You’ll have to fly the Millennium Falcon at least 10 times if you want to find all the possible secret routes you can take on the updated Smugglers Run flight simulator in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland.
The updated Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run ride with the Mandalorian and Grogu debuted last week in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at the Anaheim theme park as a tie-in to the release of “The Mandalorian and Grogu” film.
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Smugglers Run riders get to choose their adventure on the video game-style attraction that features multiple path branches on each of the four Star Wars planets visited during the five minute motion simulator ride.
Space pirate Hondo Ohnaka sets up the adventure during the preshow where we are once again needed to fly the Falcon on a daring mission. Our job: Team up with Mando and Grogu to collect a series of cargo crates and bring them back to Hondo.
Walt Disney Imagineering Creative & Interactive Experiences Executive Asa Kalama spoke about the new backstory on Smugglers Run and the many routes riders can choose during a media preview of the updated attraction.
“The high level conceit is the New Republic is looking to track down the remnants of the Empire,” Kalama said. “Hondo Ohnaka has a line on where a meet-up is happening.”
Imagineering worked with Lucasfilm and the team that made “The Mandalorian and Grougu” movie to select four locations in the Star Wars universe that made sense for the world of The Mandalorian and would be recognizable to even the most casual fan of the film franchise.
The updated Smugglers Run travels to four Star Wars destinations: Tatooine, Bespin, Endor and Coruscant.
“To us they were obvious choices,” Kalama said.
Let’s take a closer look at the branching paths on each of the four Star Wars planets that add to the variability and re-rideability of Smugglers Run.
Tatooine
Riders drop out of hyperspace on Tatooine where they meet up with the Mandalorian and find themselves in an enormous canyon.
“It might have some shades of Beggar’s Canyon, that iconic location from ‘A New Hope,’” Kalama said.
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The vertical walls and hazardous turns of Beggar’s Canyon served as a childhood proving ground for Luke Skywalker.
Riders make their way through a mesa area on Tatooine with options to choose three or four branching paths.
“That has really nice shades of the pod racer sequence from the prequels,” Kalama said.
Pilots can cut down the left or right canyons, go up over the rock bluffs or down into a Krayt dragon tunnel.
Eventually, the Millennium Falcon crew interrupts a high stakes deal between ex-Imperial officers and a ruthless band of pirates. The Smugglers Run riders must make a critical choice as the trio of starships filled with the bounty scatter in three different directions.
“We don’t have enough time to go after all of them,” Kalama said. “So it’s up to our flight engineer to decide whether we go to Bespin, Coruscant or Endor.”
The Millennium Falcon jumps into hyperspace destined for the planet chosen by the flight engineers.
Bespin
If they choose Bespin, the riders drop out of hyperspace at the magic hour as the Falcon makes a long, beautiful approach to Cloud City.
“We very quickly find ourselves ensnared in a fuel line between us and the ship that we’re chasing,” Kalama said. “We get whipped and thrown around a series of floating gas platforms before finally making our way directly to the rim of Cloud City.”
The Falcon pilots must decide which way to get around Bespin.
“We can either fly across that rim, dodging cross traffic,” Kalama said. “Or actually fly underneath Cloud City, dodging those trash chutes that we saw Luke fall through in ‘Empire.’”
Coruscant
If they choose Coruscant, the riders drop out of hyperspace right in the middle of the planet-wide city that serves as the political and cultural center of the Star Wars galaxy.
“We’re dodging, weaving and ducking through big space billboards, ultimately leading towards a choice of four enormous tunnels,” Kalama said.
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Each of the tunnels offers a different experience.
“Sometimes you’re going with traffic, other times you’re going against traffic and some of those tunnels are under construction,” Kalama said. “It really depends on where your pilots choose to go.”
The Millennium Falcon loses power near the end of the Coruscant voyage.
“We fall down one of those large ventilation shafts that take us towards the center of the planet, the iconic 1313 location,” Kalama said.
Level 1313 is part of the dungeon-like Coruscant underworld controlled by gangs, bounty hunters and smugglers explored in “The Clone Wars” television series.
Endor
If they choose Endor, the riders drop out of hyperspace amid the wreckage of the second Death Star.
“We have a really cool, slow, spooky moment that takes us through an interior hangar bay moment before spotting our bounties,” Kalama said.
The relative calm is broken by an intense chase sequence.
“That takes us down these floating, twisting, decomposed versions of that iconic trench run experience,” Kalama said.
The Endor mission features multiple possible paths for riders to navigate.
Return to Batuu
Smugglers Run ends with riders hyperspacing back to Batuu — no matter which adventure they choose.
“We are constantly evolving both the land and the attraction,” Kalama said. “The goal is to really think of these as storytelling platforms that allow us to go on new adventures over time.”