Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire Review!

I scheduled Secrets of the Empire at the Void in Downtown Disney.  I saw the construction and it looked like a press opening.  It seemed like forever and suddenly the day in February was here. This is the VR experience that is currently at Downtown Disney across from Splitsville. The company is the Void which also has VR experiences with Ghostbusters: Dimension. You sign up for a four person team.  They have you sign up, give you wristbands (which are scanned), and then lead you into a room where you can an introductory video by Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) who gives you the debriefing by a Rebel soldier (great cameo from an actor in Rogue One!, revealed in recent Void commercial).

He informs you that your mission is to retrieve a crate “with information necessary for the survival of the Rebellion”, ok, swiping the movie line there. They have tracked it down to the planet Mustafar and you are to go undercover as stormtroopers.  This gives you all of the fun of the 501st without building armor and putting it on. There is a pad on a console that you can enter your armor configuration and color.  You enter the room with racks of gear, a vest that you put on, and a VR helmet.  It feels heavy, but the weight is distributed so it’s not a work out.  The helmet is strapped on and you adjust the noise level with a lever by your ear.  An attendant helps to adjust your vest and helmet.  The limitations are you have to 48” or taller and age 10 or older.

The Void, Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire, photo by the author.

Then, you shuffle into the next room, it is four blank walls.  The stunning part is that you can see your stormtrooper armor, lifting up your arms, seeing the armor and your arm at the same time!  Now, this is all very disorienting since you enter a shuttle, but just go with the flow and the Star Wars “reality” will catch up to you.  It is just stunning to touch walls, look around you, and see your fellow stormtroopers.  K2-SO (Alan Tudyk’s voice) goes along with you on the mission.  He has some instruction, but mostly it’s to chastise you for hesitating or getting things confused.  I was told to pull a switch, but again it didn’t feel real to me, until I finally grabbed hold of it and pulled it down.

You walk to a skiff, a platform, that carries you across the lava below and it does not strike you with vertigo.  Soon, you get into a firefight with stormtroopers, there was no tactics for our group so random shooting.  I clung to the left wall for cover and started firing at stormtroopers at the level above us.  You do get slight taps from the vest when you are hit by stormtrooper fire.  There are of course more surprises in store.  I think the basic story fits with canon.  Once you exit the rooms you get a photo op with your visor and vests.  The other merch includes a black t-shirt, sweater, and hat. This is the ultimate Star Wars experience.  It is now open at the Glendale Galleria.  I’m thinking that it will top anything in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge which is still a year away.

#StarWarSecretsoftheEmpire, #TheVoid, #DowntownDisney, #K2SO