WDW Disney's Hollywood Studios Discussion Thread

So it sounds like the park is using a boarding pass system again. I know that no solution is perfect and people will complain regardless but this sounds like the best possible solution. Good for them for doing it.

After watching the video, my only response is "holy crap"! I'm really looking forward to riding this now. The way Disney has integrated hi-def video with physical effects, sets, and animatronics is outstanding,

After watching the video, my only response is "holy crap"! I'm really looking forward to riding this now. The way Disney has integrated hi-def video with physical effects, sets, and animatronics is outstanding,

Yep, it's 100% immersive. Rides like Spidey, Transformers, etc, all depended on the high-sided cars to force your view to a certain area. This is all around you literally the entire experience. There are no black walls with projectors in the ceiling or behind you. It's unbelievable.

I’m not much of a Star Wars fan, but this looks beyond awesome!! Like Chuck said “Holy Crap!”

It is really fair to call this a “ride”, or should it be labeled an “experience”?

Probably gonna head to Disneyland and check it out in late February/early March, before “Spring Breaks” starts to check it out.

I'm curious how the Single Rider queue works for this attraction. Actually, is there Single Rider for this,

and does it bypass some of the stuff you'd see in the Standby Queue?

In DL: Is the left opening an exit? And is the entry on the right just for Standby?

I forget what's been posted about this entry gate to the attraction.

I'm curious how the Single Rider queue works for this attraction. Actually, is there Single Rider for this,

and does it bypass some of the stuff you'd see in the Standby Queue?

In one of the vids I've seen it looks like there's a separate line once you're inside the star destroyer, before being broken up to the groups for the main ride. Perhaps there's the standby, singles, and fastpass lines out front, they all merge for the hologram room and transport, then fastpass gets a secondary bypass on the star destroyer while singles remain with standby.

Then again, how about I shut up and let someone who's been there provide accurate information.

Yesterday there were only two lines I saw, Standby and Fastpass. I did not see a Single Rider line. I am working on a trip report now and will look more carefully.

This looks absolutely bonkers! I can't wait to try it out!

Oh Nooo's. Panic ! Oh Noo's Tonight, while watching the local news here in Fla, the headlines were that "Riders had to be evacuated from new ride failure at Disney" OFFS, it was a stupid video where the riders were walked off their car and down some steps to exit. The ride was back up after the reset.

What I like most about this is that you don't have to know Star Wars to appreciate it. The story tells itself well with all the tech and immersion, which is what I think the land sorely needed as a whole (I would guest most people know Star Wars from the recognizable items like Millennium Falcon, Chewy, lightsabers, R2D2, and Stormtroopers and don't fully appreciate the details the land has from the newer movies) to feel complete.

TPR's "We know very little about Star Wars" Rise of the Resistance Photo Trip Report!

I wanted to post a bit of a ride trip report for all of you because this ride is legit super amazing. As I posted on Twitter, the ride is good enough to be at Tokyo Disney!

Ok, keep in mind I do not know a lot about Star Wars and in fact only rode the Millennium Falcon ride for the first time yesterday. I knew (from what we knew about this ride) that it would be awesome, and I hoped that my indifference towards the theme would be eclipsed by an amazing ride. It was. Very similar to how I feel about Tokyo Disneyland's Pooh ride, I'm not a fan of the Pooh characters at all but the ride is amazing enough that it stands on its own. Rise does even more so.

Ok, so let's take a little photo trip through the ride shall we!? Feel free to ask me any questions while it's all fresh in my head. Oh, and make sure to watch our video over and over! Seriously don't worry about 'spoilers', the ride is so good and there is so much to see, and no pictures or video will ever do it justice so it will still be super awesome once you actually ride!

Here's the entrance. Similar to the Avatar rides, more immersive, less giant ride signs.

Ride restrictions:

Super themed FastPass touch points. Keep in mind the ride is NOT using FastPass right now and there is no announcement about when that will start.

We made sure to go through the Standby and the FastPass queue. Unlike Flight of Passage, the Rise FastPass queue does not skip anything super amazing.

At this point you get to your first preshow. There are two separate rooms. We did both and they appear to be mirror images of each other. It's a decent preshow with an animatronic BB8, screens, and better screens. It's explained that some bad guys are on the way and you need to evacuate. It's explained much better than this but that is my non Star Wars knowing anything synopsis.

Rey telling BB8 to get back to work!

I have no idea who these guys are but they're somewhat important to the ride and I just love how smug the one dude looks here!

So when you exit this first preshow there are resistance fighters (cast members) waiting to hurry you into the next preshow. At this point you are back outside again!?! I really love how this ride went from outdoor to indoor to outdoor to indoor to outdoor, it's just so messed up in a good way!!!

So the next 'preshow' is actually a ride! You are hurried into an escape ship that is standing only and you are urged to hang on to some of the guide rails that are around the ship. It's a 'mild' simulator but made to feel more crazy due to the fact that you're standing up with no restraints and little to hold on to! Again there are animatronics, screens, physical sets all on your ship! It's impressive and it moves! Shockingly your escape does not go to plan and there are space battles and tractor beams and you end up being sucked up by a very bad guy ship. Like the death star but longer and not a sphere. Again, did I mention I know nothing of Star Wars and yet loved every second of this entire experience?!! As you are told to prepare to be boarded the doors open and stuff starts getting even worse!

Hey look we're outside again!

Now back inside on a space ship!

Our pilot was pretty good until that tractor beam got us.

Rearview of space.

Bad guy ship.

When the doors open and you see this, you know that things are not exactly going your way.

So now you're getting yelled at by the bad guys. Wait, they're called the First Order I think!?!? They're scary, very Nazi like, and they stay in character. These are not your normal friendly Disney Cast Members...these are scary space bad guys. Oh, and you're now in a giant space ship hangar. This is the picture that's been making the rounds for a month or two now. The scale is like nothing you've seen before. It's giant. I mean, you're on a killer giant space ship that has sucked in your space ship and has other space ships inside of it so I guess it has to be big right?! So there are a lot of StormTrooper guys in this room. Some move, some don't, it's mildly terrifying. There's also various space ships that I think have names after letters? A wing, X Wing, etc.

Ok, I need to point this out. This is a ride vehicle here in this room. I don't know if it's real or just a model, but that's the attention to detail on this ride. If there are all of these ride vehicles around that are used for transport on the ship, why do you only see them at the ride!?! Nope, you see them here first!

Again, the scale of this attraction.

That's the good ship you just got off of now inside the big bad ship.

More space ships in the hangar.

You are then directed to some scary hallways to be put into cells to await your interrogation. Interrogations usually aren't fun so it's still a bit scary. There is another split here. And this is where things get a bit more complicated. We rode the 'right side split' four times and the 'straight ahead split' only once. We felt that the two sides were DIFFERENT! Different car movements, starting backwards instead of forwards etc. You always load two cars at a time and one car we felt had a far superior path...the 'front car' or Blue color on the right side split (front seat of front car) if it's still the same and you want to request it. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First you have to survive being thrown in a cell and getting interrogated by a sadly completely covered up Kylo Ren (not the topless high waisted pants version). The cell is preshow number 3 for those of you counting at home! So you get put in the cell and there are no obvious ways out, you get yelled at, and then the resistance once again comes to your rescue and light sabers you out of a wall! It's a great effect! Now you get ready to board the actual ride!

Space hallway.

Are they real, animatronic, or projections!? Sometimes on this ride you can't tell!

Scary First Order bad guy cast members. Note the colors on the floor, that is how you are divided into boarding groups for the different rows and cars. Again, after five rides, I recommend 'Blue'.

We're in a cell now with a storm trooper and bars on one side...

and a dead end on the other.

More bad guys show up to taunt us while imprisoned.

Ok, so you're now in your escape pod to get you off the scary non-death star bad guy ship and you've got a droid and many resistance dudes to help, everything will be fine right!? Of course not!!!

So much happens now. Again, pictures and video don't even do the ride justice. But I'm going to post some below!

The beginning felt a little 'Mystic Manor' ish with some gentle movements and rotation around a room.

But then robots and bad guys start to notice us and the ride speeds up and gets more chaotic.

No forced perspective, just giant ass AT-AT's.

I'm a baaaaaad guy.

Bad guys lightsaber trying to kill you.

Still trying to figure out how to kill us on his own damn ship.

...bunch of awesome stuff happens...we escape back to Batuu.

In addition to being a trackless dark ride it also goes up in elevators, very quickly down in elevators, and I don't even have a picture of my favorite room cause I could never get a good enough one. Let's just say there are many big guns, moving very quickly and your vehicle is playing like cat and mouse with them and there are giant screens on the other side with a space battle happening, it's just insane. Oh, and I'm a sci-fi nerd so when there's a realistic explosive decompression of part of the ship I seriously like squealed in delight!

Ok, so at this point you've destroyed the bad ship and a bunch of the bad guys and you're safely in your escape pod heading back to Batuu. Of course the landing is a little rough, I mean, is there any flying attraction where the landing isn't a bit rough?!?! Oh, Soarin.

And surprise, you're back outside again because of course your pod landed outside back on the planet!!!! WTF?!?! It's so amazing!!!

Giant indoor/outdoor ending section.

A closer look at two ride vehicles at the exit.

I just love how it all blends in and you can't even tell what is in there!

You can see here how amazingly everything is themed and I have no idea where they hid this building and all the queue and preshow components. Actually I do have an idea. It's Disney and it's magical. Go ride it now! But if you can't, watch our video because it's worth it!

Thanks for reading, feel free to ask questions or comment!

^Thank you for that, my one question after the TPR video was how the giant Stormtrooper room factored into the ride, but your TR answered it.

Mystic Manor is one of my favorite rides, and it's amazing to see how far Disney has come. This is not a criticism at all, but with MM being a prop heavy ride when you get to that final room and the walls collapse you're very much aware the final effect is done by a screen (even if you don't care because it's great) but this just blends, physical sets, screens, and animatronics so seamlessly.

these are some fantastic pics Elissa, thanks so much for sharing. . I did not realize there is so much pre-show!

so how long is the overall experience? with the preshow rooms, it's got to be at least a 15 minute ride.

and tho major focus has been on the trackless portion, I'm also kinda blown away by the "standing transport". . LOL. is it like being in an airport terminal shuttle? from what you've said, the movements aren't enough that it could cause someone to fall, correct?

one last question.. you noted no Fast Pass yet, but that y'all went thru the queue for it. So is the queue going to be like TokyoDisney does it, where the fast pass queue just moves along side the main standby ride queue (Similar to Indy? or Tower of Terror)?

Great photos! I much prefer a photo report than all the videos I have been offered. Reading comments from someone who is not familiar with Star Wars, gave me a few chuckles. One question for SharkTums. How is it you have avoided the lure of Star Wars your whole life? Your at the right age where the kids growing up would have played with the toys. In your 20’s, they re-released the original movies and everyone went crazy. Your a Sci-fi fan, so it’s even more puzzling. Was Star Trek your thing instead? Star Wars heavily shaped pop culture and is readily available. I would highly suggest watching the original trilogy. Empire is regarded as one of the best movies of all time.

^^^Glad I could answer your question!

^^Overall I'd say 15 minutes sounds accurate. Of course if you are delayed in a room or there is some additional waiting between experiences it could be a bit longer. The standing transport, think more like an airport transport train that spins slowly while undulating. I think you'd have to be pretty drunk or have a problem to fall in there but it is a bit disorienting. The FastPass Queue is separate from the Standby Queue and they meet back up right at the first preshow room. There just isn't anything super amazing that you'll miss doing one or the other like in Flight of Passage where if you FastPass you miss the lab with the avatar!

^I think I was *slightly* too young for the original Star Wars. Born in 81 so never saw the original ones in the theatre. They re-released when I was in high school and I went to see them to impress an older boy but didn't really care for them. I was more into Star Trek: TNG, but never really cared for either super much.

I think I'll wait until some random weeknight in January to give Rise of the Resistance a spin. It looks absolutely amazing, but I'll use the initial hype (and growing pain) period to score some (hopefully) faster rides on Avatar Flight of Passage for now!

Excellent TR Elissa!! As another person who has little/no knowledge of the Star Wars universe (I lost interest in the series with the teddy bears in the 2nd movie.), but have semi-enjoyed the last two (avoided everything in-between)... I’m glad that this ride tells its own story and, apparently, completely. Love the inside/outside/inside/outside thing!! What a unique and cool concept!!

Looking forward to trying this in a couple of months at Disneyland!!

This looks ridiculously awesome. Disney have outdone themselves again!

Great trip report! I also know nothing about Star Wars so I enjoyed your perspective on everything because I’d probably be in a similar position going in.

I can’t wait to ride this in a few months.

Awesome report, Elissa! Thanks for your take on the whole thing. I've seen all the Star Wars movies, and I'm not that knowledgeable about everything about it, myself. Glad to read you don't need to know everything and everyone involved with the attraction.

Thanks for the in-dept look at Ride of the Resistance, Elissa. If it impressed a "non-Star Wars person," I know it's got to be good.

It does look like a ride that belongs at Tokyo Disney.

Thanks for the kind words everyone. Yeah, I mean, we all should have known, but of course Disney pulled off a kickass Star Wars attraction that impresses fans and non-fans alike!

I re-watched your video. On both paths, but the corridor of them is more obvious on the second path (around 4:50), you see a bunch of empty ride vehicles waiting in a corridor and some circle with you and they disappear off down a corridor as the droid(?) says 'tell them it's a prison transfer.' Where those cars empty because of media day and they're usually also carrying people or are they always empty?

I'm kind of hoping it's the latter because it looks like they are going into the area you started your ride so are they cars returning from the unload area to the loading area? If it is I love the fact they found a way to incorporate something as mundane as cars returning to the station into an actual story element.

Elissa that was awesome and as a die hard SW fan I was cracking up at your comments like non-Death Star ship thingy and the other ones.... I definitely need to get down there now and glad to hear that newbies to Star Wars can ride it and not be lost and be able to enjoy it.

I loved Elissa's report! I felt so identified with the point of view.

Being not a fan of the SW saga the new ride looks fantastic and highly enjoyable. I wish I could visit WDW soon!