User Reviews

I saw this ride film a long time ago, but couldn't remember the name of if. I was recently telling a friend about it, so looked on the IMDb to see if it might be listed, and sure enough it's here.

I can't remember the story line exactly, but it basically takes you on a trip (much like the ride Star Tours at Disneyland - you watch the film while your seats move around) up to some kind of earth orbiting space station where things run amuck.

Once you arrive at the station, you and your ship are sucked into a black hole (it's actually not black though, it's all filled with swirling lights) and thrown out at some strange deep space race track.

Once there you join in on this weird race, kind of like a demolition derby, where ships from all over the universe are competing.

It's a lot of fun to zoom around the track at high speeds. Your not actually on the race track, rather your floating above it, and even fly into the air at times (I think your stopped from completely leaving the track by some kind of force field).

As you would imagine, eventually you win the race and are sent back to the safety of earth.

I remember it was a heck of a lot of fun and that everything looked very cool and interesting.

I don't know where you might be able to see this thing, but if you ever run across it, give it a go.

The film is short though, perhaps only eight or nine minutes long.

OKAY - this is biased as I had the job of writing and producing this project at ILM in the early 1990's. There were no screen credits placed on the film due to nature of its exhibition as a "simulator ride experience." I am encouraging anyone who contributed to the show to add their names to this database for posterity.

Over the years I have run in to people who saw the film in its longest running venue in Toronto; It's gratifying to hear they have fond memories of the show.

A few notes of possible interest for the record:

* The story concept was by the legendary Dennis Muren. * SPACE RACE was the last 100% optically composited project to be produced by ILM. The digital age was upon us, though the technology was prohibitively expensive. * In order create the illusion of a continuous view through the window of a space shuttle, the film was composited in 9 (I think - hard to recall now) individual shots. The transitions between each comp were masked by a another ship or object wiping across our view. The idea was borrowed from Alfred Hitchcock's "ROPE". * Look carefully for the image of Elvis! (it's on a sign before a tunnel entrance to the pit stop.) * All of the pit stop technicians are ILM employees.