My Farewell Letter To Star Tours

Yesterday, as part of my process for getting ready to move to San Francisco, I made a quick visit to Disneyland to pay my final respects to an old friend who has been with me since I was nine years old. I'm speaking, of course, of the ride Star Tours

Disney's Star Tours ride, as we know it, will be closing forever on July 27th of this year. There will be no Star Tours at all for about a year, and then in 2011 a brand new Star Tours ride will be opening in its place. This new Star Tours will be a much needed update to the old ride. As much as I love Star Tours, I have to admit that it has become rather badly dated. It very much needs an overhaul, and while I am happy that it's finally getting one, I am still sad to see a long loved piece of my childhood going away forever. Originally, I was planning on attending the closing ceremonies that are planed for the ride. I wanted to ride Star Tours for the last time on its final day of operation. However, due to my getting a new job and moving up to San Francisco next week, I won't be able to be here for that. Instead, I decided to head over to the park last night and ride one of my favorite rides ever one last time before I leave, and before it leaves too.

I rode Star Tours twice last night, to be honest. Once just wasn't enough. I took forever to walk through the Queue too. I was snapping pictures and taking video to help me remember it all once its gone. A menagerie of fond memories welled up in me as I walked through that queue. Memories from the thousands of times I'd walked through it before with family and friends. I remembered the first time I ever went on the ride, and how excited I was. I remembered riding it with friends in high school and quoting the dialog along with the characters on the screen. I remembered all of the good times I've had on Star Tours and a small tear did well up in my eye, I'm not going to lie to you.

It really did feel like this tiny part of my life was going away forever. Star Tours has been around so long that I thought it would never go away. I've even been saying for years that the ride needed an update. Ever since the prequels came out, I've had conversations with friends where we discussed the changes we'd love to see made to the ride. I know that the ride does need this update, but now that it's here and I'm having to face the reality of never riding the original Star Tours ever again, a part of me is really sad that it has to go. To help me cope with this loss, I've decided to write a goodbye letter to Star Tours. It goes a little something like this:

Dear Star Tours,

For many years you have been a beloved friend of mine. You've always been there to welcome me to Tomorrowland with the promise of a fantastic voyage among the stars. Now though, you must go to be replaced by a newer, more fancy version of yourself. Sure, this new version may be technically superior to you as you are now, but it will never share the same place in my heart that I have reserved for you.

There's a lot I'm going to miss about you Star Tours. I'm going to miss the Mon Calamari technician working in the booth above the entrance. I'm going to miss the video screen promising all of these new Star Tours destinations to planets I'd never get to go to like Hoth. I'm going to miss quietly laughing every time a call goes out for passenger "Egroeg Sacul" and being forever amused by the fact that most people don't realize that's just George Lucas spelled backwards. I'm going to miss the banter of R2-D2 and C-3PO as they endlessly work to repair a Starspeeder 3000 that shows obvious signs of recent blaster damage to it's hull.

I'm going to miss the overly chatty service droids in Sector 2, who sing to themselves and have to put up with constant power shutdowns as they try to work. I'm going to miss always wondering what was going on behind that window that occasionally gets lit up by some sort of electrical tool. I'm going to miss looking for the lone R2 unit foot that hangs from the ceiling in the conveyor belt of random droid parts. I'm going to miss the R6 droid and the R1 droid that are hidden below the walkway, which you really have to look for to see.

I'm going to miss Rex's "remove before flight" sticker that is still attached to him as we take off. I'm going to miss seeing the Voyage To Innerspace microscope (the ride that Star Tours replaced in 1987) in the hanger by as we fly by it and almost crash into it. I'm going to miss never quite making it to the endor moon. I'm going to miss flying through a comet and always wondering why we don't fly out of the open hole to space that appears about halfway through the tunnel on the right hand side. I'm going to miss the Rebel X-Wing pilot who tells us we can't be in a combat zone because "it's restricted". I'm going to miss being told that one can easily escape an Imperial Star Destroyer's tractor beam by "easing off on your main thruster". Seriously, why didn't anyone tell that to the Captain of the Tantive IV (the ship that's captured at the beginning of the original Star Wars)?

I'm going to miss dogfighting with Imperial Tie Fighters and always wondering how those two TIE pilots that Rex shoots down feel about being killed by a fairly incompetent pilot droid. I'm going to miss almost running into the back of an X-Wing as we head towards the trench run. I'm going to miss hearing the line, "Red 24, Red 30, follow me!" and wondering where the hell these 30 X-Wings have been this whole time when I only saw three or four of them during the dogfight. I'm going to miss seeing the Death Star explode behind R2-D2 in the rear view camera shot. I'm going to miss wondering who that nameless hero of the Rebellion is who destroyed the third Death Star, but who never gets credit for it. I'm going to miss that fuel truck that we almost hit on the way back into the hanger bay. Finally, I'm going to miss that guy in his office who looks eerily like George Lucas, but who apparently isn't, as he ducks for his life thinking that we are about to crash into him. Dude, who has an office right at the end of an active flight line? You really need to request a transfer buddy. Just a thought.

You have been a part of my life for many years Star Tours, and I will always look back fondly on our adventures together. When you re-open again next year with your new face and your fancy 3D special effects, I will eagerly wait in what I'm sure will be an hours long ride to see all of the new things that you have to offer. Deep down though, I'm going to miss the old you. The dated you. The rundown cheesy you. I will still love the new you too, but I won't forget who you used to be, and the good times we had together.

P.S. When the hell are you going to make peace with the People Mover and let people ride through you again? I really miss the view from the other side of the Starspeeder 3000, and that one lone Stormtrooper who was always hanging out in that darkened corridor.