The Official Disney Park Blog let loose some juicy details about the Star Tours revamp today, as well as pictures of new droids involved in the ride.

They’re surprisingly forthcoming with information about this ride, though I suspect there is a method to their madness.  I’ve never been this rabidly craving more information about a ride before, and I’m dying to ride this one.  In fact, I’m going to have to start making arrangements now so that I’m one of the first on the ride.

The ride is set during the Dark Times and is probably going to be tremendous.  The pictures are of a pair of droids involved in the ride, including the new pilot, Ace.

Here’s more on the time period the ride is set in:

The existing Star Tours show we internally refer to as “6.5,” since it takes place time-wise after Episode VI Return of the Jedi. Story development for the new show began “a long time ago,” back in 1998, and a story treatment from that year carries the title “Episode 7 — A Star Tours Classic” — referring to the Boonta Classic race that was to be the main feature of the show.

But by the time Episode I hit the screens, we were all anxious to know what would surface in Episode III that we might build on for the show. Naturally, we were then curious how Episode III would complete the series. In the end, after numerous discussions, we decided to place our storyline between the two sets of Star Wars trilogies, giving the project the working title “Star Tours 3.5”

And here’s a tidbit about the pictured droids:

Our design team created a new Tour Droid for the show, an AC Series pilot we dubbed “Ace,” with a personality as different from Rex as you can imagine.

We also created a new “spokesbot” for Star Tours, modeled after the WA-7 “Waitress Droid” from the Attack of the Clones. George Lucas suggested the name “Aly San San,” in reference to Allison Janney, the wonderful actress who provides the voice for this new character. We had a terrific time with Allison in the recording sessions for the show – she brought a lot of warmth and humor to the part.

Be on the lookout soon, also, for my report and pictures from Florida’s Last Tour To Endor, and the less than spectacular experience I had closing the Disney World version of Star Tours.