August 12, 2016
Location: Backlot, Disney's Hollywood
Studios
I know we visited Sci-Fi Dine In recently, but after
dining there again last night I discovered something I've walked
past several times in my life. After walking into the lobby area
there are two different hallways that lead to the dining area.
Unlike our last fun find, this week's can be found on the hallway on
the right.

Before we get to that, let's do a little
history about the restaurant and Disney-MGM Studios. When the park
first opened up on May 1, 1989, there were only three attractions:
The Great Movie Ride, Studio Backlot Tour, and the Magic of Disney
Animation. As time would go on, Imagineers did their best to connect
various attractions and resstaurants to other portions of the park.
Some of these connections were large like the various references to
Who Framed Roger Rabbit while others were fairly small and simple,
like today's Fun Find Friday.
When Star Tours opened up in late 1989 there weren't
a lot of ways to connect it to other sections in the park. Sure,
there were a few references to Star Wars in The Great Movie Ride,
but overall the attraction stood alone. That is, until April 20th,
1991, the day Sci-Fi Dine-In opened up nearby. With both the
attraction and restaurant focusing on a Science Fiction theme, it
just made sense that the two would blend together in someway, shape,
or form.
Sure, last year the restaurant celebrated Star Wars
by having a dining overlay with the films and characters in the
restaurant, but what the restaurant really needed was something
permanent, which brings us back to that hallway on the right.
While walking down the hallway, guests can find
various items scattered in little cubbies on the left-hand side.
Towards the end of the hallway two small boxes feature pieces of
paper that at first glance don't seem to be anything but random
decoration:


So what are these pieces of paper exactly? Upon
further investigation, guests can see that each picture shown
consists of three pictures and words written underneath. In the
picture below you can see that the words written state "Rex makes a
sharp left bank as we continue our fall. Ahead a crate can be seen
entering the room." Above the words the picture on the left features
a robot, the picture in the middle looks like a Death Star trench,
and the picture on the right is R2D2.

This, along with the other drawings are the
storyboards for the original Star Tours attraction! Rex was the
pilot in the original attraction. Much like the original attraction
and the storyboard, Rex was on the left side of the cockpit, while
in the middle of the attraction was the screen showcasing where we
were, and on the screen on the right was a video featuring R2D2!