Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge [Disney's Hollywood Studios - 2019]

QUEUE

Standby queue is long... nothing has been confirmed but the queue (both inside and outside) is guesstimated to hold about 3 hours of line... more or less.. Extended queue will start at the entrance and take over some of the walkway coming into the land. When that fills up, the line will back into Critter Country in the wide hungry bear walkway... it is expected to reach Splash Mountain. Once in the outside queue, loud radio calls can be heard and guests will get close to a large waterfall. Inside the caves, guests can find many props, costumes, and replicas from the movies. The cave is also etched in a way to create seating while you wait. FP is said to skip all of the outside switchbacks and most of the indoor cave scenes/props. However, FP will NOT miss/skip any pre-shows.

PRE-SHOW 1 (BRIEFING ROOM)

***NOTE: Once you arrive at this point, your wait is *technically* over. the next pre-shows/scenes will follow one after another until your ride ends. This is where the attraction begins and is said to last 15 minutes. The pre-shows shouldn't be compared to ToT or Guardians where you wait in more switchbacks/queue after the show ends.***

Inside the cave, FP and standby guests will arrive at the merge point. They will be funneled into a space where 1 of 2 sets of doors will open towards them (there are 2 preshow rooms). In this preshow, there will be a BB8 animatronic and a "hologram" of Rey. This "hologram" will be achieved using the Peppers Ghost effect. So basically images being reflected against clear class.. but apparently it looks really good. Rey will ask for your help and tell you to board the shuttle (ITS). Poe and BB8 are waiting in an X wing outside and will be alongside you throughout your flight. The doors open into an outside courtyard where you will pass Poe's X wing to your right. BB8 is on top and you will see Poe's silhouette in the drivers seat. In front of you are 2 cast members and the blue shuttle ready for you to board.

PRESHOW 2 (ITS)

You will walk up the ramp and board the main shuttle room. (There are 3 of these rooms that will rotate on a turntable... 1 in the courtyard, 1 in the star destroyer, and 1 "in flight"). The platforms capacity is over 50 guests, but only 48 will be loaded at a time. The room will rotate/move up to the show building once dispatched from an outside console. There are rumored to be *2* characters aboard the ITS. The floor will shake/move but it will overall be a smooth ride. You get sucked into the star destroyer and will see stormtroopers run to line up in their positions. The doors will open and you will see many animatronics already in position.

**NOTE: There is NO alternate experience for the shuttle. If it does not work, the entire attraction simply must go down. You may not skip it and walk into the star destroyer. If you're already inside the star destroyer at the time of the shuttle breakdown, you will proceed and finish the attraction. Anybody before that will not be able to experience the rest of the ride. This rule seems extremely problematic and may change in the future**

STAR DESTROYER/HANGAR

The doors will open and you will walk inside of the SD. To your left, you will see a ride vehicle with a droid in front just there for show purposes. You will be greeted by 2 first order officers and will be rushed into the next hallway. You will not be able to free roam inside of the star destroyer... in fact, you'll only be able to be in the large hangar for a couple seconds before you're moved to the next hallway. Inside the hallway, you'll be grouped into 4 different detention cells, 16 guests maximum in each one.

PRESHOW 3 (DETENTION CELL)

You are now being held captive by the first order and have been locked inside of your detention cell. Inside of the triangular room, you will look up to see Kylo and Hux on a catwalk talking about your captivity. This will be a screen. They plan on keeping you here and will deal with the fate of your existence at a later time. They leave and your group is left in a very solid room with no real way out. Suddenly, a loud and bright laser appears to start traveling across the room, cutting straight through the wall. The laser makes an outline and suddenly the wall aggressively breaks open! The resistance knew about your captivity and was already on a mission to break you out. As you walk through the destroyed cell wall, 2 hacked first order transport vehicles await you in the next room. The boarding process begins.

LOAD ROOM
The 3rd pre-show is now over. The solid wall next to you has been cut and destroyed by lasers (what is said to *apparently* be an extremely impressive practical effect) and you now find yourself in the next room with 2 droid powered vehicles, and 2 resistance dispatch cast members. Each detention cell has its own boarding room (4 total) w 2 vehicles.

*NOTE: Story time... each vehicle has an animatronic droid attached to the front. These droids did in fact belong to the first order but were just recently hacked by the resistance within seconds. This is a big problem.. these droids are clueless, don't know where they're going and will find themselves making wrong turns/getting us into sticky situations as they attempt to find escape pods.*

Dispatch System: Since there are 4 different dispatching rooms, there will be a virtual dispatch queue. Once both CMs push their dispatch buttons, the cars will enter a virtual queue and the vehicles will enter the attraction in the order they were dispatched.

Once dispatched, the vehicles will enter what is known as the disco/ballroom. They will be joined by 2 other empty vehicles (that belong to the first order) as our droids try to remain calm and pretend as if they're on the same team. Now what you wont know is that these empty vehicles are actually returning from unload to pick up more guests in their proper boarding rooms.

RIDE DETAILS AND SHOW SCENES
There are apparently many fast moving doors that will slam in your face as you make wrong turns. You will make another wrong turn and end up in the AT-AT room. Finn will be in animatronic form in this room, stormtrooper body, human face. The cars will separate and go their separate ways for a bit. Each of them will back into an elevator lift and will *aggressively* skyrocket upwards while being shot at with laser blasts (think mission breakout style launch). Each vehicle will have its own perspective of the AT-ATs while on the lift. The laser blasts will in fact appear to travel through thin air. The patents look confusing and the explanations on how this works weren't much better.. but from what I gathered, there will be dozens of rapidly moving fans spinning in show scenes that you wont see there. The fans will project laser blasts and when timed correctly in show lighting, will look like laser blasts in mid air. Think of those LED fans that can display holograms/images.

Once on the second floor, you'll accidentally enter on a private conversation between animatronic Hux and Kylo. They know about you breaking out. Kylo is angry and has been on the hunt to find you. Something happens and he notices the vehicle. The animatronic turns at you aggressively and all hell breaks loose.

You zoom out of there into the next room and suddenly Kylo is at the end of the hallway. He starts physically bolting, running towards your vehicle (this will be a very interesting practical/screen hybrid effect... I'll explain later). You are simultaneously moving backwards into an "elevator" and just as he is about to get you, the doors slam in his face at the last second. Your "elevator" simulates movement and you've escaped the confrontation.... so you think. Kylo jumps on top of your elevator and rams his saber through the ceiling just inches away from your face. He starts dragging the blade around the vehicle and creates burned metal gash marks across the ceiling (this will be a practical effect).

Now lets talk about that hybrid screen/practical effect. The running Kylo is actually a flat cutout that has a physical hand and saber attached to it. This cutout is attached to a fast moving sled on a track that will accelerate towards your vehicle. Kylo will actually be projected onto the cutout and will run towards you. With the projection and the physical hand, the line between screen and animatronic will be blurred. It apparently looks crazy with the lights on but will look great proper show conditions.

Next will come the gun room. The guns will jolt forward and blast into screens above you. Both vehicles will travel through the blasting guns like a game of frogger. You will feel the heat. vibrations of the gun blasts.

The finale is next... You are suddenly cornered by the last Kylo animatronic in the finale scene. You're almost at the escape pod when he catches you and you find yourself stuck with no other way to escape. Behind him is a giant window out to space. He uses the force to keep you from moving any further... Suddenly, in the window (screen) behind him, Poe comes flying in with his X wing and starts blasting the entire star destroyer. The room starts crumbling apart and giant (physical) pieces of building/rubble crash down in between you and Kylo. You've escaped his grip and now need to book it to the escape pods before the entire star destroyer falls apart with you in it. The escape pod is actually a simulator platform inside of a drop mechanism, surrounded by screens. Your vehicles quickly enter their own pods and you are suddenly ejected out of the star destroyer. This will be achieved with a drop down to the bottom floor. Not a "controlled" descent. A quick, thrilling, stomach lifting drop.

The video around you shows you crash landing into a giant metal cylinder recycling center on the planet of Batuu (there will be day/night mode). You will pull out of the pod and into the recycling site. This area is semi outdoors and has nice theming. You survived! You will unload and exit into the resistance forest. To give you a point of reference, once the unloaded vehicles are advanced from unload, they will enter the disco/ballroom and face the next set of guests before arriving back at load/detention cell.

The end.