Sheev Palpatine once said that the Dark Side of the Force was a pathway to many abilities some would consider to unnatural. After many rides on Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, we’re inclined to believe him. Despite how ridiculous the name Sheev sounds.

There are some very unnatural abilities on display inside this ride. The most diabolical one of all is happening in the pre-show. The one in the interrogation chamber. Which I guess is really like the third or fourth pre-show, depending on how you classify these things. But it’s the scene right before you get on the ride itself. Unless you count the transport shuttle as a ride, in which case it’s the second scene after that, but before the part where you ride on the second ride, which is the prisoner transports.

Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance has a lot going on, I guess.

Behold the Interrogation Chamber

Anyway, it’s the part where the First Order threatens to harm you unless you reveal the location of the secret Resistance base. You are below, locked in a cell. Because these First Order detention centers cannot abide cross-color prisoner contamination, you are standing on colored dots. There’s some sort of red bulkhead above you. An impenetrable wall surrounds you. And a nifty little overpass spans the far corner, where Kylo Ren and his minions can stare down at you like you are womp rats trapped in a cage. Which, I suppose, you are.

Kylo Ren and General Hux dismiss the stormtroopers. There is some banter. Then Kylo tries to extract the information from your mind using the Dark Side of the Force before Hux interrupts him to tend to some emergency on the bridge.

It’s a lot of people going in and out while you wait. Your very own Country House Murder Mystery, Galaxy’s Edge style.

The Stormtroopers, Kylo Ren, and General Hux are played by actors. Disney personally keeps Adam Driver and Domhnall Gleeson on staff at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, forcing them to perform every few minutes for load after load of Rise of the Resistance guests. And don’t you dare ask how they are able to do the same thing at Disneyland’s version of Galaxy’s Edge, which is all the way on the other side of the continent.

How the Pre-Show Really Works

Ha ha! Consider yourself tricked! We are only joshing with you. The pre-show is using a time honored theme park technique called a “screen.” And oh, how we love to mock the overuse of screens. The actors are recorded once on video, and then projected back for your endless amusement on a flat, reflective panel. For a surprise demonstration of this arcane technology, consult your living room television set.

We are stating the obvious to prove a point. We all pretend to buy into the illusion because it’s part of the story. But this fools none of us. The bad guys on the gantry above us are not really there. They are flat, two-dimensional characters. That’s not a knock on the screenwriters. It’s a literal fact.

Or is it? Because there is something exceedingly strange happening in that Interrogation cell. Something that does not happen with screens, whether it’s your television set, a thinly veiled airline commercial, or yet another iteration of Harry Potter and the Ride That Moves Very Fast.

These bad guys have an actual Dark Side to them.

We All Have a Dark Side

You have a Dark Side. I have a Dark Side. I don’t make a big deal about it. I’m not some Sith Lord raving about unlimited power. I mean, I am, but it’s not because of my Dark Side. I just happen to have one, as does every other person on the planet. All except Peter Pan, who is in the habit of losing his.

Most of us just call it a Shadow.

Shadows are what happens when something with mass obstructs the natural flow of light. Depending on the intensity of the light and its relation to the object, shadows could be short or long. They can be harsh or soft. They can even be an old superhero movie starring Alec Baldwin.

But they can’t exist without a physical object blocking the light. So just how is it that those stormtroopers on the gantry — who are themselves only particles of light reflected onto a screen — are casting shadows everywhere in the room?

The Shadow of the Dark Side Clouds Everything

Go back up and look at that picture of the red bulkhead looming over the interrogation cell. As Kylo, Hux, and the troopers walk back and forth on the gantry, their shadows move in perfect synchronization — not on the screen, but on the physical part of the room that you yourself are occupying.

Do you see it? Here are Kylo and Hux again, in different positions, with different arm movements. Their Dark Side is on display for all to see.

And now look at that picture again, because it’s not just the shadows on the red bulkhead. Check out the ceiling above and behind them. Different light sources are hitting from below, casting shadows on the ceiling. Only none of this can actually be happening. The characters themselves are projections on a scrim. They have no mass. They cannot cast shadows.

Turn to the Dark Side

This is the exact sort of Disney detail that Parkeologists cannot get enough of. The kind of detail that exists in plain sight, which nobody notices. But it’s more than that. Not only do people not notice that it’s there, they wouldn’t ever miss it if it wasn’t.

Let’s be honest. We’re all numb to the idea of screens in theme parks. We expect them now as a matter of course. We all know that big theme park companies no longer want to spend the money building hundreds of animatronics for their big rides. If they can get by with some filmed source material, they will do it.

But in this case, they’ve rigged some extra projectors. At a minimum, there’s one for the bulkhead and one for the ceiling. They’ve taken care to conceal the projectors in the room. They’ve filmed or animated shadows to play along the surfaces. They had to synchronize it to the performance of the actors on the screen.

And for what? Why go through all that effort?

I suppose it’s because that’s what keeps us coming back. It’s not always the full sized TIE fighters or the free-falling escape pods or the face-to-face encounter with an AT-AT walker. Sometimes it’s just the small moments that only one person in a hundred thousand will notice. And when you do notice it, it feels even more special. Like it was put there just for you.

Look for it next time you ride. Now that you know it’s there, you won’t be able to unsee it.