In the Avatar: Flight of Passage article, I talked about how that might be the peak expression of the screen-based simulator attraction. If it doesn't, then Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run is the actual top of the evolutionary ladder, and the only way to top either on this list would be by being the founder of the genre entirely (that's maybe a spoiler).
Falcon ranks ahead of Flight of Passage not because of how it does the simulator thing, though; it's because of everything it does before it does the simulator thing. More than any other attraction ever built, the part where you strap in at the load area is just icing on the cake to complete an experience that millions spent their entire life waiting for.
In 1998, LucasArts released a multimedia program for PC called Star Wars: Behind the Magic. In the days where the Internet was still very basic, it was the absolute peak of Star Wars knowledge; a massive database of almost everything you could ever want to know about Star Wars, complete with games, clips, articles, memorabilia, and tons more. I spent hours in that program, traveling to every corner and taking my Star Wars knowledge from slight to arguably unhealthy.
The peak of that program, however, was the walk through of a three dimensional CG model of the Millennium Falcon. You got to see the cockpit, the main hold, the hallways, the gunwells, and everything else inside the iconic ship. It was spectacular, but it put one very important idea in my head, all those 23 years ago: I wanted a theme park to reconstruct the Millennium Falcon and let me walk through it.
I know I wasn't alone in this. I know I wasn't close to alone.
The Swiss Family Treehouse existed, and was good enough to be a serious contender for this list. That's all the Millennium Falcon tour needed to be -- a chance to walk in the ship and look around -- and it would have been a success. That is the real value of Smugglers Run, and having gotten to be there the day it opened, that's where peoples emotions kicked into overdrive. The moment you step onboard and see that legendary set made real, it's the dream of so many made real. What the Wizarding World of Harry Potter did for the Harry Potter fandom, that's what the moment of boarding the Millennium Falcon did for us.
The Main Hold has so many details rights. The medbay where Luke was worked on after being rescued on Bespin. The blast shield and remote he used for training. The dejarik table where C-3PO told R2-D2 to let the wookiee win. The central computer console where Threepio tried to translate. The breathing masks used on the asteroid. The hallway where Han and Leia first kissed. The floor panels even bounce just right to indicate smuggler holds underneath, and the sound as you enter perfectly matches Stormtroopers sweeping the ship for passengers.
That would have been good enough, but instead so much more was added to it. Outside Ohnaka Transport Solutions, you get to wander and stare at a full scale reproduction of the ship, with every detail right, and boy is that cool. The queue for the attraction takes you under and over it, giving you so many impressive views of the YT-1300 freighter, it was absolutely designed by people who knew what their audience was.
Once the ship is out of sight, you get a pre-show where you watch its angry owner shout, and a chills-inducing moment as it flies overhead and lands in front of you. It's a preshow I've seen a million times, to the point where it's become background audio, but when I stop and really watch it, I'm struck again by how actually very amusing it is, with some real geek fuel thrown in.
Once you get to the cockpit, you've already seen so many great things, but the reveal of the cockpit is so delightfully timed. The anticipation for the moment has been built, like the railroad station blocking the castle, until the door slides open and the empty seats and control panels are laid bare in front of you. Having seen this moment thousands of times, people still shout, "oh wow!" and other similar reactions when it happens. The ride has been open long enough we might forget: so many of us daydreamed about this, and now it's a reality. Then, you sit down, strap in, and as you activate your station, the sounds and lights are just absolutely perfect, those Ben Burtt sound effects that have been committed to memory for so long. It's breathtaking.
"It takes people to make that dream a reality," of course, and Ohnaka Transport Solutions is full of some of the greatest Cast Members on the planet, all incredibly excited to play around with their visitors. Their enthusiasm is palpable as they joke about the mess of a ship they're borrowing, give you the bare minimum training for your job, ask you where you're from (never heard of it), or wish you luck and remind you they don't have a seat belt. The blue vests are a huge part of what makes the attraction so fun, and I hope they never lose sight of that.
The ride itself is, of course, fun, but that's not the point. The point was getting to the cockpit, and now you're given something to do there, with a somewhat-interactive mission involving everyone in the cockpit, generally resulting in playful shouting and a lot of laughs, complete with the famous jump into hyperspace. In their review of the attraction upon opening, Polygon described it as, "like something from a different timeline, in which arcades games became the dominant form of entertainment, the sort of things mega-companies would dump million upon millions of dollars, merging gameplay with real-life feedback to create short, exhilarating adventures," which I think is perfect.
What is perhaps more impressive than the ride experience is the engineering to make it work, a really genius application of trickery. If you haven't ridden -- or don't want to know how the sausage is made -- you should skip the rest of this. If you do want to know, the Disney+ series Behind the Attraction goes into better detail than I will, with a really cool overhead map.
The problem with getting thousands of theme park guests into the Millennium Falcon is how you get them into the cockpit discretely, but efficiently. In the case of Smuggler's Run, our old friend the Carousel of Progress from the 1964 New York World's Fair is a great source of inspiration. Your cockpit is an individual simulator, that slides into place as you arrive, then rotates away once you're on as another slides in. You don't realize you've detached from the main hold you were just in, and the next guests walk up to an empty cockpit. The effect is seamless, convincing, efficient, and one of the most clever solutions WDI has ever designed.
Multiple hallways leading to different cockpits allows for even more ride vehicles, meaning even more throughput. You unload at a completely different location, but absolutely will not notice if no one tells you. Some of the best attraction moments are simply large scale magic tricks, and that's the case with Smuggler's Run.
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