Disney’s Star Wars Land will turn people into Jedi with cool attraction

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In addition to a slew of new films and merchandise, Disney will open new Star Wars-themed lands at Disney locations in California and Florida. We’ve seen a bunch of concept art of what these lands might look like, and now a newly surfaced patent has revealed what kind of cool interactive exhibits visitors will enjoy.

According to PatentYogi, via io9, a patent filed by Disney Enterprises suggests park attendees will be able to recreate that famous scene of Luke Skywalker training with the Marksman-H combat remote.

While aboard the Millennium Falcon, Luke is seen trying to deflect non-lethal blasters with his lightsaber. At first, Luke’s grows impatient after being unable to “feel” the Force, but after some encouragement from Obi-Wan, he embraces the Force and is able to block the blaster shots without a problem.

Here’s how the patent document describes the potential attraction:

An entertainment environment has a user with a faux light saber that interacts with a drone flying through the air or operated with hidden rods to appear as if its flying through the air. The faux light saber has LEDs attached thereto to provide IR light to the drone. As an LED is turned on, an invisible light sensor built into the drone captures an image of the field of view with a bright spot at the position of the activated LED. A visible light source built into the drone then projects light through particulate matter toward the faux light saber. As a result, the user is provided with the illusion that the faux light saber has deflected a laser beam.

It’s probably not quite as complex as it sounds. The method likely isn’t too dissimilar to using a Wiimote at home, though it’s much cooler because you can pretend to be a Jedi. Apparently, things like theatrical fog will be used in the exhibit to further give participants the illusion that they’re immersed in the Star Wars universe.

Disney hasn’t revealed too many details about what park attendees can do when the different Star Wars Land parks open. However, giving people the opportunity to pretend like they’re Jedi seems like the perfect way to get consumers hyped about the new parks.