CNN gets exclusive look inside Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, here’s what they saw

Two weeks before Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance opens on Dec. 5, at Hollywood Studios in Disney World, CNN’s Jason Farkas was given an exclusive look at the ride.

The ride at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge joins the current Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run attraction. While the Disney World version opens to the public on Dec. 5. The Disneyland version opens on Jan. 17, 2020.

There will be a livestream of the attraction’s dedication taking place on Dec. 4.

Farkas gives a first-hand look at the ride, leaving out how the group escapes, and goes into some detail about the complexity of the ride. Here is a quick synopsis of what he found. You can read his complete report here.

• Scott Trowbridge, the Walt Disney Imagineering executive who supervised the development of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge said the ride was designed like it has a “three-act structure to it.”
• There are 65 animatronic figures throughout the ride.
• Riders are recruited to join the Resistance and sent on a mission by a holographic Rey and an animatronic BB-8.
• You board the first ride vehicle, a standing-room only ship, piloted by two aliens in animatronic form — a Mon Calamari and a Sullustan.
• As you leave Batuu, the ship was intercepted by the First Order, and you are puled on to a Star Destroyer to be met by 50 animatronic Stormtroopers.
• You are then placed in a holding cell and interrogated by Kylo Ren and General Hux (presented as projections).
• You then escape being chased by Stormtroopers. You pile into a First Order Fleet Transport — a seated vehicle, this time — as an astromech droid drives through the ship, dodging blaster fire, skirting laser cannons, and ducking Kylo Ren’s lightsaber.
• Finally, you are jettisoned off the ship in an escape pod that acts as the ride’s climactic drop.