very clearly stated that 3D wouldn’t make sense, because guests were watching a film that was an image of what they were meant to be seeing out of a window. If something popped out in 3D and into the interior space of the starspeeder, this would imply that an object broke through the glass. We all know what would happen if a glass window on a spaceship breaks while traveling in outer space. We would die instantly. Imagineer Marty Sklar, also mentioned how a park guests claimed to have lost her glasses while riding in the back row because of the ride’s intensity. Another reason why wearing 3D glasses on the simulator wouldn’t work…back then at least. Lucas, and the rest of the panel, quickly brushed the silly question aside as if it was insignificant.
