'Star Wars: Rise Of The Resistance' Ride Details Confirm Early Rumors; Here's What To Expect
Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is being touted as "one of the most ambitious, advanced and immersive experiences ever undertaken by Walt Disney Imagineering." The ride – the second major attraction at Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, after Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run – is set to open later this year at Walt Disney World and early next year at Disneyland, but we don't have to wait that long to find out what to expect.
A new report confirms several of the Rise of the Resistance ride details we heard about back in January.
Today, the Disney Parks blog showed off the first official image from Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance (the header image above), along with a generic description about what guests will experience when they ride it:
This harrowing adventure will blur the lines between fantasy and reality and will put you in the middle of a climactic battle between the First Order and the Resistance. You will join the Resistance and depart from Batuu in a transport ship to meet General Leia Organa at a secret rendezvous point. Along the way, however, you will be captured by a First Order Star Destroyer. The action then ramps up as you seek to escape the clutches of Kylo Ren and the First Order – with the help of some heroes of the Resistance.
Mashable actually got a tour of the upcoming attraction and has a much more detailed breakdown of what happens during the ride, much of which lines up with these rumors from earlier this year. After encountering BB-8 in the "secret" Resistance base just outside of the Batuu space port, guests will see a hologram of Rey (Daisy Ridley) asking them to join the Resistance and meet General Organa, plus a message from Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), who says he's ready to join the guests off-world.
Next, Mashable describes how you "step into an outdoor boarding area featuring Dameron's signature black X-Wing — engines still steaming, a Poe-like helmeted figure hovering in the cockpit. Ahead is the Resistance transport, another fully-realized spacecraft, conveniently placed next to an apparent mountainside." We have a photo of that area from a Galaxy's Edge model that was unveiled a couple of years ago:
After you enter the transport and are captured by the First Order, the transport vehicle sneakily spins around so when you exit the way you came in, you walk out into the massive Star Destroyer hanger seen in that first image at the top of the page, with legions of Stormtroopers lining the huge hall.
From there, guests enter a six-person vehicle driven by an R5 droid, who ultimately releases you into an escape pod, which "will literally drop, Tower of Terror-style, to properly convey the sickening lurch of falling out of the Destroyer."
Some Rise of the Resistance footage that debuted in a commercial shown at D23 included a scene in which Kylo Ren's red lightsaber sliced through the roof of a pod, and at the time, I speculated that may have just been some flashy footage meant specifically for the commercial, not something that would actually happen on the ride. But I stand corrected, because according to Mashable, "At some point, Kylo Ren will attempt to gain access to the pod, and a red lightsaber slices through the ceiling. The jury is still out on how realistic that looks, however, as it wasn't part of our preview."
That's all the specific information the outlet had to share about the experience, but if you want a beat-by-beat breakdown, click here.
Rise of the Resistance, one of the largest rides in Disney's history, will open on December 5, 2019 at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Florida and January 17, 2020 at Disneyland park in California.