Hyperspace Mountain
| Hyperspace Mountain | |
|---|---|
| Park | Hong Kong Disneyland |
| Land / area | Tomorrowland |
| Type | Indoor steel roller coaster |
| Opened | June 11, 2016 (as Hyperspace Mountain); September 12, 2005 (as Space Mountain) |
| Designer | Walt Disney Imagineering
|
| Status | Operating |
Hyperspace Mountain is an indoor steel roller coaster in Tomorrowland at Hong Kong Disneyland. It is the park's version of Space Mountain, permanently rethemed to Star Wars: riders are briefed by Admiral Ackbar and sent on a reconnaissance mission toward an Imperial Star Destroyer near the planet Jakku, only to be caught in a dogfight between Rebel X-wings and Imperial TIE fighters. The coaster itself dates from the park's opening day, September 12, 2005, when it operated simply as Space Mountain; the Star Wars version opened on June 11, 2016, and unlike the seasonal overlay in California it has remained in place ever since.[1]
History
Hong Kong's Space Mountain was modelled on the rebuilt Space Mountain at Disneyland in California, which had reopened in 2005 after a long refurbishment: the Hong Kong ride shared the California layout and a similar onboard soundtrack, and added show elements of its own, including a "hyperspeed" tunnel effect. It was built by Vekoma, and its white conical show building became the visual anchor of Tomorrowland. The boarding area was notably more compact than those of its sister rides, decorated with neon-lit planet models and star patterns rather than a full space-station scene.[2]
The ride's first alternate identity arrived at Halloween. Space Mountain: Ghost Galaxy, a seasonal overlay built around a nebula ghost pursuing the trains, premiered in Hong Kong in 2007 — the first park to receive it — and returned each Halloween season through 2013.
The Star Wars overlay came later and from further away. Hyperspace Mountain debuted at Disneyland in California in November 2015 as part of the Season of the Force event tied to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Hong Kong adopted it on June 11, 2016, as the centrepiece of a Star Wars Tomorrowland Takeover staged during the resort's tenth-anniversary celebrations. Where California treated the overlay as temporary programming, Hong Kong — like Disneyland Paris, which followed in 2017 — made the change permanent, refurbishing the queue in grey-and-white Star Wars colours and installing a full-size X-wing replica, while keeping some of the original planet models and star patterns in place.
Experience
The premise is set in the queue and pre-show: Admiral Ackbar recruits riders to fly a reconnaissance vessel and survey a Star Destroyer reported near Jakku. The mission goes wrong almost immediately, and the bulk of the ride plays out as a space battle, with projected and physical scenes of X-wings and TIE fighters exchanging fire around the trains as they race through the darkened building to a Star Wars score.
Underneath the theming, the ride remains the 2005 coaster: a single-track indoor layout of banked turns and drops in near-darkness, ridden in trains with onboard audio. The Star Wars scenes replaced the original stars-and-galaxies effects, but the ride's character — fast, smooth and disorienting rather than extreme — is unchanged from its Space Mountain years, and it remains Tomorrowland's headline thrill ride alongside the park's newer Marvel attractions.