Across from the Star Tours spaceport in Tomorrowland is the entrance to Star Command Headquarters and Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. As soon as we step inside, we get an alert over the walkie talkie: Evil Emperor Zurg and his robot army are attacking, stealing power to fuel his ultimate secret weapon. Our help is needed to defeat Zurg and protect the Galactic Alliance.
Just around the corner, Commander Buzz Lightyear is instructing all of us new recruits on our mission, with the help of a giant Etch-A-Sketch (this is the Toy Story universe, after all). Look closely in this shot, and you can make out Zurg's weapon on Etch's screen. You can even see the Green Planet, home to the LGMs, through the window behind Buzz.
The star map alongside Buzz details the path we must take on our mission. We're currently at Star Command Headquarters in the Gamma Quadrant (if it looks familiar, check out this article). You can see the position of the Green Planet, along with our destination: Planet Z, way beyond the Danger Zone in Sector 9.
While many of these place names and details come directly from Toy Story 2 and the "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command" TV series, the names of the other planets on the map were created just for the attraction. In fact, if you read them carefully, you'll realize they're derived from the names of Imagineers. For example, Planet Chokbloo refers to none other than Imagineering artist Chuck Ballew, who created the map.
After the Briefing Room, we get instructions on how to operate our Astro Blaster, and then it's off to the Flight Deck where our XP-40 Space Cruisers await. The craft that transport guests through the original version of this attraction in Florida are XP-37s, but since the Disneyland version opened several years later, these are more advanced models. It's also worth noting that the name of the attraction was changed from Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin in the Magic Kingdom, since it turned out that most guests wanted to move their Space Cruiser to aim but didn't actually spin it. (Besides, a completely different attraction named Buzz Lightyear's Astroblasters is part of DisneyQuest at Walt Disney World.)
Once on board, the LGMs gather outside the window to wish us luck. We follow the cone signals and blast off on our mission to save the universe!
Shawn, you'll get a kick out of this. 2 yrs ago while at WDW we had achallenge match between several family members and everyone thought a certain person would win. Well, it turns out Rivers won with 999,999 pts. At first I thought it was a glitch in the game, but then he did it again 2 days later. Can you believe it. Thanks for the info. Kristin - Ia.
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