Every New Star Wars Location And Character Added To Disney's Star Tours Ride
Disney's theme parks launched new experiences for their original "Star Wars" ride this week. Star Tours: The Adventures Continue is the second iteration of the attraction that originally opened at Disneyland Park in 1987. The first version of the ride was a consistent experience that put audiences inside a motion-simulated ship piloted by a droid voiced by Paul Reubens. The ride took park-goers right into the middle of a Death Star attack and was unlike anything anyone had ever seen. An ever-popular attraction, it was updated in May of 2011 to its current iteration. Instead of a single movie ride, new technology allowed Lucasfilm and Disney Imagineers to randomize the process. Now, with the updated system, your voyages could be randomized and it was easy for new updates to be made.
As new movies in the Skywalker Saga were subsequently released, new locations were added to the ride. "The Force Awakens" brought Jakku to Star Tours, with "The Last Jedi" bringing Crait, and "The Rise of Skywalker" similarly adding Exegol and Kef Bir to the mix. However, there haven't been any new additions since the Skywalker Saga concluded in 2019 — until now, that is.
Ahsoka and her crew
While Star Tours has always brought park-goers to many places, all of those destinations were previously taken directly from the nine films of the Skywalker Saga (and everything else came from the theatrically released "Star Wars" features only). With this most recent update, though, the world of "Star Wars" television and animation has finally come to life on Star Tours.
The only new location that's been added to Star Tours this time around is the planet Seatos, which was first seen in the "Ahsoka" television show. It's where Ahsoka was able to chase Morgan Elsbeth to a new galaxy with the help of the giant space whales known as the purrgil. As a passenger, it's thrilling to weave through the purrgil and get to see them up close, with Ahsoka on the screen calling out instructions to R2-D2 and C-3PO. In fact, the ride even includes a touching moment where Ahsoka tells Artoo it's nice to see him again, which got me a little choked up after 15 years of seeing them interact in the canon across various cartoons.
Seatos itself is a terrific addition and fits in completely with the aesthetic and adventure of the rest of the ride. Though it doesn't maintain the adherence to the Skywalker Saga as all of the previous additions did, let's hope this opens the door for locations from other movies like "Solo: A Star Wars Story," as well as "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story."
But the new location isn't all that's been added.
New holograms
One of the fun additions to Star Tours that came with this latest redesign is the ability to receive holographic messages from beloved characters across the "Star Wars" franchise. Princess Leia, Yoda, and Admiral Ackbar provided the first holographic messages for the ride, while Poe Dameron, BB-8, Maz Kanata, and Lando Calrissian were added later (with the original actors generally reprising their roles). This latest update expanded the holograms further into the realm of Disney+ shows, bringing us Cassian Andor, Din Djarin and Grogu, and Ahsoka Tano herself.
The holograms come at a point in the ride that allows the rider to catch their breath and engage them in the broader story. The holographic entities offer new coordinates for the riders of Star Tours to head to in order to help the Rebellion or Resistance in the fight against evil.
Each of the new additions has a different flavor. The Cassian Andor hologram (Diego Luna) has a grave urgency to it that feels very much in line with the tone of "Rogue One" and "Andor." I couldn't help but notice a tingle up my spine with the gravitas that Luna employed to deliver his holographic message for the ride.
Ahsoka was added as well, and she offers a ray of hope, along with cameos and a more lighthearted tone. In the background of Ahsoka's hologram, you can see Huyang — David Tenant's character from "Ahsoka" and "The Clone Wars" — as well as everyone's favorite murder droid, Chopper. He's such a fan favorite that when he appeared on the ride, the entire ship cheered in surprise and delight.
The last hologram that got added really pushed the 3D effects to their maximum and brought Din Djarin and Grogu to the ride. It's almost hard to remember what the Mandalorian was saying because your attention is fixed on Grogu, who levitates before eating a frog. In the end, he spat the frog out at the audience and it got everyone to flinch.
The escape
There was one more element added to the ride for this iteration, and it involves the very first scene. Ordinarily, Stormtroopers and either Darth Vader or Kylo Ren will appear to stop your transport. Sometimes, in the background, you'll see the Millennium Falcon taking off to make an escape, at which point Artoo guides the Starspeeder 1000 to chase it. The new intro replaces the Falcon with Ahsoka's T6 Jedi Shuttle from the "Ahsoka" television series. Seeing it in action was quite beautiful and it added one more immersive element to the ride.
The future of Star Tours
With this new batch of additions to Star Tours, it feels safe to assume we'll be getting more updates as more theatrical films are released. Might that include an older Rey from the New Jedi Order film? Or perhaps more of Din and Grogu to coincide with "Star Wars" returning to theaters with "The Mandalorian & Grogu" in 2026? It's easy to imagine the possibilities, all of which would serve to make Star Tours a fresh experience for as long as the ride itself is around.
The only complaint I might have is that the original intent of the first batch of Star Tours rides came with the conceit that the experiences could somehow be canon and that they all took place during a specific era of "Star Wars," placing them during the dark times chronicled in the first two "Star Wars" trilogies. That started to change a bit with the inclusion of the sequel movies, to the point where now some of the combined experiences just don't make sense. For example, I got a version of the ride that featured Ahsoka across its entirety, including her escaping, offering us a mission, and then finding her way to Seatos. It's simply unclear how it all fits together. The original release also sort of implied there would be locations from "The Mandalorian," "Andor," and "Ahsoka," as opposed to just "Ahsoka" (as thrilling as it is to visit Seatos).
Overall, though, those are minor quibbles. As a kid, Star Tours was the closest I thought I'd ever feel to taking a step into the "Star Wars" universe, and now I frequent it as often as I can to visit new corners of it.
Star Tours: The Adventures Continue is currently operating at Disneyland, Disney World's Hollywood Studios, and Disneyland Paris.