The lasting appeal of the Disney brand can likely be ascribed in part to the origin myths that surround the company’s founding. Everyone knows “it was all started by a mouse”, and the dedication of Disneyland, “to all who come to this happy place, welcome,” is more entrenched in the cultural consciousness than a majority of inauguration speeches made by U.S. presidents. The lands found in the parks themselves are frequently origin stories, most notably Main Street U.S.A. in both Disneyland and The Magic Kingdom which mythologizes Walt’s adolescent roots as an American dreamer. Even after Walt, the EPCOT Center had a special creation myth as well, retold by fans about the original vision for an “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow” and how it evolved into the Epcot we know today. These original parks in the Disney family are often considered timeless creations, whereas Disney’s Hollywood Studios (formerly Disney-MGM Studios before the licensing contract expired) would probably rather we forget the time of its creation altogether. Its origin story goes something like this:
When Universal Studios announced their plans to build a movie theme park in Orlando, Michael Eisner quickly scrambled together a press conference to announce his own plans for a third gate at Walt Disney World, which looked suspiciously identical to the proposed movie theme from their soon-to-be competitors. Using some ride concepts from unused proposals for their existing parks, Disney-MGM Studios managed to complete a year ahead of Universal Studios despite the later construction start, partly thanks to the Disney Company’s special jurisdiction in Florida that lets them issue their own construction permits. Upon opening their gates, visitors to Disney-MGM Studios were treated to a grand total of four different attractions to fill out their day of adventure, as well as a separate movie production studio which gave us such classics as Ernest Saves Christmas and Thunder in Paradise before it was eventually downsized back to California… not that that fact should be any reason they can’t still pretend that we get to watch real movies and television be made.
In retrospect the origins of today’s Disney’s Hollywood Studios probably seem a bit silly and misguided. Even given that it has higher annual attendance than Universal Studios by virtue of being part of the Disney World package, as the smallest of three (now four) gates the motivation for Disney’s Studios park to compete would never be as great as Universal’s focus of resources would be on their flagship property. The similarities and differences between the two parks today are telling. Both promised a peek behind the scenes of moviemaking even though both have ill-fated histories of actual movie production in Florida, and both have relatively uninspiring visual identities, simulating soundstages and movie sets that even if real wouldn’t have much innate aesthetic appeal anyway.1 Both parks also tend to be treated as the dumping grounds for intellectual properties their parent companies want to build a ride out of but wouldn’t quite fit behind their other more thematically structured gates.
However, where Universal Studios Florida became big and muscular by adding major attractions on a frequent basis whether they fit the surrounding environment or not, Disney’s Hollywood Studios’ growth has been more conservative, with fewer total E-ticket attractions that also tend to be of more even quality, which has left many of the original themed environments still cohesively intact. There are more pathways and buildings around Hollywood Studios that are pleasurable to simply explore or admire the historical references at one’s own leisure (e.g. Sunset Blvd., Echo Lake), whereas Universal Studios emphasizes action with design choices intended to funnel us into the queue of the nearest attraction. Perpetually compared to the other three theme parks on Walt Disney World’s property, it can be easy to forget that if on its own Disney’s Hollywood Studios would still be a relatively beautiful park when inspected up close.
The fact is easily forgotten because, stepping back from each example of the wonderful attention to detail and examining the park grounds as a whole, Disney’s Hollywood Studios has a fairly monotonous aesthetic identity, roughly divided into two sprawling sections: the Golden Age Tinseltown look in the northern half and the studio soundstage look on the south side, with a few lone areas of IP-based attractions adding discontinuous lumps to the mix. While the other Walt Disney World parks use their environments to evoke universal stories of reassurance, wonder, or nature, Hollywood Studios by contrast is both narrow in concept and narcissistic in delivery. It’s a vanity project designed primarily to please the old guard of Hollywood executives who built it in the first place. A place to reminisce over how easy it used to be to deceive audiences with either a little glitz and glamour on the red carpet or some make-up and special effects on the silver screen, while assuming that modern audiences still share that same nostalgic desire to be duped by these manufactured illusions of the culture industry.2 The phrase “you ought to be in pictures” is glimpsed several times to remind us that the ability to make it into Hollywood should still be considered the highest endorsement of an individual’s beauty and self-worth, even if most people today would interpret such a sentiment as cutely quaint rather than truly honorary. Therefore it’s perhaps of interest to note that two of the most original attractions, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and Muppet*Vision 3D, are both to some degree deconstructions of the vainglorious attitudes towards movie magic that define the rest of this theme park.
All told Disney’s Hollywood Studios is still a worthwhile entry amongst Central Florida’s theme park selection, if not only because it has a collection of attractions with greater appeal to most ride enthusiasts than the average Disney park. Perhaps what it needs more than anything else could be as simple as a proper central icon instead of the Sorcerer’s Hat placed there “temporarily” since 2001. Something that could give the complete park a more unified, universal message, instead of a slapdash icon reminding us of the park’s slapdash heritage built by competing corporate egos with evidently very little imagination left in the world.
The Great Movie Ride
Here’s a dark ride built by geeks for geeks. At first the uninspired descriptive title and central placement as Hollywood Studio’s “mascot” attraction (à la Cinderella Castle or Spaceship Earth, this time with Mann’s Chinese Theatre) made me fear this could be a very vanilla work of Hollywood pageantry, overproduced as only Disney knows how. Thankfully that’s not (entirely) the case, as the show producers seem to demonstrate a genuine giddy enthusiasm for toying with many conventions of theme park attractions while simultaneously flattering our pop-culture savvy. Like, “wouldn’t-it-be-cool-if-the-ride-host-gets-kidnapped-by-a-villain-from-a-gangster-flick-or-spaghetti-western”, and “wouldn’t-it-be-cooler-if-then-the-gangster-gets-owned-by-the-xenomorph-from-Alien”, but then “wouldn’t-it-be-coolest-if-he-gets-his-face-melted-like-the-guy-in-Indiana-Jones-and-the-guardian-of-the-Ark-of-the-Covenant-turns-out-is-the-original-ride-host-in-disguise”? (Deep breath.) Given how many different ideas the Imagineers tried to cram together The Great Movie Ride easily could have suffered from over complication, but… well, okay, it is a little over complicated. Sure that’s part of the charm, but mixing live performers with audio-animatronics on the same stage almost always produces extra awkward results, and the script’s handful of “spontaneous surprises” often play stale or forced, simply due to the nature of a theme park attraction that requires casts members to read the same lines every twenty minutes every day for the rest of their career. The Great Movie Ride wants us to admire its cleverness and craftsmanship, but it’s mostly just an expensive work of fan fiction; an emotional parasite that survives by feeding off superior works of art. Sure the satisfaction of winning a game of “Spot the Movie References” can be real, it’s just also not very deep.
Grade: C+
Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular!
Of course everything at a Disney park is fake, but sometimes the fakery is directly acknowledged while (most) other times our disbelief is supposed to be suspended indefinitely. There’s an extended bit where one of the group of audience members they bring on stage is actually a plant, which our initial ignorance of the confederate’s presence allows for some amusing did-that-really-just-happen gags. When the set culminates in an outrageous stunt that instantly clues everyone into the act, the show wisely doesn’t try to stretch our disbelief any further and immediately acknowledges the ruse so that everyone can authentically cheer a fine performance (one most didn’t even realize was a performance twenty seconds earlier). Well played, and enjoyable entertainment. Given that the majority of the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular doesn’t try to be a work of theater but just an honest demonstration of the physical stunts and special effects that make movie magic, it’s therefore more conspicuously odd when the show writers do try to enforce an obviously fictional conceit. The worst offender is the repeated claims to convince us this set is actually used for filming movies, as if studio films are produced with live studio audiences and being a Harrison Ford stunt double for the Indiana Jones franchise is a steady career with regular 9-5 working hours, ideal for the muscular 20-something theater grads they’ve hired. Maybe this premise worked for one year in 1989 when this show first debuted and the Last Crusade opened in theaters featuring a still youthful Mr. Ford, but today it’s just a distracting reminder of how Disney can’t be bothered to update even a few lines of script for a live performance in over twenty years. It also suggests the writers don’t have confidence to let their show stand on its own merits; don’t worry, no one will be disappointed to learn that your theme park stunt show isn’t real and is really only there to entertain audiences in a theme park with stunts.
Grade: C-
Star Tours – The Adventures Continue
Some people can’t do roller coasters, while others get queasy on spinning flat rides. I’ll be honest: my Achilles’ heel seems to be motion simulator rides. Sure I can ride them, but sitting in a claustrophobic bouncing box in front of the dim flicker of a 3D movie screen while concentrating my eyes on an artificial focal length, it doesn’t take long before the back of my retinas start to strain and the bottom of my stomach begins to tighten. Surprisingly, I find neither sensation to be particularly enjoyable. Thus the revamped Star Tours, which touts an impressive 54 different film sequences for a new adventure each time, could easily become something of a curse for a completionist prone to motion sickness such as myself. Still, with the aid of Dramamine and FastPasses I managed a total of four rides before having to call it quits, and that was more because of my annoyance that my fourth ride consisted of segments I had already seen at least twice while a handful of possible scenes continued to elude me. As an experiential short film set in the Star Wars universe there’s no doubt that Star Tours is tremendously successful at what it does, and the randomized sequences to encourage multiple re-rides is a long overdue idea to extract more value for repeat visitors at a lower marginal expense to the designers,3 even though there’s really only three different sequences of significance that can be randomly rearranged in four spots like a Twist-and-Match toy figurine. For anyone who hasn’t already sworn allegiance to the Rebel Alliance before boarding their StarSpeeder, they may find that this lottery ball approach to storytelling shares a lot of the same narrative deficiencies as any other “Choose Your Own Adventure” story… and here you don’t even have the freedom to choose. Instead of 54 equally interchangeable riffs on the same concept, wouldn’t we have been better off choosing between three complete and completely different story arcs?
Grade: C
Muppet*Vision 3D
3D/4D movie attractions usually rank below average on the theme park attraction totem pole, but I must make an exception in this case. Here is what separates Muppet*Vision 3D from the rest: Love. Jim Henson and company took the time to write a genuinely clever script full of their typically absurdist humor, which would sadly become Henson’s last time voicing Kermit the Frog before his death in 1990. Nothing is safe from the anarchy of the Muppets, who this time set a lock on both theme parks and movie production as a primary subject of their merciless slapstick, which lends the film some deliciously contextual satiric relevance. Targets include the cheap gimmicks 3D movies typically employ to elicit an audience reaction by reaching through the screen for no reason related to the story; the artificiality of “lifelike” audio-animatronics who are in fact bolted in place and thus can never, ahem, relieve themselves between shows; and most hilariously, a parody/veiled critique of Epcot’s World Showcase in the form of Sam the Eagle’s patriotic final act titled “A Salute to All Nations, But Mostly America”. While sometimes the manic energy starts to run around in circles with no objective in sight, the only real downside of Muppet*Vision 3D that would cause hesitation over a second viewing is an interminable preshow that keeps everyone on their feet for much longer than seems necessary. Otherwise this is possibly the best 3D movie attraction currently playing at a major theme park.
Grade: B
Studio Backlot Tour
This was closed for refurbishment at the time of my visit. I missed out on the Studio Tour at the sister park in Paris for the same reason, and having done all but one of the Universal parks, the one I’m still missing would also be the only one that has a studio tour. One of these days I’ll finally get to sit on a tram and be shuttled between movie sets accompanied by the cadence of a chirpy tour guide, but that day would not be today. That’s more time for Tower rides, then.
Toy Story Midway Mania!
With Toy Story Midway Mania the interactive shooter dark ride format has reached its apogee. Never again in the future of mankind will a dark ride equipped with a plastic wank gun be as gleefully fun as this ride is. Hooray. Now that we won’t need any more attractions that combine beloved children’s characters with the central mechanic from the “Deer Hunter” videogame series, can we please go back to making dark rides where the focus is on things like story and atmosphere and other arty crap? Between the HD-3D video screens that immerse you in the game like it’s the world’s largest iPad; the real-time projectile rings, darts, and balls that ricochet off scenery with supreme anarchic satisfaction; or the way vehicles suddenly yank and spin you from one level to the next imbuing the game with a physical sense of urgency… it’s impossible to make this formula more entertaining without controlled substances. And I’m not being (completely) sarcastic. Ride it once for what will seem like the second-best four minutes of your life so you’ll never have to bother again. Beware, the line fills up fast, so get a FastPass early in the day and do it quick before Mr. Potato Head has another aneurysm.
Grade: C
The Magic of Disney Animation
This indoor complex houses several different attractions, including a show about animated character development, costumed character meet-and-greets (there are always meet-and-greets at Disney parks, and they often command some of the longest lines), interactive games, and a museum of Disney animation artwork. The combination live/projected show actually does offer some worthwhile insights into Disney’s creative process, even if the show writers seemed to lack confidence over the audience’s sustained interest in this material by overstuffing the script with throwaway gags. The interactive activities on the main floor are fairly unremarkable, not helped by the recent proliferation of the App marketplace that now makes large computer kiosks housing mini-games such as these almost entirely redundant. It’s cute that a program script can determine after six short questions that if I were a Disney character I would be Jafar from Aladdin (I couldn’t disagree), but in this decade do I really still need to travel to Florida for that information? The adjoining museum about Disney animation is perhaps the most worthwhile, even if (and perhaps this is simply due to the nature of animation) the exhibits are very two-dimensional and the experience is akin to a coffee table book you have to read while standing. Nevertheless I walked away with some newfound appreciation for the artwork in a number of classic and recent animated films I hadn’t previously given as much consideration to, which seems like a solid signal that this gallery must be a success.4
Grade: C-
The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
Tower of Terror could make the best argument of any Disney ride that a theme park attraction could be considered as a uniquely singular category of artistic storytelling. It’s not that there aren’t better or more artistically competent Disney attractions (although the list is very short), but it is the only one that makes the exclusive experiential capability of thrill ride hardware and environmental immersion an absolutely essential component to the articulation of a detailed narrative. As great – in fact, greater – as the similarly weird and wonderful Haunted Mansion is, the slow-moving vehicles gliding gently past a fixed series of scenes could be translated into a different visual story medium without significant compromise, whereas a plot in which the audience must personally experience a zero-gravity freefall down an elevator shaft could not be replicated anywhere outside the theme park medium.5 The story, culled from an episode of the Twilight Zone, offers a breathtaking impression of Hollywood’s Golden Age as a source of simultaneous beauty and moral decay, cursed by the specter of time as familiar objects (including our own faces) phase in and out of the stardust from whence we came. In no other work of fiction has the existential dread rising from the pit of our stomach been felt so literally.
Yet while Tower of Terror could make the strongest argument for the story-ride fusion as a unique artistic medium, I’m frustrated by certain aspects that weaken this position. There are hints of intriguing ideas that could form the bedrock of a great popular science fiction story; e.g. Hollywood’s downfall reinterpreted as a modern Icarus myth featuring an iconic tower that reached for the sun only to fall when it got too close, or the notion that the familiar world is an illusory construct of ancient metaphysical entities. However there’s also a sense that any deeper interpretations are mere thematic ghosts left behind from the television show, and discussion over the story’s meaning would be more relevant to the source material than the watered-down remix in the attraction. Most of the narrative details are isolated to the corner of a dark room where a sixteen inch television screen6 quickly answers the perfunctory Who-What-Where-When bullet points from the storyteller’s manual while leaving the more interesting questions of How and Why largely unanswered. Perhaps this could be seen as a minimalist approach to story intended to foster suspense and encourage visitors to reach their own conclusions, but more realistically this brief and overly-expository video suggests that engagement with such questions was never intended in the first place. As long as the preshow provides adequate justification for the falling elevator concept and finishes with an eerie feeling of mystery, it matters not if the story has any deeper independent meaning. In this case “story” or “theme” becomes a means to an end: it’s window dressing there for those who would admire it the same way as they will distantly admire the set design or special effects, and for everyone else it’s an excuse to put a drop tower ride in a Disney park. Given that the majority of people will exit chattering excitedly over what the ride did rather than what the ride was about, I can’t help but feel that for all Tower of Terror does right, the formula to make theme park attractions a “story-first” medium has yet to find the perfect balance.
Grade: B+
Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster
Okay Disney, we get it: you can be just as much of a badass as Universal Studios. The regrettably short-lived Hard Rock Park still beat both of your attempts at rock idolatry, as that property was created by people who evidenced a true love for the music unlike these poseurs sitting at the cool kid’s table in central Florida. So, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster is actually a pretty good Disney attraction while simultaneously being a pretty mediocre roller coaster.7 The show portion of the attraction (i.e. everything built by Imagineers) is simultaneously very “counter-Disney” while also extremely “classic Disney”, and I respect the balancing act needed to make this original concept (at the time) work. The visual aesthetic, which transitions from an ultra-modernist recording studio (the attraction’s “cover art”, as it were) to a dark and grungy backstage area (where the heart of rock ‘n’ roll is found), are both quite different from anything else found on Walt Disney World property with its traditional focus on reassuring fantasies and nostalgia. Yet the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster is hardly antiestablishment, as most of the traditions of Disney design are still present underneath it all; from the series of enchanted portals that gradually take us someplace removed from the everyday, to the abundant nostalgia that comforts us like a friendly hug… only this time for a generation that cherishes memorabilia from The Doors or Jimi Hendrix Experience rather than the typical 1950’s cultural iconography of other Disney parks. Unfortunately the coaster portion of the attraction (i.e. everything built by Vekoma) is also pretty last generational as well. Predictably there’s no sense of how to pace a layout so it’s exciting to the very end. The launch is cool (the use of lighting makes it look much faster than it really is, about twice as strong as a commercial airliner takeoff) and it immediately pours into the signature double rollover maneuver. After that the bulky limo-train lumbers around a series of flat geometric curves and block brakes with a lone corkscrew making a cameo appearance at some arbitrary midpoint. Basically a rip-off of the Premier-built Flight of Fear coasters that opened three years prior, lacking are the nimble directional changes, strategic lulls and crescendos, and final corkscrew that forcefully informs you of the finish. Of course the coaster component isn’t all that matters, but given that Disney thought it mattered enough to break the diegetic construct and put “Roller Coaster” in the very title, I don’t feel out of line asking for better.
Grade: C+
Summary
A typical product of Hollywood’s most self-congratulatory impulses, some high-grade attractions save Disney’s Hollywood Studios from obsolescence in the competitive Orlando market.
Given Disney’s frequent self-congratulatory tendencies, it is with some surprise that when they finally decided to construct an amusement park land that’s a simulation of an amusement park, they didn’t use their own neighboring Disneyland as their model. Just imagine the possibilities: Tour the authentically inauthentic jungles of Adventurelandland, and then marvel at yesterday’s vision of today in Tomorrowlandland! If they could have made a “Disneylandland”, it probably would have been the most interesting and honest themed environment they’d ever design. It would allow them to finally declare without veiled pretense that they alone are the ultimate synthesis of pop-culture trash and the cornerstone of Californian identity. Meanwhile I would enjoy getting my mind blown by the meta-surrealness of the whole thing. What magnitude of vortex in the space-time continuum would be created by a hyperreal interpretation of the ultimate example of hyperreality?
At the very least it probably would have shut up a number of the Disney-faithful critics of California Adventure that no Disney property should be tainted by the inclusion of the “unthemed” amusement park rides that were designed for the beach-boardwalk styled Paradise Pier. Seriously, guys, the theme of the park is California culture, and amusement boardwalks are a part of California culture. How on earth does a themed landscape of Roller Coasters and Ferris Wheels not belong here? Last I checked Long Beach, Venice, Santa Monica, Santa Cruz, et al, are all still part of the Pacific shelf. None of them have fallen off, yet.______
Actually, that’s too plainly obvious for me to think it’s a legitimate response to what the criticism is actually getting at, so I’ll try again. Seriously, guys, you are latently implying that traditional amusement parks are inherently of poor taste, stigmatizing them to be of inferior social and cultural standing compared to the suburban class-superiority of modern resort theme parks. That’s not a criticism of Disney. It’s a criticism of anything that isn’t Disney! Nothing else at Disneyland has ever been anything more than an imitation of popular culture, and to deny the boardwalk amusement park a place at these theme parks is to disavow that part of society as dirty and ugly at a fundamentally base aesthetic level, so that even a ‘clean’ version is still trash. A part of society which Disney itself is a branch of! Besides, since Disney’s model of theme park design makes it impossible to construct more than a small handful of thematically integrated rides at a level that would satisfy the fans without a budget exceeding several billion dollars, it was the traditional amusement parks that ultimately saved California Adventure by allowing the Imagineers to glut the western edge of the park with numerous attractions you can actually ride.
Now that I’ve spent all my breath defending Paradise Pier, I’m going to flip sides and tear it down. The place does a really shitty job paying ‘homage’ to the historical California amusement boardwalks and piers. It looks more like a candy store exploded in Six Flags. Nor do they watch their visual sightlines, leaving a large concrete condominium hotel (owned by Disney) taking a prominent position along the back of the park. I’m sad to say a lot of the fan base’s criticisms of Paradise Pier do have merit. The attempt to modernize a historical amusement pier results in something that looks like an airbrushed caricature of any generic movie set pier, and the off-the-shelf rides serve little purpose other than to fill in space. I can only imagine how much worse it was with an S&S tower ride crudely themed to a carnival Hi-Striker game in the middle of it. They seem to be trying to shift the visual design from the flashiness of Pacific Park to the vintageness of The Pike as part of their billion dollar renovation, which is the right general strategy. However, this revision to Victorian architecture is entirely superficial, just a few set dressings to make the pier look more dignified and upper class to visitors who don’t realize it is totally lacking in any genuine historical content. As a student of amusement park history, I think there was a huge opportunity missed to resurrect lost treasures of California like the Cyclone Racer, the L.A. Thompson Scenic Railway, or the Laff in the Dark. I think Disney could have taken the concepts of these rides and done something inventive for a 21st century audience, plus it would have allowed the historical authenticity the Imagineers are always lusting after. Imagine, real wooden structures at Disney, just like the originals! Instead they landed us with a Mack Wild Mouse and a cartoon carousel.
The one attraction they sorta got right was the Golden Zephyr, a Harry Traver Circle Swing that was once popular at amusement parks. Having recently been on an authentic 1904 version at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, I was appreciative that they got the mechanics correct. While it’s just like the real thing, there’s also a downside… it’s just like the real thing. There’s a reason they stopped building these nearly eighty years ago. They’re not very thrilling. The silver steel 12-person aeroships have a lot of inertia so it’s rather hard to get much of a swing going. You just circle around in the air only a few feet from the safety of the platform, eliciting a nice breeze and panoramic view of Paradise Bay, and that’s about it. On the plus side, the combination of high capacity and being not a particularly popular ride to begin with means that the queue should rarely be a problem.
Mickey’s Fun Wheel is arguably the most iconic centerpiece of the park, usurping the somewhat reclusive and very grey Grizzly Peak for that distinction. The make-over from Sun Wheel to Fun Wheel seems to have been one of the more positive changes. Not because I hate the sun and need more Mickey Mouse around the parks (and I’m not sure of the logic of swapping the sun and Mickey’s head between the Ferris Wheel and California Screamin’s loop and calling that an ‘improvement’). But because it got an attractive LED lighting package that makes the geometric figure come alive at night. While it looks purty from across the bay, up close in person it could use a lot more plussing. The queue, potentially interesting for its subaquatic location, is mostly surrounded by hard concrete and temporary hand railings, and the gondola cars have an awful metal mesh over all the openings that make picture-taking near impossible with anything larger than a camera-phone, even straining ordinary spectatorship. The slow, continuously moving rotation means everyone gets exactly one cycle. I like this for efficiency reasons, but it also means that if you chose the roller cars you only get two moments where you rush towards the end and fling the car nearly halfway to horizontal. The fixed cars aren’t nearly as thrilling but there’s a better view at the top, if you’re able to enjoy it through all the wires.
We’d skip the Silly Symphony Swings, Jumpin’ Jellyfish and King Triton’s Carousel, which didn’t offer anything I couldn’t find at a local carnival except for twenty minute queues, and move on to the 2008-opened Toy Story Midway Mania. It seems as if Pixar is determined to turn California Adventure into a personal showcase (Cars Land, A Bug’s Land, Monster’s Inc., Turtle Talk with Crush, the Up playground), and so they must also find synergistic opportunities on an old amusement boardwalk. Themed to a set of carnival midway games, this interactive dark ride uses the latest 3D dark ride technology to produce what essentially amounts to five minutes playing on a Nintendo Wii. Needless to say, this makes it the most popular attraction at California Adventure, and is the one attraction where the use of FastPasses would be most highly recommended.
We enter beneath the California Screamin’ superstructure, the stand-by queue a long loop around a sheltered promenade with lots of cute toy-sized details; i.e. “cut here” markings on the cardboard packaging walls. The centerpiece is a larger-than-life Mr. Potato Head animatronic character interacting with guests in line and spectators on the midway. This is one of the most impressive pieces of technical equipment in the park, with digitally projected eyes, fully synchronized lips, and extremely fluid arm movements, completely absent of the rigid mechanical shuttering I’m accustomed to on most of these props, but still able to make strong, forcible hand gestures. The character tries to “interact” with spectators using Don Rickles’ deadpan comic delivery, but this tends to fail because people don’t intuitively realize they’re supposed to respond to him. Instead we watch silently with a quizzical look on our faces, waiting for this piece of technology to demonstrate some other programmed feature for us. The “no response” collection of automated lines get recycled fast, and then he breaks into an annoying off-tone song that tends to promote those holding up the queue to forward movement once again. Actually, the biggest laugh I found in the queue seemed to be unintentional: a poster for a Toy Story midway game called (I kid you not) “Flying Tossers”.
The dark ride vehicles are linked into pairs, with each car holding four people, two sitting back to back on each side. Inside the ride are a series of video screens that the vehicles park in front of, one screen directly in front of each set of riders. Each seat has a mounted plastic gun with a pull-chord trigger, and we are given targets to blast on the screen in a first-person shooter format. Good, old fashioned, American fun, right? The various virtual projectiles (pies, darts, balls, etc.) are rendered with real-time physics, so that the targets you knock down will bounce and ricochet off other objects in the scene, giving the various Sids in the audience a chance to delight in some mayhem. My aunt Christine’s strategy was to carefully pick out a target (the point values vary and there are also a few “Easter Eggs”), aim, shoot, and then move on to scanning for the next good target. My strategy, however, was to just go into each scene John Rambo style, guns ablazin’, spraying custard projectiles across anything unlucky enough to end up on the wrong side of my crosshairs. Yippee ki-yay, rubber duckies! This strategy ended up being the winning strategy, although it tanked my accuracy rating to only 50%. Also, my only take-home was a free sample of carpal tunnel syndrome.
The ride’s fun but at the end of it there’s a nagging feeling that it’s not the sort of fun I paid for in a trip to Disneyland. Midway Mania is basically the exact same kind of fun as it is to play a new videogame at a friend’s party with slightly inebriated vision, and despite the high level of interactivity neither of us had much desire for a repeat experience. So much of what we call entertainment these days involves looking at refreshing pixilated screens, and when I go to a theme park I’d prefer something that’s real and tactile in front of me. The dark ride format is largely wasted in this regard. There’s almost no riding or scenery, as the cars spend most of their time parked at a standstill so you can shoot at a screen for thirty seconds before they speed off to the next game. The only reason I can think of that necessitates a ride system is because each scene is nothing more than the same game with different dressings and movie characters, so you need to have some literal sensation of “moving on” so the repetition feels more substantial than reaching the next level in an iPhone game app. The experience probably would not have been compromised very much if they just built a large arcade with 3D shooter games, but since you wouldn’t have to queue 45 minutes for that, no one would think it was any good.
At last we arrive at California Screamin’, California Adventure’s signature original thrill ride wholly unique to the property, which also happens to have the second longest track length of any steel roller coaster in North America; it is also the longest roller coaster with inversion(s) anywhere in the world. 6000+ feet of track should automatically make California Screamin’ pretty special in the world of roller coasters, right?
The problem is: California Screamin’ is not very special. When I first learned that length statistic I couldn’t believe it was true. How could a layout have that much track but so little substance? It’s a double out-and-back that features a launch, a loop, and…? The coaster does indeed take a respectable two minutes to get from launch position to the final brakes – quite a long time for continuous forward momentum, by roller coaster standards at least – so it’s not like we’re somehow being cheated. And observing from the ground in person I was struck by how much the coaster structure dominates the midway on all sides. The solution to this discrepancy was answered by an initial front seat ride, revealing to me that a lot of the layout is unmemorable fluff that pads out the ride time.
The progression of the layout is quite uncomplicated, centralized around the singular vertical loop as the moment of climax, with the launch/lift hill combo escalating drama in the first half, and a series of bunny hops and helix finale acting as a steady denouement before the brakes. What are missing from this equation are the flat turns, which we greet after every one or two ‘straight’ elements (including the many block brakes), and it is in these wide, drawn out curves that a lot of that 6072 feet of track is spent. They are pretty fast paced and riders remain excited and engaged through the whole experience (aided by an onboard audio soundtrack that keeps the synapses racing even when the coaster cars themselves are starting to let off the gas), but this non-stop circling around the midway fails to leave a memorable impression due to their amorphous, force-differential shaping and resulting neutral G-forces.
Before this becomes too negative, I must commend California Screamin’ for its merits, which are numerous. As I already noted, the layout elements, as pointless as many of them might be, are at least sequenced in a very logical manner that progresses in a neat and tidy dramatic arc. Emotions swing back and forth from slow escalating tension to fast adrenal release, thanks in part to the LIM technology that allows for an extended midcourse pause – and even the persistently recurring block brakes allow a moment to ‘set-up’ the next action sequence. The water-level launch kicks things off to a rousing start after a nervously playful introduction, a small kick of airtime present on the first big hill, and the penultimate set of bunny hops (with an appropriate musical development) brings it all home; although the helix is a bit of a limp noodle as a ‘grand finale’. Lastly, even though it’s ‘just’ a simple vertical loop, the presentation and anticipation of this lonely inversion works so well that when it finally arrives, it feels almost as awe-inducing as Magic Mountain’s Revolution. Almost.
Plus it’s all very smooth. I must have gotten too accustomed to the Intamin vibration on Cedar Point’s coasters, and I was particularly dreading the boxy, old-make OTSH rolling stock. But these fears were totally without warrant, as the wheels rolled as if on glass, and the seats were MUCH more spacious than the hideous, “modernized” 2nd Gen trains on Colossus, et al. They also allowed room for an in-coach zipper compartment for loose items, an invaluable feature for speeding dispatch times and reducing the risk of loss, damage, or theft… why on Earth don’t more parks besides Disney use these?!?
The on-board music also did much to aid the riding experience. It’s mixed and synchronized to make sure it matches perfectly with the riding experience, slowing down, speeding up, and introducing variations exactly along with the layout. The music’s absence was sorely noted whenever we got a cycle with the speakers turned off, which unfortunately constituted the majority of our rides. The only thing that holds the soundtrack back from elevating the ride to the next level (à la Space Mountain) are the corny arrangements, a combination of tinkly carnival music for the slow parts and a fairly generic hard rock sound for the fast parts. Neither convinced me it wasn’t originally written for a cheap videogame company with the instrumentation arranged by the composer’s MacBook Pro.
Once the pros have been summed with the cons, California Screamin’ equates to a solid, enjoyable three-star thrill ride. I think many would agree. There’s very little the coaster gets wrong… but there’s very little that exceeds expectations, either. This goes back to my original point: 6000+ feet of track and a dual launch/lift system should have been epic. Given the financial and creative resources available when it was being developed, the possibilities could have been nearly limitless. It hopefully doesn’t take much imagination to realize that. I think where California Screamin’ went wrong was when Disney committed themselves not to building a roller coaster, but to building an imitation of a roller coaster. The ride appears just a little bit too perfect. The layout design seems to be based on an animator’s sketch of what the ideal roller coaster would look like from across the Paradise Pier harbor, and this curbs the ability to experiment with potentially more effective layout ideas. Satisfaction of spectators was a higher priority than satisfaction of riders. Visual aesthetic theory is very well understood by Disney and accordingly is placed on a high pedestal. Roller coaster aesthetic theory (i.e. psychological motives, emotional progressions dependant on layout variations, etc.) is not very well understood by anyone, and it’s easy to overlook even though this is arguably the most important aspect of a visitors experience. No one realized how much unexploited possibility remained left sitting on the table once the project was given the green light with 40% of the track consisting of flat banked curves that only looked beautiful from the ground. Lucky for Disney, that fairly well describes the state of modern roller coaster design as a whole, where rides are generally chosen based on how cool they look on a blueprint or brochure, and don’t always correlate to how cool they are to actually ride. California Screamin’ is the poster child for this trend by being the only roller coaster themed to look like a different roller coaster.
Somewhere in the subtext of all of this commentary is an interesting contradiction that how beautiful a roller coaster appears is often unrelated, if not an inverse factor, of how beautiful a roller coaster is to ride. The eye is attracted to continuity and symmetry (maybe in the pursuit of some metaphysical artistic ideal, maybe from a genetic selection process to weed out deformities in breeding), while the adrenal gland is activated by the opposite: unexpected discontinuities that appear to threaten the subject’s existence. For example, one could probably make an argument that Mean Streak is one of the most beautiful coasters ever built, even though the riding experience is generally considered one of the worst in the world. In fact, few enthusiasts will even naturally find it ‘beautiful’ anymore due to their first-hand experience that makes them nauseous at the very sight of the coaster, conditioned Clockwork Orange style. Imagine if someone was a coaster enthusiast only for looking at them, but never riding them, what their top ten list would be? I suspect California Screamin’ would be a contender, but even then I am uncertain about its artificial steel-copies-wood beauty when I compare it to the authentic originals, particularly the work of Prior and Church who were able to work beauty into all aspects of their creations, no matter if your viewpoint was on or off ride. Maybe if Disney wasn’t always so obsessed with producing an ‘improved’ imitation of these originals, they could have for once achieved the unaffected beauty of the real thing. But then people would complain because “that’s not Disney”.
With all of my ride reviews completed for California Adventure, I’ve noticed a recurring theme at this park. Nothing here is absolutely terrible (well, maybe apart from Monsters, Inc.) but nothing is remarkably outstanding, either. My favorite attractions were all flawed in some way, and the least flawed were attractions whose type I don’t particularly care for to begin with. The experience is the Disney equivalent of Purgatory. It’s the place where all the mediocre rides go to wait for their spiritual cleansing (in the form of a $1.1 billion renovation project), while we as visitors wait for our own ascension into the Utopia on the other side of the divide. (It’s called “Disneyland”.) The capstone of a visit to Disney California Adventure was the ultimate embodiment of this waiting for purification: World of Color.__________
We’d have liked to ride California Screamin’ a few more times, but they cut off access to the queue over an hour before the evening water and light show was scheduled to begin. While this is ostensibly in reaction to crowd control issues as people begin to take their places around Paradise Bay, I suspect in reality it only compounds the problem, as we (along with everyone else in the area) were then forced to begin our purgatorial waiting around the lagoon earlier than we might have otherwise preferred.
The game theorist in me always takes pleasure in observing the “irrationality” of such group behavior. Everyone’s self-interest maximizing desire to secure the best viewingspots for themselves results in a negative net loss for all the participants, because the distribution ratios of prime and subprime real estate will always be the same no matter when people choose to arrive, but the total amount of time that everyone has to stand around waiting goes way up (compared to if everyone was able to agree to arrive only ten minutes in advance; on average you’d have the same luck in finding a good spot but everyone also would have been able to enjoy the previous hour riding attractions instead). The problem with game theory is that when competing in a normal form strategy matrix such as this, an understanding of the group dynamics does absolutely nothing to aid in improving my own individual strategy. I’m only awarded the pleasure of enjoying the bitter irony of it all.
After nearly an hour guarding a valuable spot along one of the tiers of banisters, salvation finally arrives as the lights dim and the announcer makes the introductions, causing the throngs of spectators to start chattering excitedly before there’s a sudden hush, and the fountains start squirting. The technology on display is quite impressive. World of Color consists of a wide variety of highly synchronized water fountains that fill Paradise Bay, including some that are capable of shooting water nearly 200 feet high, and a giant fanned cascade along the back that acts as a movie projection screen. There are also a few additional effects such as fire cannons, lasers, and some weird retracting globe thingies, but these are used sparingly and the show is almost exclusively a supersized dancing waters production. The comparison my aunt made was to the fountain show at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, but noted that the big difference here was the use of high-powered, multicolor LED at the base of each fountain so that the star of the show isn’t even the water, but all the vibrant colors. It makes sense, right? The name is World of Color, not World of Water. That show’s at Universal Studios and stars a Kevin Costner impersonator.
But then there’s the show on display. A mashup of Disney music and clips is about what I expected from World of Color, but stretch it out over a half hour and… damn… do we really need that much Disney? The show contributes nothing new to the world cultural stage. It’s all the same video, the same musical numbers, and the same preprogrammed emotional cues we’re well familiar with. The problem is compounded by the fact that anyone seeing this show will be doing so after the end of a full day at the Disneyland Resort. You’ve already heard the orchestral swells from The Little Mermaid multiple times today, Menkin’s ballad for Beauty and Beast will be on its third replay, and Aladdin’s Whole New World will by now sound very old and familiar. Disney seems to be under the impression that these musical cues will continue to reduce their audience to tears no matter how saturated they’ve become, and let me tell you, after spending only two days at the resort, they milk these songs for every last emotional drop. Then again, I wouldn’t be surprised if many people are reduced to tears again and again, given how many members of the population have their cultural maturity limited to Disney movies. (A quick defense: I think many Disney films are very rich aesthetic works of art that deserve high status in the cultural pantheon. Here’s one of my favorite movie reviews of Dumbo.)
The point is this: the technology is wasted on the programming. Once the show runs out of its bag of new technical tricks (which after the first ten minutes a lot of the effects start becoming as recyclable as the music), World of Color very rapidly devolves into a self-indulgent advertisement. The few original parts of music written for the introduction and conclusion could be mistaken for a satiric parody of the Disney philosophy, the incessant invocations of “imagination” only revealing how imaginatively bankrupt the entire show actually is. Reconstruct World of Color in any major city around the globe and run a nightly evening program with Holst’s The Planets, and you’ll have a national treasure attracting worldwide media attention. And you know what else? I think that if Walt Disney was still alive and calling the shots, that description would much more closely match the final product of World of Color. A brand new Fantasia scripted specifically to take advantage of the unique properties afforded by this brilliant multidimensional water canvas. That would have been worth an hour and a half of standing propped up against a banister for.
However, if I were the one in charge, we’d hear a lot less of Dukas, and a lot more of Pink Floyd.
park in Orlando, Michael Eisner quickly scrambled together a press conference to announce his own plans for a third gate at Walt Disney World, which looked suspiciously identical to the proposed movie theme from their soon-to-be competitors. Using some ride concepts from unused proposals for their existing parks, Disney-MGM Studios managed to complete a year ahead of Universal Studios despite the later construction start, partly thanks to the Disney Company’s special jurisdiction in Florida that lets them issue their own construction permits. Upon opening their gates, visitors to Disney-MGM Studios were treated to a grand total of four different attractions to fill out their day of adventure, as well as a separate movie production studio which gave us such classics as Ernest Saves Christmas and Thunder in Paradise before it was eventually downsized back to California… not that that fact should be any reason they can’t still pretend that we get to watch real movies and television be made.
as the smallest of three (now four) gates the motivation for Disney’s Studios park to compete would never be as great as Universal’s focus of resources would be on their flagship property. The similarities and differences between the two parks today are telling. Both promised a peek behind the scenes of moviemaking even though both have ill-fated histories of actual movie production in Florida, and both have relatively uninspiring visual identities, simulating soundstages and movie sets that even if real wouldn’t have much innate aesthetic appeal anyway.1 Both parks also tend to be treated as the dumping grounds for intellectual properties their parent companies want to build a ride out of but wouldn’t quite fit behind their other more thematically structured gates.
of more even quality, which has left many of the original themed environments still cohesively intact. There are more pathways and buildings around Hollywood Studios that are pleasurable to simply explore or admire the historical references at one’s own leisure (e.g. Sunset Blvd., Echo Lake), whereas Universal Studios emphasizes action with design choices intended to funnel us into the queue of the nearest attraction. Perpetually compared to the other three theme parks on Walt Disney World’s property, it can be easy to forget that if on its own Disney’s Hollywood Studios would still be a relatively beautiful park when inspected up close.
by contrast is both narrow in concept and narcissistic in delivery. It’s a vanity project designed primarily to please the old guard of Hollywood executives who built it in the first place. A place to reminisce over how easy it used to be to deceive audiences with either a little glitz and glamour on the red carpet or some make-up and special effects on the silver screen, while assuming that modern audiences still share that same nostalgic desire to be duped by these manufactured illusions of the culture industry.2 The phrase “you ought to be in pictures” is glimpsed several times to remind us that the ability to make it into Hollywood should still be considered the highest endorsement of an individual’s beauty and self-worth, even if most people today would interpret such a sentiment as cutely quaint rather than truly honorary. Therefore it’s perhaps of interest to note that two of the most original attractions, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and Muppet*Vision 3D, are both to some degree deconstructions of the vainglorious attitudes towards movie magic that define the rest of this theme park.
All told Disney’s Hollywood Studios is still a worthwhile entry amongst Central Florida’s theme park selection, if not only because it has a collection of attractions with greater appeal to most ride enthusiasts than the average Disney park. Perhaps what it needs more than anything else could be as simple as a proper central icon instead of the Sorcerer’s Hat placed there “temporarily” since 2001. Something that could give the complete park a more unified, universal message, instead of a slapdash icon reminding us of the park’s slapdash heritage built by competing corporate egos with evidently very little imagination left in the world.
Here’s a dark ride built by geeks for geeks. At first the uninspired descriptive title and central placement as Hollywood Studio’s “mascot” attraction (à la Cinderella Castle or Spaceship Earth, this time with Mann’s Chinese Theatre) made me fear this could be a very vanilla work of Hollywood pageantry, overproduced as only Disney knows how. Thankfully that’s not (entirely) the case, as the show producers seem to demonstrate a genuine giddy enthusiasm for toying with many conventions of theme park attractions while simultaneously flattering our pop-culture savvy. Like, “wouldn’t-it-be-cool-if-the-ride-host-gets-kidnapped-by-a-villain-from-a-gangster-flick-or-spaghetti-western”, and “wouldn’t-it-be-cooler-if-then-the-gangster-gets-owned-by-the-xenomorph-from-Alien”, but then “wouldn’t-it-be-coolest-if-he-gets-his-
face-melted-like-the-guy-in-Indiana-Jones-and-the-guardian-of-the-Ark-of-the-Covenant-turns-out-is-the-original-ride-host-in-disguise”? (Deep breath.) Given how many different ideas the Imagineers tried to cram together The Great Movie Ride easily could have suffered from over complication, but… well, okay, it is a little over complicated. Sure that’s part of the charm, but mixing live performers with audio-animatronics on the same stage almost always produces extra awkward results, and the script’s handful of “spontaneous surprises” often play stale or forced, simply due to the nature of a theme park attraction that requires casts members to read the same lines every twenty minutes every day for the rest of their career. The Great Movie Ride wants us to admire its cleverness and craftsmanship, but it’s mostly just an expensive work of fan fiction; an emotional parasite
that survives by feeding off superior works of art. Sure the satisfaction of winning a game of “Spot the Movie References” can be real, it’s just also not very deep.
of the confederate’s presence allows for some amusing did-that-really-just-happen gags. When the set culminates in an outrageous stunt that instantly clues everyone into the act, the show wisely doesn’t try to stretch our disbelief any further and immediately acknowledges the ruse so that everyone can authentically cheer a fine performance (one most didn’t even realize was a performance twenty seconds earlier). Well played, and enjoyable entertainment. Given that the majority of the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular doesn’t try to be a work of theater but just an honest demonstration of the physical stunts and special effects that make movie magic, it’s therefore more conspicuously odd when the show writers do try to enforce an obviously fictional conceit. The worst offender is the repeated claims to convince us this set is actually used
for filming movies, as if studio films are produced with live studio audiences and being a Harrison Ford stunt double for the Indiana Jones franchise is a steady career with regular 9-5 working hours, ideal for the muscular 20-something theater grads they’ve hired. Maybe this premise worked for one year in 1989 when this show first debuted and the Last Crusade opened in theaters featuring a still youthful Mr. Ford, but today it’s just a distracting reminder of how Disney can’t be bothered to update even a few lines of script for a live performance in over twenty years. It also suggests the writers don’t have confidence to let their show stand on its own merits; don’t worry, no one will be disappointed to learn that your theme park stunt show isn’t real and is really only there to entertain audiences in a theme park with stunts.
revamped Star Tours, which touts an impressive 54 different film sequences for a new adventure each time, could easily become something of a curse for a completionist prone to motion sickness such as myself. Still, with the aid of Dramamine and FastPasses I managed a total of four rides before having to call it quits, and that was more because of my annoyance that my fourth ride consisted of segments I had already seen at least twice while a handful of possible scenes continued to elude me. As an experiential short film set in the Star Wars universe there’s no doubt that Star Tours is tremendously successful at what it does, and the randomized sequences to encourage multiple re-rides is a long overdue idea to extract more value for repeat visitors at a lower marginal expense to the designers,3 even though there’s really only three
different sequences of significance that can be randomly rearranged in four spots like a Twist-and-Match toy figurine. For anyone who hasn’t already sworn allegiance to the Rebel Alliance before boarding their StarSpeeder, they may find that this lottery ball approach to storytelling shares a lot of the same narrative deficiencies as any other “Choose Your Own Adventure” story… and here you don’t even have the freedom to choose. Instead of 54 equally interchangeable riffs on the same concept, wouldn’t we have been better off choosing between three complete and completely different story arcs?
Muppet*Vision 3D
an audience reaction by reaching through the screen for no reason related to the story; the artificiality of “lifelike” audio-animatronics who are in fact bolted in place and thus can never, ahem, relieve themselves between shows; and most hilariously, a parody/veiled critique of Epcot’s World Showcase in the form of Sam the Eagle’s patriotic final act titled “A Salute to All Nations, But Mostly America”. While sometimes the manic energy starts to run around in circles with no objective in sight, the only real downside of Muppet*Vision 3D that would cause hesitation over a second viewing is an interminable preshow that keeps everyone on their feet for much longer than seems necessary. Otherwise this is possibly the best 3D movie attraction currently playing at a major theme park.
Toy Story Midway Mania!
or the way vehicles suddenly yank and spin you from one level to the next imbuing the game with a physical sense of urgency… it’s impossible to make this formula more entertaining without controlled substances. And I’m not being (completely) sarcastic. Ride it once for what will seem like the second-best four minutes of your life so you’ll never have to bother again. Beware, the line fills up fast, so get a FastPass early in the day and do it quick before Mr. Potato Head has another aneurysm.
This indoor complex houses several different attractions, including a show about animated character development, costumed character meet-and-greets (there are always meet-and-greets at Disney parks, and they often command some of the longest lines), interactive games, and a museum of Disney animation artwork. The combination live/projected show actually does offer some worthwhile insights into Disney’s creative process, even if the show writers seemed to lack confidence over the audience’s sustained interest in this material by overstuffing the script with throwaway gags. The interactive activities on the main floor are fairly unremarkable, not helped by the recent proliferation of the App marketplace that now makes large computer kiosks housing mini-games such as these almost entirely redundant.
It’s cute that a program script can determine after six short questions that if I were a Disney character I would be Jafar from Aladdin (I couldn’t disagree), but in this decade do I really still need to travel to Florida for that information? The adjoining museum about Disney animation is perhaps the most worthwhile, even if (and perhaps this is simply due to the nature of animation) the exhibits are very two-dimensional and the experience is akin to a coffee table book you have to read while standing. Nevertheless I walked away with some newfound appreciation for the artwork in a number of classic and recent animated films I hadn’t previously given as much consideration to, which seems like a solid signal that this gallery must be a success.4
vehicles gliding gently past a fixed series of scenes could be translated into a different visual story medium without significant compromise, whereas a plot in which the audience must personally experience a zero-gravity freefall down an elevator shaft could not be replicated anywhere outside the theme park medium.5 The story, culled from an episode of the Twilight Zone, offers a breathtaking impression of Hollywood’s Golden Age as a source of simultaneous beauty and moral decay, cursed by the specter of time as familiar objects (including our own faces) phase in and out of the stardust from whence we came. In no other work of fiction has the existential dread rising from the pit of our stomach been felt so literally.
argument for the story-ride fusion as a unique artistic medium, I’m frustrated by certain aspects that weaken this position. There are hints of intriguing ideas that could form the bedrock of a great popular science fiction story; e.g. Hollywood’s downfall reinterpreted as a modern Icarus myth featuring an iconic tower that reached for the sun only to fall when it got too close, or the notion that the familiar world is an illusory construct of ancient metaphysical entities. However there’s also a sense that any deeper interpretations are mere thematic ghosts left behind from the television show, and discussion over the story’s meaning would be more relevant to the source material than the watered-down remix in the attraction. Most of the narrative details are isolated to the corner of a dark room where a sixteen inch television screen6 quickly answers
the perfunctory Who-What-Where-When bullet points from the storyteller’s manual while leaving the more interesting questions of How and Why largely unanswered. Perhaps this could be seen as a minimalist approach to story intended to foster suspense and encourage visitors to reach their own conclusions, but more realistically this brief and overly-expository video suggests that engagement with such questions was never intended in the first place. As long as the preshow provides adequate justification for the falling elevator concept and finishes with an eerie feeling of mystery, it matters not if the story has any deeper independent meaning. In this case “story” or “theme” becomes a means to an end: it’s window dressing there for those who would admire it the same way as they will distantly admire the set design or special effects,
and for everyone else it’s an excuse to put a drop tower ride in a Disney park. Given that the majority of people will exit chattering excitedly over what the ride did rather than what the ride was about, I can’t help but feel that for all Tower of Terror does right, the formula to make theme park attractions a “story-first” medium has yet to find the perfect balance.
Okay Disney, we get it: you can be just as much of a badass as Universal Studios. The regrettably short-lived Hard Rock Park still beat both of your attempts at rock idolatry, as that property was created by people who evidenced a true love for the music unlike these poseurs sitting at the cool kid’s table in central Florida. So, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster is actually a pretty good Disney attraction while simultaneously being a pretty mediocre roller coaster.7 The show portion of the attraction (i.e. everything built by Imagineers) is simultaneously very “counter-Disney” while also extremely “classic Disney”, and I respect the balancing act needed to make this original concept (at the time) work. The visual aesthetic, which transitions from an ultra-modernist recording studio (the attraction’s “cover art”, as it were) to a dark and grungy backstage area
(where the heart of rock ‘n’ roll is found), are both quite different from anything else found on Walt Disney World property with its traditional focus on reassuring fantasies and nostalgia. Yet the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster is hardly antiestablishment, as most of the traditions of Disney design are still present underneath it all; from the series of enchanted portals that gradually take us someplace removed from the everyday, to the abundant nostalgia that comforts us like a friendly hug… only this time for a generation that cherishes memorabilia from The Doors or Jimi Hendrix Experience rather than the typical 1950’s cultural iconography of other Disney parks. Unfortunately the coaster portion of the attraction (i.e. everything built by Vekoma) is also pretty last generational as well. Predictably there’s no sense of how to pace a layout so it’s exciting
to the very end. The launch is cool (the use of lighting makes it look much faster than it really is, about twice as strong as a commercial airliner takeoff) and it immediately pours into the signature double rollover maneuver. After that the bulky limo-train lumbers around a series of flat geometric curves and block brakes with a lone corkscrew making a cameo appearance at some arbitrary midpoint. Basically a rip-off of the Premier-built Flight of Fear coasters that opened three years prior, lacking are the nimble directional changes, strategic lulls and crescendos, and final corkscrew that forcefully informs you of the finish. Of course the coaster component isn’t all that matters, but given that Disney thought it mattered enough to break the diegetic construct and put “Roller Coaster” in the very title, I don’t feel out of line asking for better.
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