“Star Tours” is dead. Long live “Star Tours.”
The popular Disney theme parked ride based on “Star Wars” will close later this year. And will reopen next year with updates to include the prequel trilogy.
We’ve brought you news of this in the past, but now we know when the original will vanish forever.
The original will close in the California park on July 27 and in Florida September 8.
They will reopen sometime in early 2011 with new sequences that are rumored to include the podracing sequence from “Phantom Menace.”
As long as there is no JAR JAR!!!!
“The original will vanish forever…” Like so many other works connected to George Lucas…
When this ride opened they were supposed to to have each of the 4 ride vehicles with it’s own unique tour. You can still see a hint of this when leaving the ride with the travel posters that show Bespin, and Hoth as alternate travel locales.In the rush to open the ride, it was stated that these would be coming soon, now decades later they are actually going to bring in another version of the ride.
The ride still works for me in a lot of ways, and until you hit the loading area, the themeing still works for me. I hope they theme the loading area a little more, and keep the original tour running on at least one vehicle. I rather enjoy seeing Lucas cower in fear at the end of the current ride.
Does this mean its time to start unloading any Star Wars paraphernalia we still have lying around? Has the market for all that is Lucas past its peak?
No, Kurt. Star Tours is being revamped to reflect the current state of Star Wars.
Aside from that, Star Wars is far from dead. The Clone Wars cartoon is going strong and the plans for two new shows are still running. The first is a live-action show, and the second is an animated short style show.