A long time ago… Star Tours took flight at Disneyland with a 60-hour party! It was on this day in 1987 that guests could first hop aboard a Starspeeder 3000 for an exhilarating trip to Endor, even if that meant waiting in a line which stretched from Tomorrowland, down Main Street and past the Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln theater.
Today is January 9th, 2008… Star Tours is 21 years old! And to celebrate we’ve got a very special message which came in just under the wire as our last Celebrity Greeting for the 20th, or our very first for the 21st, you be the judge!
Read on for a very personal memory from Lucasfilm’s Mary Franklin…
Soon after Star Tours opened, I traveled to Disneyland from the remote Montana ranch, where I was a cowgirl. I loved Star Wars, but didn’t have a chance on the ranch to see or do anything with the GFFA (galaxy far, far away) beyond the very few books and comics that were out then. I didn’t even have a television set or VCR.
Compared to my isolated life on the prairie with the cattle, Disneyland was sensory overload. I couldn’t believe all those people and rides and other attractions were all in one place. I recall I was even impressed with Mission to Mars.
Until I got on Star Tours that is. I remember standing in line and being wowed simply by what was going on around me. Listening to Artoo and Threepio, and reading the travel posters was magical. It already seemed I was in another world, so traveling in the Star Wars world wasn’t such a big stretch.
I might have gone on Star Tours half a dozen times that day. I purchased one of each of the Star Wars travel posters, ©1986, and brought them home and framed them. Several times over the years when friends came to visit someone pointed to the Tatooine poster of Jabba’s palace and said, “Where is that? I want to go there.”
You can go there from here. With a little help from Star Tours.
Mary Franklin
Events Manager
Lucasfilm Ltd.
Steve Sansweet has just joined the ‘elite club’ of Celebrity Greeters. Sending in not only his greetings, but also pointing us to a Wall Street Journal article he once wrote about the opening of Star Tours. You can read both, for free, right here on this site, just click on the links in this article.
Daniel Wallace, known from various Star Wars books, is no newcomer to Star Tours. He has written quite a bit of official backstories about Star Tours droids! He also send his greetings to our favorite attraction. Check out the brand new Celebrity Greetings archive in the Special Features menu to read what he, and other celebs have to say about Star Tours!
Another feature has been posted in the 20th Anniversary Section. Check the special features on the right for more!
Jeremy Bulloch, known from his role as Boba Fett in the original trilogy also sends his regards of the 20th Anniversary.
A Happy 20th Anniversary to all at “Star Tours”
It is always enjoyable to do the ride when we are at Disney.
Keep up the good work.
From the baddest “Bounty Hunter” Boba Fett”
Jeremy
One of our researchers, Alex Newborn, has posted a brand new article with a retrospective of the Interplanetary Launch Premiere Party’s sneak preview skit — a short sketch performed at Disneyland which marked the very first meeting between Disney characters and Star Wars characters! Check our special 20th Anniversary feature page on the right to read it!
Anthony Daniels, known to all of us as C-3PO in every Star Wars installment possible, has written us with a celebration note.
Can you believe it was twenty years ago today that Star Tours opened in Anaheim, CA’s Disneyland theme park? We could scarcely believe it ourselves!
Since this is THE place for Star Tours information on the internet, we’ve decided to go all out with loads of brand-new exclusive content, a bold new graphic look, and the same careful research you’ve come to expect from our expert contributors!
Webmaster Kris is hard at work on a new 20th Anniversary layout for this website. Researcher Brian Curran is poring through a plethora of photographs, and our own Star Tours-obsessed Alex Newborn is giving our readers unprecedented access to the materials in his extensive collection.
In the coming days, you can expect new articles on the opening ceremonies of Star Tours, new transcripts from 1987, exclusive interviews with fans who were actually there on Opening Day, tons of new pictures, celebrity greetings, and MORE!
Check back soon and check back often, because just like the opening of the ride itself, we realized we’ve got too much material for you to take in all in one day. Disneyland had a sneak preview on the 8th, a 60-hour non-stop party, and cast premieres which lasted until the 16th, so keep visiting swstartours.net all this week for more, more, more Star Tours than ever before!
A very cool 20th Anniversary Star Tours Pin has been spotted on eBay. This Disneyland Exclusive is a Limited Edition of 1000!
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