Star Tours: The Adventures Continue... 
Jeremy's Ride Review!

New Poster artwork for Star Tours: The Adventures Continue.

Star Tours.  The more things change...the more they stay the same.

Major plot spoilers will be italicized and in GREEN if you'd like to skip over those sections.

So sit back and enjoy my unique take on this brand new ride reboot at Disneyland....

And where do we possibly begin?  As with all things at Disneyland, it always starts with Walt.  Its important for us to remember that Walt Disney was very forthcoming in his philosophy that his theme parks should be in a constant state of change and evolution.  He never wanted his parks to feel like museums collecting dust.  We have to remember this when the purist in us resists drastic ride changes at Disneyland.

Is it blasphemous to add Jack Sparrow to Pirates of the Caribbean at the park?  Or to add a Nightmare Before Christmas overlay to The Haunted Mansion during the holidays? Absolutely not.  These changes freshen the experiences, revitalizing them for new audiences.

Star Tours follows along a similar path.  The original having been built in the late 80's, the ride, indeed, was collecting dust, and was ready for a change.  Even the casual rider of Star Tours over the years remembers many of the iconic lines.  "I'm sure this is probably your first flight...and its mine, too."  "Brakes!  Brakes!  Where are the brakes???"  "Comets!  Comets!!!"  "Star Tours!  What are you doing here?  This is a combat zone, its restricted!  Ease off on your main thrusters!"  Okay maybe that last line was a little more obscure, but you get the point  ;)

Poster art from the original Star Tours, with a Captain Rex and a Starspeeder 3000.  Image (c) Copyright Disney.

Apologies for the digression, but it makes for an interesting segue into our analysis of the new ride.  There was an innocent charm in the original that made for exciting and funny moments which, to its credit, allowed for its longevity over a span of, *gasp*, 25 years!

Star Tours II, in essence, is your Star Tours ride for today's generation.  The big difference between the feel of these two experiences can easily be summed up as follows:  If you had never seen any Star Wars movie, upon riding the original Star Tours, your excitement would compel you to want to go watch the films.  Star Tours II expects you to have already seen the movies, and so if you go on the ride without knowing anything about Star Wars, you'll be pretty lost throughout the entire ride.  You won't understand the impact of certain characters when they appear throughout the ride, you'll miss out on many of the inside gags, you won't understand the plot.  You'll enjoy the unique feel of the motion simulator experience, but that could be about it.

Concept artwork for Star Tours: The Adventures Continue. Very different from the original.

All of that being said, Star Tours II truly is a fanboy's wet dream.  It is Star Wars through and through.  It is familiar and different at the same time.  Both nostalgic and unique.  It does deliver, but it has its disappointments.

Let's break it down...

THE BACKSTORY

The original Star Tours took place after the events of Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.  Therefore, there was no longer a Darth Vader.  You apparently still had rebels fighting against the remainder of the Empire, presumably with one last Death Star to boot.

Star Tours II takes place in between Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Episode IV: A New Hope.  Here, you have a vibrant Darth Vader in his prime, and you have a bridge between both trilogies, with many characters from both sets of stories alive and well.

As far as backstories go, I have to give the nod to Star Tours II over the original simply because the world is more familiar to us, and is therefore more interesting and gives us more to latch onto in terms of character, plot, and story.

THE PRE-SHOW QUEUE AREA

As you wait in line before boarding your Starspeeder, you are instantly reminded of the new era you're transported into.  The original had the feel of a spaceport on its last legs.  C3PO and R2D2 performed maintenance on a battle-scarred Starspeeder 3000 that presumably had been on one too many trips already, kind of like a Southwest Airlines flight.  The line wrapped you into a deteriorated junky cargo area, with aged quirky droids that seemed to have developed personalities, or malfunctions, depending on who you asked.

With Star Tours II, we are introduced to a pristine brand new spaceport.  The Starspeeder 1000, still in it's same spot in the queue, is still being worked on by 3PO and R2, but the speeder itself sparkles with fresh paint and no battle damage.  You get the sense that it hasn't been on any trips at all yet.  

The giant overhead display screen looks brand new, with crystal clear new sequences depicting all the different spaceports we can travel to.

As we wind up into the secondary room of the spaceport, what once was a decrepit cargo area, with maintenance droids fixing junk, we are now treated to a room that feels like more of a "customs" section of the port.  The maintenance droid becomes a baggage scanner, and in a fantastic new effect, we literally watch as he zaps luggage with a laser, which allows us to see inside the bags.  Look for lots of inside Star Wars gags here, as well as a nod in this room to the infamous Captain Rex, the pilot from the original Star Tours.

The second animatronic droid we see, just before boarding, is now a security droid who scans us!  Its a fun interactive element, and a great use of new technology.  The droids themselves do have personalities...you get the sense that they are just starting to come into their own to stave off the boredom of the monotony of the day - but they aren't quite as off as the old droids from the original.

Concept artwork of the new security droid scanning luggage in Star Tours: The Adventures Continue.  Image (c) Copyright Disney.

So which did I enjoy more?  The old queue or the new one?  The new one sparkles with fresh technology, but I have to say, I enjoyed the old queue more, ironically, for the same reasons as why I enjoy the original movie trilogy more than the new prequels.  There is something more interesting visually, and thematically, in my opinion, with an imperfect dirty world.  

A deteriorated dirty cargo room with faulty droids is more interesting to me than a perfect and clean customs facility.  A "bucket of bolts" Millenium Falcon in Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, which can't even start up without Han Solo giving the console a good smack with his fist, is more interesting to me than a sleek chrome Naboo Starfighter evading a battle droid control ship.

So in a way, if you love the original trilogy, you may find yourself a bit nostalgic and longing for the "feel" of the old queue, and you may find the new experience a bit hollow and empty. You'll be impressed by the newness and the technology, but you'll feel like something is missing.

THE PRE-BOARDING VIDEOS

If you've been on the original Star Tours, you'll recall the overhead flight video that you watch just before entering your Starspeeder.  You'll recall a flight attendant with a lovely demeanor giving us instructions about our safety belts and security camera footage of our Starspeeder getting fueled up and prepped for our flight.

Remember her?

The new pre-boarding video gives us essentially the same thing, albeit in a newer way, it still retains the humor and fun of the original, but it goes even further, by introducing very important plot points that are integral to the story of the ride.  I won't give anything away here, but let's just say you should definitely pay attention to the video, which introduces our new Starspeeder captain.

Fans of the original Star Tours pilot, Captain Rex, who was voiced by Paul "Pee Wee Herman" Reubens, and who gave the character a brilliant quirky humanity that helped us "feel" on the original ride, will not be disappointed with the new pilot.  It's no longer Captain Rex, but the creators of the ride, in a stroke of brilliance, give us the only possible replacement pilot who doesn't leave us longing for the old Captain Rex.  Not only that, but the new pilot adds a new layer of depth and fun to the story.

Star Tours II gets the kudos over the original for its excellent pre-boarding video and our new pilot.

A glimpse at the pre-boarding video.  Image (c) Copyright Disney.

THE RIDE EXPERIENCE

Ah, what we've all been waiting for.  This is the most difficult analysis of the review.  Did I enjoy the experience or did I dislike it?  Did I feel fulfilled or underwhelmed?  

What makes this so difficult is that I felt both.  At times, I was blown away.  At other times, I felt detached and uninterested.

To truly analyze the ride experience, its important to keep in our minds one absolutely key difference between the original and the new...

The original was simply one sequence with a beginning, middle, and end.  Every time you would ride, it would be Rex's first flight, you would fly straight through a comet, enter a space battle, fly into a Death Star trench, and help to blow up the Death Star.  Nothing ever changed.  It was always the same.  Yet it delivered in so many ways that you didn't mind the same experience over and over again.  

The simulator technology was flawless - when what you saw on screen banked left, you felt your Starspeeder banking left.  When you crashed through the comet, you felt your speeder bursting through the comet.  And like any great movie, it has a beginning, middle, and end, with a simple cohesive plot anyone can understand, with a spectacular and exciting climax and even a fantastic little denoument ending that leaves you wanting to re-ride, even if you did know what was going to happen again and again.

Star Tours flies to Coruscant...and just about everywhere in the Star Wars Universe, as the Adventures Continue.  Image (c) Copyright Disney.

The entire point of Star Tours II is that you supposedly are going to be treated to new adventures every time you ride the ride.  From what I understand, there are 3 possible starting plots, somewhere like 5 different middle plots, and something like 3 different endings.  Within this framework, there are additional combinations of paths, plots, and characters you can interact with.  Supposedly, there are a total of something like 52 different ride combinations, which means you'd have to re-ride many, many times before experiencing all of the elements.

So the very nature of the point of the ride gives you a very different experience from the original.  And I like this aspect.  I like the fact that the next time I go on Star Tours II, I will get treated to something different.

But I also don't like this aspect.  I'm looking forward to experiencing a new sequence the next time I ride because the ride I went on in itself didn't measure up to the original in terms of the feelings and excitement I wanted to have.  In other words, I'm hoping that once I go on the new ride a few more times, I'll start to feel more of the impact of this new ride.

So how can I say Star Tours II truly delivers if I feel like the ride I went on felt rather anticlimactic?  On the other hand, all I want to do is go on the ride again, so maybe it does deliver?

You can see how interesting and difficult this review is.  Let me take a step back and try to wrap my brain around these contradictions in terms of two key elements: Technology and Plot.

THE TECHNOLOGY

Simply put, flawless.  Just as with the original, the simulator works, and continues to impress.  The added 3D element is wonderful.  You wear 3D glasses, and yet from the second the ride began, I never once even noticed that I was wearing glasses or watching a 3D image. The picture is crystal clear and gorgeous!  The 3D isn't invasive in the slightest, and really does work.  The ride feels real.  From this standpoint, the edge goes to Star Tours II for taking a technology 25 years old and making it feel fresh and new and exciting again.

We do have a problem with this technology, though.  The original ride gave you really only a handful of items for your eyes to latch onto at any given time.  At most on screen at once, you had a few tie fighters, some lasers, some comets in the background.  This simplicity made it much easier to latch onto key moments during the ride.  Basically, the ride showed your eyes precisely what to look at.

Star Tours II has an entire palette of technology at its disposal, with limitless possibilities, and it throws all of that, and the kitchen sink, at you, quite literally.  If you've seen the prequels, you'll recall the impressive cityscape of Coruscant, with thousands of ships and buildings all on screen at once.  You never run out of things to look at in any one frame on that planet during the movies.

So when your Starspeeder in Star Tours II flies to a planet like Coruscant, while the setting itself is incredibly impressive, you're a bit overwhelmed by the moment.  You're not exactly sure what you should be looking at and why.  You find yourself so absorbed by the visuals you suddenly forget your pilot is talking to you, and shouting out plot points.  What did he just say?  Wait, why did we fly to this planet?  What's happening?  Oh okay we just left that planet.  Now we're on another one.  Wow that looks cool!  Hey that was Chewbacca!  Or wait, was that just another Wookie?  Oh, we're off the planet again and back into space.  Is R2 even on our speeder?  Hey our ride just ended.  That was it?  Wait, what just happened?

There's a little window into how my brain was operating throughout the ride.  Maybe my "old school" brain can't wrap itself around all the dazzling imagery similar to the way I can't handle an 8-button XBox controller the way kids today can.  So maybe a 13-year old riding Star Tours II will have a better handle on everything.  Or, is Star Tours II just like the prequels in that perhaps it's a victim of its own spectacle?

THE PLOT

Again, a contradiction.  I LOVED the plot of the new Star Tours, or at least the sequence I was privy to.

There is a rebel stowaway on board our Starspeeder.  The stowaway humorously turns out to be one of our riders - a screen capture image of a random rider in our speeder makes for a fantastically surprising interactive element.  Darth Vader and the Empire are after our stowaway and so our ride becomes a getaway turned into our pilot just trying to get us back home safely.

The plot itself is basic enough, and works.  Because of the fact that Star Tours II will bring us new experiences every time we ride, I don't expect every ride to be a "destroy the death star" heroic plotline.  

That being said, while I can forgive the new ride because of its intention, I also can't forgive the fact that the ride itself felt anticlimactic.  The original gave us a build up to something explosive at the end and made us feel like we were a part of something special.  If it wasn't for us, the fate of the galaxy could have been in jeopardy.  The new one gives us something explosive at the beginning, slowly deflates, and leaves us feeling like we're just a small little part of a larger galaxy.  What happens to us really has no bearing on the outcome of this galaxy.

While it's cool that we interact with Darth Vader himself (in the sequence I experienced), we're still inconsequential to what's going on all around us.  Does it matter?  Do we care?  That's really up to you.

What was special about the original was that yes, you got to experience the feeling of being in space and being in a laser battle, but you also got a sense of what it was like to be a heroic rebel pilot in a desperate situation with one and only one chance to take that shot down the trench run of the Death Star to destroy it and save the galaxy.  What your Starspeeder did mattered.  In the most basic primal of ways, you get a little hint at what it felt like to be the main protagonist of the original trilogy, Luke Skywalker.

In the new one, you get the similar joy of the feeling of flying through space, and the action of a laser battle and chase sequence, but when its all said and done, you don't get that special feeling of making a difference.  Maybe you get that on a different ride experience, but on mine, it left me feeling a bit hollow and underwhelmed.

CONCLUSION

There's such an irony with me where Star Wars is concerned.  Having grown up with a love of the original trilogy of movies, I constantly find myself struggling with the new prequel films.  They are so dazzling, and interesting, with their visuals.  I can re-watch Attack of the Clones over and over again because there's never a dull moment.  And yet, there is an emptiness in the new trilogy - wooden actors playing against CGI characters and backgrounds, created seemingly too easily, with a convoluted and cluttered narrative we have a hard time relating to, enjoying, and having fun with.

Ironically, my feelings with Star Tours II are exactly the same.  The presentation, spectacle, and technology are dazzling and interesting enough to keep me coming back just as I seem to go back to the prequel movies from time to time.  Yet the lasting emotional impact, the journey, the humanity, isn't quite there in Star Tours II just as it wasn't quite there in the prequels.

So I wouldn't call Star Tours II a disappointment by any stretch of the imagination.  It does deliver in so many different ways.  It really is a great ride.  It doesn't leave me longing for the old at all.  If anything, it leaves me longing for a different "new".  

If anything, my disappointment might stem from the fact that I was hoping Star Tours II would take a step forward, in terms of special effects and "feel" from the last film, which came out 6 years ago.  Instead, we get a ride that feels just like the prequels.  

So if you're a fan of the prequels, you'll love the ride.  If you hate the prequels, or don't like Star Wars, you probably won't like the ride.  If you have a love-hate relationship with the prequels as I do, you'll enjoy and appreciate Star Tours II for what it is, but you'll also come away wondering if maybe it could have been just a little bit more.

In May 1997, when I walked out of the theater after watching Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, my brother turned to me and asked me what I thought.  I simply shook my head and said I didn't like it.  My brother thought I was crazy.  Years later, I have more of an appreciation for The Phantom Menace, but that first instinctive feeling is still there.

In May 2011, 14 years later, I felt a deja vu moment.  When I walked off my Starspeeder after experiencing Star Tours: The Adventures Continue, my brother turned to me and asked me what I thought.  I simply shook my head and said I didn't like it.  My brother thought I was crazy.  Already, though, the ride continues to resonate in my mind, and so I hope my appreciation grows for this interestingly remarkable ride as the years go on.

The more things change...the more they stay the same. 

- Jeremy

Jeremy Howard is the Broker & President of Hpremiere Properties, (www.Hpremiere.com) a successful, prestigious modern real estate brokerage located in Southern California.  He is also the Founder and CEO of Real Estate Dynamic (r.e.d.) (www.RealEstateDynamic.com), the most progressive and influential Social Club for entrepreneurial real estate professionals on the planet.  With a separate background in the Film/Television industry, Jeremy has always had a passion for screenwriting, cinema, and the arts, and finds a particular enjoyment and love in the escapism of theme parks.

www.jerhow.com

When Is a Good Time to Buy???

It's a question potential home buyers constantly ask themselves:   When is a good time to buy?

In this day and age, we, as consumers, are incredibly savvy, and are no longer naive to the goings on within our economy.  All around us, we see examples of a tumultuous real estate industry in a constant state of flux...  

We see foreclosures, not just in lower income areas, but in the most affluent of neighborhoods as well.

Chances are, we have a friend or a family member or an acquaintance we know who is involved in the process of a "short sale" on their home.

Home prices and interest rates are constantly changing, and all around us people are buying like crazy, selling like crazy, or doing nothing like crazy.

As smart consumers, we're constantly evaluating these ebbs and flows and trying to determine the "right time to get in."

A metaphor of the real estate market: A constant sea of change.

So when is that right time?

To answer this question, we have to put aside our traditional thinking and truly look at how the market can be an advantage for us today.  On a traditional level, things used to be more black and white.  All you had to do was determine for yourself when you thought prices bottomed out - and if you guessed right, you had a great deal on your hands.  

Unfortunately, or rather, in my opinion, fortunately, these days are over.

If you find yourself on the sidelines in today's market waiting for prices to go down even further, you'll be waiting a very long time for evidence that may never show up.  The fact of the matter is that we no longer should look at market averages and median prices on a whole, but rather, today, it's about finding the right deal at the right time for ourselves.

In other words, rather than waiting for the market to become more predictable and consistent, which could take years, or never, we can instead use the industry's "inconsistency" to our advantage to discover that great gem of a find.

Pick a neighborhood, and you'll see the examples all around you...

You'll find sellers who are not in distress list their home at a price-point well above market - these are the sellers who are unrealistic about the downturn and drop in home prices, and probably aren't all that motivated to sell.  In this case, it isn't the "market" we have to wait on for these sellers to drop their price.  Rather, its the sellers themselves who will lower their price when they're ready to be a bit more realistic with their expectations.

We'll most likely skip putting an offer in at asking price on this type of home because we're not going to get in on something we feel is being listed well-above market value, especially when we go two doors down, find a home very similar, only this one is an "approved short sale", with a much more realistic price point set by the bank.

Now, with this type of home, listed at a price that seems to be a sweet spot for the neighborhood, we're evaluating the opportunity individually to determine if this is the right investment for ourselves.  The question we should ask ourselves here is not, "Should I hope the market gets worse and wait for the price of this home to drop even further?" but rather, "Is this the right price right now for me?"  

No two homes side-by-side are ever alike, just as no two waves are ever identical.

There's a reason why today, most likely you can't submit an offer on a home without competing against multiple other buyers.  These buyers have determined that this home in particular is the right specific investment for them at this time.  If we think we're going to wait for the price on this specific home to drop in order to submit an offer, we'll miss out on the opportunity because someone else will have snatched it up.

In other words, if you do your market research, and find a home you absolutely fall in love with, whether its a standard sale, a short sale, or a foreclosure, if the price point is comfortable for you, then be aggressive, and get it!  If not, then move on to the next one.  But don't get into the trap of falling in love with a home but deciding to wait to see if it drops in price.  If you do, it could be gone the very next day!

Its easy to answer "right now" when our question is, "When is a good time to buy?"  Every real estate professional will always say "right now" is the best time to buy no matter what state the industry is in.  The point is that if you yourself are ready to buy right now, then right now IS the right time to buy because that incredible home is out there for you at the right price for you.  All it takes is a little creativity and ingenuity (and a real estate agent who knows what they are doing and understands the market) to find the right opportunity for you.

When we seize Opportunity, the sea becomes calm.

If you don't find that home today, then today wasn't the right time for you to buy.  It isn't the market that makes that determination for you.  Rather, its your heart that told you a particular opportunity wasn't the right one for you.

The market will always rise and fall.  Home prices will always increase and decrease.  The one constant that never changes is opportunity.  Opportunity doesn't care about interest rates and market value, because it comes from the heart.  When your brain does the calculations to narrow down your search, and your heart chooses a particular home, then that is the opportunity you will have been waiting for - that's when you know it was the right time to buy.

- Jeremy

Jeremy Howard is the Broker & President of Hpremiere Properties, (www.Hpremiere.com) a successful, prestigious modern real estate brokerage located in Southern California.  He is also the territory owner for franchise development for Los Angeles County and Orange County of Casa Latino Real Estate, and is the Founder and CEO of Real Estate Dynamic (r.e.d.) (www.RealEstateDynamic.com), the most progressive and influential Social Club for entrepreneurial real estate professionals on the planet.

www.jerhow.com