Rise of the Resistance begins in the Resistance’s newly established base on Batuu. They’ve slap-dashed operations together in an ancient, who-knows-how-many-thousands-of-years-old cavern just outside Black Spire Outpost, so you see more of the natural planet. Resistance fighters have clearly used lasers to carve out tunnels for their base. The queue winds through the caverns past markers indicating what the cave may have been used for and past flight gear and weapons rooms. Look out for in-universe connections in those areas.

Then riders from the FastPass and Standby lines merge (no word on single rider yet for this attraction) into a group of about 45 to 55 people in a standby room. Then in a comms area, an animatronic BB-8 looks over the group as a holo transmission from Rey appears. She has a special off-planet mission for you: you’ll be boarding a shuttle—an ITS, to be specific—and Poe Dameron will escort you in his X-wing. Double doors open to an outdoors area, you hear engines spooling and getting ready for flight, you see Poe’s full-sized X-wing to your right, and you board the first ride system with the shuttle—Nien Nunb appears as an animated figure in the shuttle!

You take off from the planet in this motion-based part of the attraction, but your shuttle is intercepted by two Star Destroyers. Poe leaves to get help, but you’re shuttle is stuck in a tractor beam. When the shuttle doors open again, you’re in a Star Destroyer’s hangar surrounded by the First Order—literally facing 50 stormtroopers, some of them moving. A First Order TIE fighter is visible to your right. It’s all massive in scale, and I was intimidated even though the hangar wasn’t finished and no stormtroopers were in place.

Cast members dressed as First Order officers will be barking at you to move along. You walk down a hallway towards detention cells. There, the large group of 45 to 55 is split into smaller groups and put into cells, a la the room where Kylo Ren interrogates Poe Dameron in The Force Awakens. This is where you’ll face Kylo Ren.

On the Rise of the Resistance ride, you’ll be joined by Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac and Adam Driver, who have created footage to give Rey, Finn, Poe Dameron, and Kylo Ren a presence in the attraction.

The wait line begins beneath a mobile cannon turret, which forms an archway to a path leading to ancient alien ruins carved into the rocky cliffs of the planet Batuu.

Inside the Pueblo-like carved living spaces of the ancient Batuuans, the line of would-be Resistance volunteers passes an animated Gonk droid, which is basically a walking battery, powering the lights and communications gear.

A little further along, the line weaves through an ancient worship site, although the little alcoves in the wall, lined with mineral-weeping stones, are missing the sacred objects they once held.

Nearby is another mysterious room, with numerous archways in the stone sealed shut with smaller, smooth rocks.

The good guys aren’t very careful with ancient archeology sites. They’ve used laser torches to carve open the ruins to create wider space for their blaster arsenal and flight equipment.

As you enter the heart of Resistance command, a familiar droid appears: BB-8. He comes bearing a hologram of Ridley as Rey, telling visitors they have to board a transport soon for a mission led by Poe Dameron.

From there, a bay door opens and guests are hustled out past Dameron’s signature black X-wing and into the cargo bay of a transport flown by another well-known Star Wars figure — Nien Nunb, the Sullustan alien co-pilot who helped Lando Calrissian blow up the second Death Star.

An animatronic version of the character barks at his passengers from the front, his jowls flapping like a stack of pancakes. For the voice, Imagineers hired Kenyan actor Kipsang Rotich, who spoke the dialogue for the character in his native Kalenjin and Kikuyu languages in both Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.

Once the transport doors close, visitors watch on monitors as they are cleared for take-off. Before the ship rises, Isaac emerges from the control center and climbs into his X-wing, continuing to communicate with Nunb and your ship as you all lift off into space.

Before long, the convoy is intercepted by a First Order Star Destroyer. Poe can’t fight it off on his own, so he has to retreat, promising to bring back help.

A tractor beam pulls the transport into the Destroyer, and when the doors open guests are standing in a giant auditorium-sized First Order hangar, filled with scores of Stormtroopers, and hung with TIE Fighters along the walls.

The stormtroopers will be animatronic, with slight movement suggesting they are alive, but they’ll also be slightly smaller than visitors realize to create the illusion that the hangar — which is truly massive — is even bigger.

From there, the visitors are hustled into a room similar to the one where Kylo Ren once tortured Poe Dameron. You don’t stay here long. Soon, you learn something valuable that the Resistance will need to fight the First Order, and once you get broken out of this cell the real ride continues.

Disney Parks officials won’t say exactly how long Rise of the Resistance lasts, but they say it’s not the 28 mins that has been rumored online.

Once you flee the interrogation room, you board a trackless cart that will guide you through the rest of the ride, gliding through one hangar that contains two towering AT-ATs, and eventually bringing you face-to-mask with Kylo Ren.

Exactly how he and Finn appear in the ride is still under wraps, but Imagineers confirm that both Driver and Boyega are involved in bringing the characters to life.