How Imagineering wrote Smugglers Run's new 80-page Mandalorian mission

Walt Disney Imagineering has revealed how the new Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run mission was scripted. In a behind-the-scenes featurette, senior story lead Riley R. explains that the roughly four-minute ride runs on a script of about 80 pages, covering the pre-show and every branching path guests can unlock in the new Mandalorian and Grogu adventure.

Walt Disney Imagineering has shown how the new Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run mission was written, and the math is lopsided on purpose. In a short behind-the-scenes featurette, senior story lead Riley R. walks through a script of roughly 80 pages that drives a ride lasting about four minutes.

A story team's view of the new mission

The featurette opens in character rather than in a studio. On-screen dialogue references Hondo Ohnaka's intel and a target on Tatooine, with Din Djarin and Grogu agreeing to meet the crew there, before the video cuts to a knowing aside: "Hey, Mando. Real quick, let's chat story." From there the video hands off to Riley R., who breaks down the writing behind the Mandalorian and Grogu update that replaced the original Smugglers Run adventure.

What a senior story lead does

Riley R. describes a role that spans a project end to end. "As a senior story lead, it's my job to work on story from the very beginning of a project to the very end," Riley R. says. "I write the script, I write dialogue." On an interactive flight simulator where guests take pilot, gunner, and engineer positions, that dialogue has to serve the plot and the ride mechanics at the same time.

Building the mission, beat by beat

The rewrite started with goals rather than lines. "We had a lot of story goals for Smugglers Run," Riley R. says. "Once we figured out what our main new mission was going to be and what those story beats were, we had to start writing all the dialogue." Only after the beats were locked did the words follow.

From there the job became a matter of sync. "The next part was figuring out how our new dialogue matched up with the visuals and with the timing of the show," Riley R. says, "and then from there, making sure that all the interactive elements were working along with the story." The dialogue, the visuals, the show timing, and the buttons guests actually push all had to line up.

An 80-page script for a four-minute ride

The scale of the writing is where the featurette makes its point. "The show for Smugglers Run is about 4 minutes," Riley R. says. The script behind it is not short. "The entire script for the entire show, including the pre-show and all the variables and all the different paths and all the different things you might unlock, is about like 80 pages," Riley R. says. "It's a very long script for a very short show. All of that is considered, which is why it's so long and wonderful."

The gap comes from branching. The mission does not play out the same way twice, so the script has to cover each fork a crew can trigger and each destination the flight can reach, not just one straight path from launch to landing.

How the writing fits the new adventure

The mission has run at both resorts since May 22, 2026, the day Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu opened in theaters. Hondo Ohnaka recruits flight crews to chase a bounty on ex-Imperial officers, teaming guests with Din Djarin and Grogu, and the crew's choices can send the Falcon toward Cloud City on Bespin, the city-planet Coruscant, or the wreckage of the second Death Star near Endor. Walt Disney Imagineering developed the story with director Jon Favreau and Lucasfilm's Dave Filoni, and a new feature lets the crew place outbound calls to Grogu during the run. Each of those branches is another stretch of dialogue the story team had to write and time.

Why the script size matters for guests

The 80-page figure explains why the ride can hold up across repeat visits: the paths, the pre-show, and the unlockable outcomes are written out in full, not improvised on the fly. For guests planning a return trip through Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, it also sets expectations, since two rides through the same mission can play quite differently depending on the crew's calls. The full featurette is on Walt Disney Imagineering's YouTube channel.