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| Photo by Lisa T. |
Smuggler's Run lets people do exactly that: a group of six people take the Falcon on a mission for the Resistance (with a small side gig aimed at making a little money, as it turns out). There are two pilots, two gunners, and two engineers, all of whom are involved in making the mission a success.
As always at Disneyland, the four of us (Karli, myself, and her sisters Stefanie and Lisa) start by getting in line - to be fair, I suspect that there aren't many times when you would be able to just walk right to the entrance to the ship. Disney is obviously aware of this, and as such, they've made the experience of standing in line as entertaining as possible under the circumstances.
The line for Smuggler's Run takes potential crew members through the maintenance bays of Ohnaka Transport, which has temporarily borrowed the Falcon from Chewbacca the Wookiee. In addition to an elaborate and detailed environment, there's an ongoing comedic dialogue over the intercom, as long-suffering Ohnaka Transport employee Malta deals with his co-worker Garr, who is perhaps not the sharpest hydro-spanner in the spaceport's tool box.
Garr and Malta also receive instructions from Hondo Ohnaka, owner of the company and our eventual employer. Hondo is a canon character - he's a Weequay who first appears in the Clone Wars animated series and later in Rebels.
The background scenery is impressively layered and complex, and contains Easter eggs for the knowledgeable viewer, including crates of hijacked stormtrooper armour, a rack of DLT-19 heavy blasters from the first trilogy, and one of the Falcon's turret-mounted quad cannons (which probably explains why we don't have access to them during our upcoming flight.)
We also get a little too close to an engine that's being tested a bit prematurely, but Garr manages to get things under control before it's too late for innocent bystanders - and the spaceport.
Eventually, we meet Hondo himself, who explains that he's looking for crews to take on missions for the Resistance. In this case, we're going to steal an important shipment of coaxium from a freight train - and, if possible, Hondo would like us to pick up a little something for him as well, Hondo isn't in this out of a sense of justice, he has bills to pay.
After close to an hour, we finally board the Falcon. Strange as it sounds after waiting 55 minutes to get there, I'm a bit disappointed that they almost rush us into the cockpit, I would have enjoyed a few minutes to look around the ship's lounge.
In the scenario, the Falcon is operated by a crew of six: two pilots, two gunners, and two engineers. The seats are randomly assigned by a Disney employee who hands each of the six people a card with a flight crew position on it.
Karli ends up as one of the pilots for our mission, but generously gives me her card. Equally generously, her sister Stefanie trades cards with Karli so that we can fly the Falcon together - thank you, Stef!
It's not a complicated control panel: Karli controls left and right, and I control up and down (and the light speed drive, as it turns out.) I hit the flashing green launch button, and the ship lifts off. I instantly discover that I actually am controlling the Falcon's flight to some extent: unfortunately, I make this discovery by running into another ship.
Fortunately, at that point decades of computer gaming experience kicks in, and I'm able to fly out of the atmosphere without any further mishaps. Karli shouts, "Right pilot, light speed!" and I realize that there's a flashing green light around one of the iconic levers on the control panel. I pull it back, and we enter hyperspace.
We emerge over our destination, and instantly dive through the atmosphere to our target. The train is protected by TIE fighters, which the gunners have to shoot down, then Karli and I quickly manoeuvre the Falcon into position behind the freight cars, and the engineers launch towing harpoons to capture the shipment of coaxium - after which Hondo demandes that we seize some cargo for him, as well. We complete both parts of our mission, hit the boosters, and make our escape.
And then we're back on Batuu, with an irritated Hondo calculating damage to the ship (and subsequent Wookiee unhappiness) versus the value of the hijacked cargo to determine whether or not he's managed to make a profit. I can't have done too badly as a pilot - according to the datapad app, Hondo paid me 5,500 credits for my run in the Falcon, thereby earning me the designation of "Hot Shot".
Smuggler's Run is a lot of fast-paced, edge-of-your seat fun - I spent all of my time as a pilot wearing a wide grin, and Karli alternated between laughing and squealing in delight. I'm glad that the two of us found the time to go back and do the mission a second time, simply because it's such a quick experience - flying the Falcon is a very extreme example of on-the-job learning. At least the second time you have some idea of what's going to happen, whether you have the same crew slot or not. (In our second round, I was a gunner and Karli an engineer.)
It also gave us a chance to look around the ship's lounge a bit, which, from a geek perspective, was an extremely cool experience.*** You know, it's a shame that they haven't found a way to make the holographic Dejarik board game functional. I'd much rather learn to play in a situation where I don't have to worry about a Wookiee tearing my arms out of their sockets if he loses - they've been known to do that.
- Sid
* No offense, L3-37.** Initially I typed this just as a casual alternative, but now that I think about it, my god, can you imagine? My initial thought was that the return on investment for single-person rides wasn't practical, but my well-informed wife tells me that there's a single-seat virtual reality Avatar experience at Disneyworld - on that basis, blowing up the Death Star seems eminently possible.
*** The astute observer will notice the helmet and sensor drone that Luke uses for light saber and Force practice on the shelf above me.
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