The Force Is Strong With This One

This should come as no surprise to anyone, but I'm a big Star Wars fan. I won't say I'm the biggest, because I don't watch everything that has Star Wars stamped on it and my room is not a wall to wall shrine to the movies. I've also taken issue with the prequels and its spin-offs since my mom and I first saw The Phantom Menace in theaters, and I've refused to watch any of the animated Clone Wars stuff. I do love and quote from the original trilogy, though, and Han Solo will always be my favorite Star Wars character.

So you'll understand why it's a Big Freaking Deal that I won the opportunity to be there for the new Disneyland Star Tours preview event.

When I found out through the Twitterverse that the Disney Parks Blog was holding a contest to treat 1,200 winners to attend the "Star Tours Early Departure" at Disneyland, I made a quick hyperspace jump straight to the contest page and signed up for my chance to win. I knew the odds of winning were slim, but Han Solo was right. Damn the odds, I was going to try anyway. And guess what? It paid off! I'm going to the preview event!

Now, I should also mention that, when I heard that Disney and Lucas were going to be updating the ride, I was pretty upset. As dated as the original was, I had a lot of fond memories of that ride, and knowing that I'd never be able to relive those memories on the Starspeeder 3000 spurred all sorts of emotions that fed the Dark Side in me.


(I'm on the right, and while you can't see it very well, I'm scowling at the sign.)

This is going to be good for us, though. Not only will I be able to experience before the general public whether or not it'll be as bad as I fear it'll be, I can blog about the whole thing. (See how I made this relevant to my writing blog?) I'll try to take as many pictures as they'll allow and ride as many times as I can so I can relay to you, loyal followers, if this is going to end up being another case of Lucas setting fire to my childhood memories, or if this will be a triumph over the Empire.

I'll find out on May 20th!