George Lucas, who was present when Star Tours first opened back in 1987, will be returning to Walt Disney World’s Disney Hollywood Studios for the ceremony to open Star Tours II: The Adventures Continue. The opening of the new version of the attraction is scheduled for May 20, 2011, which is the first of the Star Wars Weekends at the park. At 10am, there will be an opening ceremony which will include many different characters, dignitaries, actors such as Anthony Daniels who reprises his role as C3PO in the ride, and now Lucas.
The ride is being created for Disneyland and Walt Disney World at the same time, and while Lucas has not had a preview of the Florida version, he did get to ride the clone in California in February of this year and liked what he saw. No word on whether he’ll go on the Florida one or not while he is there.
The opening date for the Disneyland version is June 3, 2011, which is two weeks later. The reason for the delay is no doubt so that the celebrities and company officials can also attend that day as well. Daniels is scheduled to narrate the Star Wars in Concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on the 3rd and 4th of June, so he will most likely be there.
Star Tours II: The Adventures Continue was created by Disney with help from LucasFilms and Industrial Light and Magic. Riders are ushered into the Starspeeder 1000 which is a military type flight simulator. With the 3D glasses, they will experience any one of 54 different scenarios in a fully immersive environment. These will include the pod races and flights through Coruscant with other locations announced. And C3PO will be the pilot. Guess he got over his hatred for space flight. Other familiar characters will be in the ride as well including Darth Vader, Boba Fett, Yoda, Chewbacca, and even Princess Leia, although they may not all be in the same scenario, so riding often is good to “collect them all” as it were.
If you are planning on going to the Disney Hollywood Studios in Florida for the ceremonies, you may want to get there as early as possible (long before the opening time) as the number of Star Wars fans is most likely going to overrun the park’s attendance limit quickly that day, especially with Star Wars Weekend playing as well.
For those who can't make it, they will be streaming the ceremony live on the Official Star Tours Facebook Page and on Disney's YouTube Channel on May 20th at 10am.
