First and foremost, I agree that the original Star Tours needed updating. Although it was a delightful little adventure in the Star Wars universe, its age was showing. The film looked deteriorated, the tourists in the safety videos were eye-poppingly 80s-ish, the 2D nature of the film limited its immersive abilities, and the lack of material from the prequels meant (sadly enough) that certain younger guests might actually feel a little alienated. Not to mention the fact that it was one single film, which is always going to limit the re-rerideability factor. So the idea of revamping Star Tours was fantastic, IMO.
Now that that's happened and I've experienced the fruits of Disney's labor enough times to process it a bit, I can confidently say that this overhaul is an extremely mixed blessing. Not for Disney...the line is always at least an hour or two long, FastPasses are running out after a just few hours, fans generally love the new attraction...and all this is with most annual passes blocked out. It's a home run for them. But it's a mixed blessing for me, and to explain why, I'll start with the bad.
THE BAD
One of the most surprising disappointments with this refresh is the downgrades in the queue. The extended queue has lost its spaceport theming and exposed PeopleMover track tunnel, and Disney has instead wrapped some temporary-looking metallic panels around the walls with a digitally-painted sci-fi cyclorama near the ceiling. (No offense to whoever created the image of Coruscant, but overlaying some darkened aerial photos with a few glowy circles and some fuzzy airbrush work in Photoshop does not a planet make.) Later, the baskets of interesting junk overhead are gone, along with the other views of the PeopleMover track. We're also treated to a rather annoying parade of projected shadows of aliens, humans, and droids on one of the wall panels. I guess it'd be okay-ish if not for the incessant visual gags and inaccurate depiction of light sources, though I did enjoy seeing the shadow of Jar Jar encased in carbonite.
Wherever you see new CG in this new attraction, it disappoints without fail. It starts with the big screen in the queue, which occasionally shows exterior views that look about as photorealistic as your average circa 2006 pre-rendered video game cutscene. Then we're later treated to new videos before boarding, which feature the droid Aly San San and some less-than-convincing shots of the Starspeeder and its pilot. (Am I seeing things, or is 3PO also CG when he's shown entering the cockpit?) Sadly, the ride film is no better. The entire thing feels very much at home in the prequel universe, except with somewhat inferior visual effects. It's a big digital fantasy. Gone is the battered real-world credibility of the original, which was extremely consistent with the feel of the original trilogy. What you see in the new Star Tours is an almost completely computer-generated universe in which a few live action performances are composited, and that's honestly what it looks like from start to finish. It's impossibly crisp and sleek. I've got absolutely nothing against CGI in and of itself, but my word, do I miss the days when practical models were used for things like this. Even the destinations themselves have a lot more to do with the prequels than with the OT, although I suppose I'll feel a little differently once I've seen Admiral Ackbar, Hoth, and the Death Star. There are even some hints of modern Lucas humor in there - pit droids beating each other up, a mouse droid falling into a pit, stuff like that. It's so plainly supposed to be funny, and it's so plainly not.
When it comes to the aforementioned live action performances, I'm not very impressed. It's unfortunate that they couldn't get James Earl Jones to provide Vader's distinctive growlings, and while I understand that modern-day Carrie Fisher wouldn't exactly make a great Princess Leia, I find it hard to believe that they couldn't have found an actress who sounded more like her. (The visual likeness is actually quite good...but the "help me, Star Tours" line is just wrong.) [EDIT: According to Wikipedia and IMDB, James Earl Jones did the voice, but I refuse to believe that. IMDB also claims that that's Carrie Fisher's voice, when we know that absolutely can't be the case.] The live action elements generally don't look much more real than the CG environments they inhabit, probably due in part to the fact that it's really hard to match the lighting in a truly convincing way.
The perspective of the 3D never looks quite right to me. I'm thinking maybe it'll help to sit dead center in about the second row, but I haven't had a chance to try it yet. Basically, the camera lens seems a little too wide, at least from the seats toward the back, which detracts from the realism. As is usually the case, I find that the "infinitely" distant elements (starfields, distant terrain, etc.) don't look quite far enough, though I'm starting to think maybe I'm expecting too much there. It also feels like...I dunno, like the elements that are moderately close have had their stereoscopic proximity somehow increased, in order to maximize the difference between the background and the foreground, but it doesn't look quite real to my eye. I prefer a more naturalistic look. I'm real picky when it comes to stereoscopic stuff, though. And the issues are magnified in a few spots by discrepancies between the onscreen motion and the physical motion of the cabin, most notably in the two opening scenes, with the Vader scene being the worse offender. I'm glad I don't get motion sickness.
There's also the deeper issue of plot arc. The original Star Tours was planned out very, very well. You started with the chaotic "something goes horribly wrong" escape from the space port, which was followed by misadventures in a few Star Wars-inspired locales, and the attraction then culminated in joining the Rebels for the ultimate climax - destroying the (a?) Death Star. Immediately following this, you warped back to the space port and the adventure was over. All along the way, the music helped sell the emotional arc of the thing. (Now it just pops in and out, buried in the mix, often with strange choices of music.) With the new Star Tours, you've got a lot of different possible combinations, which is great, except that there's always a feeling at the end of..."Wait, it's over?" This is really a failure to construct the three final sequences more dramatically, in my opinion. (Actually, I've yet to experience the asteroids/Death Star ending, so that one could be different.) On Naboo, it's a big flurry of space combat and aquatic attacks and then you're suddenly in a random Theed hangar where we were apparently supposed to be. Wait, it's over? On Coruscant, it's a big flurry of space combat and dodging oncoming traffic and then you're suddenly landing on a random platform where we were apparently supposed to be. Wait, it's over? There's no sense of a climax. The action just ends.
Last but not least...who came up with the name? They should have kept the Star Tours II moniker and left it at that. "The Adventures Continue"? Really?
Okay, enough negativity.
THE GOOD
This is actually a really entertaining production. Although there were some serious problems with the queue, I appreciate a lot of the stuff in there - specifically, all the stuff that they kept from the original.
No, but seriously, the new travelogues are well done, the Captain Rex cameo is greatly appreciated, the baggage scan effect is just the sort of thing I love in theme park design, and the new safety video does a very nice job of mimicking the style of the original, minus the telltale signs that it was shot in the 80s. There are also some nice touches with the signage that help it feel more like a spaceport. The new signage outside is especially nice. And it does make sense that they needed to pick a cleaner aesthetic...in order to please the maximum number of fans, they needed to pick an approximate point on the Star Wars timeline that would allow elements from both trilogies, which meant splitting the difference between the two visual styles. I've also mentioned in the Star Tours thread that I appreciated Michael Giacchino's contributions...they really aren't heard too often or too loudly, but they do enhance the videos nicely.Despite the issues with the way the shots were constructed, the 3D technology in this attraction is truly impressive. I'm 100% sold on Dolby 3D...I'd say it's a big improvement over polarization-based techniques, which require a weird-looking silver screen and have more issues with ghosting and brightness discrepancies and whatnot. Honestly, this Dolby 3D doesn't suffer from any of that, which makes it a lot easier on the eyes and a lot less distracting. It's really a pleasure to look at, on the whole. They even made the design of the glasses a little more cosmetically interesting than you usually see with 3D glasses. And while the use of 3D for conventional cinema is of debatable merit, I do think theme parks are a perfect environment for (limited) use of 3D. The purpose here is genuine, realistic immersion, not so much a cinematic experience, and 3D is helpful in achieving that.
The four different video segments all flow together flawlessly. It's no big mystery where the junctions are, of course, but that's not a problem. The original was split up into segments in the same fashion. It gives the proceedings a nice three-act structure (albeit with a slightly longer break before the third act for the hologram in the current incarnation) and allows for numerous destinations on the same journey. They also did a nice job with the overall feel of the first two acts...as with the original, there's a "something goes horribly wrong" escape followed by an unexpected detour to another world, and that structure works nicely. It establishes an appropriately exciting tone for the attraction. I even like the decision to add the Rebel plot storyline, at least in principle. People get a kick out of seeing their unsuspecting friend or family member listed as an infamous Rebel, and the hologram before the last act was a nice attempt to give us (and the overheating hydraulic actuators) a break while setting up what could have a been a real climax. And while I do miss the OT-based material sorely, the prequel sequences that they chose to adapt for the attraction are indeed the ones most worthy of that honor.
The bottom line is that although I only planned on riding this attraction once today (with the FastPass I waited a good 5-10 minutes to get), I ended up deciding to get in the hour-long standby line immediately afterward. It IS fun. More fun than I initially gave it credit for. Being surrounded by enthusiastic guests helps...the first time I rode today, people were really ooh-ing and ahh-ing with the various jumps and jolts. And the panoply of different combinations does make repeated returns much more tempting...you want to experience them all! I know I'll be riding again in the weeks to come, trying to get to Hoth or the Death Star, or to see the Ackbar hologram. (I've seen everything else, as of today.)
THE VERDICT
Star Tours: The Adventures Continue is a slick, fast-paced jaunt through the world of the Star Wars prequels, with a few older elements fortunately included as well. It features impressive 3D technology and a staggering array of destinations but somehow never manages to feel real. It's sure to attract long lines for years to come, and I know I'll continue to return for more, but I can't help feeling some nostalgia for the original - for its more interesting queue, for its use of physical models in the visual effects, and for its more masterfully constructed emotional arc.
