Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
| Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance | |
|---|---|
| Park | Disney's Hollywood Studios |
| Land / area | Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge |
| Type | Trackless dark ride / motion simulator / drop ride |
| Opened | December 5, 2019 |
| Designer | Walt Disney Imagineering |
| Height req. | 40 in (102 cm) |
| Status | Operating |
Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is a multi-system dark ride in Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Walt Disney World, Florida. Opened on December 5, 2019, it places riders inside a conflict between the Resistance and the First Order in the period between the films The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker. Rather than a single ride system, the attraction combines walk-through scenes, a motion simulator, a trackless dark ride and a short drop, and a near-identical version opened at Disneyland Park on January 17, 2020.
History
Disney announced large Star Wars lands for both Florida and California in 2015. Galaxy's Edge itself opened at Hollywood Studios on August 29, 2019, with only Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run operating; the second attraction was held back for a separate opening later in the year. When Rise of the Resistance opened that December, it did so to considerable operational attention: demand in its first months was managed through a virtual queue that assigned boarding groups at park opening, a system later replaced by a conventional standby line alongside paid individual Lightning Lane access.
The scale of the show building, hidden behind the rockwork at the edge of Black Spire Outpost on the planet Batuu, reflects the length of the experience. The full sequence, from the first pre-show to the final unload, runs for roughly 18 minutes and uses about 65 Audio-Animatronic figures, alongside projected and filmed performances.
Experience
Riders first gather in a Resistance encampment, where BB-8 appears and a holographic Rey delivers a briefing: volunteers are to leave Batuu and carry word of the Resistance position to General Leia Organa. Outside, riders board a transport piloted by the Mon Calamari Lt. Bek, with Poe Dameron flying escort in an X-wing. The transport is intercepted, drawn into the hangar of a First Order Star Destroyer by tractor beam, and riders step out beneath a row of about 50 stormtroopers in one of the largest enclosed show scenes Disney has built.
Captured riders are taken to a cell block, questioned in the presence of Kylo Ren and General Hux, and then broken out by Resistance infiltrators. They board eight-passenger First Order fleet transports, each driven by an R5 droid, for the trackless portion of the ride. The transports move between rooms without a visible track, passing probe droids, AT-AT walkers seen from below and between their legs, a bridge confrontation with Kylo Ren, and a hangar of cannons firing at a space battle outside. The escape ends in a motion-base drop as the transport enters an escape pod and falls back toward Batuu, landing in a wrecked hangar where Lt. Bek congratulates the survivors.
Design
The trackless vehicles follow guidance embedded in the floor, which allows two transports to travel together, separate, reverse and rejoin within the same scene. Because the vehicles are not fixed to a path visible to riders, repeat rides can feel different depending on which transport and which side of a scene a rider occupies. Characters including Rey, Finn, Poe Dameron, Kylo Ren and Nien Nunb appear through a mixture of animatronics, projections and filmed footage recorded with the film cast.