Disney’s Forgotten How To Make Rides Like the Great Movie Ride

Since Disneyland first opened in 1955, Disney Imagineering has been constantly “upping its own game” as it were, constantly redefining what a theme park attraction can be. However, that also means that certain ride systems and styles of presentation have been lost to the past, likely never to be revisited.

One such example is the Great Movie Ride. Originally planned as part of an EPCOT pavilion dedicated to Hollywood and cinema, the massive dark ride was such a potential draw that it became the centerpiece of the Disney/MGM Studios theme park. However, much to the chagrin of many fans, the attraction closed in 2017. The sad truth is, Disney hasn’t built a ride like it since.

To understand how Disney has “forgotten” to make an attraction like the Great Movie Ride, it’s important to quickly recap what the Great Movie Ride actually was.

Located in a massive recreation of Hollywood’s famous Chinese Theater at the end of the park’s recreation of Hollywood Boulevard, the attraction was without question one of the most unique Disney has ever conceived. Utilizing the “moving theater” ride vehicles first used at EPCOT’s Universe of Energy, the attraction took guests through massive recreations of iconic film scenes from Mary Poppins, Alien Tarzan, the Indiana Jones Franchise, and others, each filled with animatronic recreations of some of Hollywood’s best-known characters and actors including John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins, and Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones.

The ride’s massive finale recreated Munchkinland from The Wizard of Oz. This finale scene was arguably the ride’s biggest highlight, as it featured dozens of animatronics, including one of the Wicked Witch that was constantly upgraded to showcase the newest in Imagineering technology. Following this Wizard of Oz sequence, the ride featured a final love letter to cinema, in the form of a massive montage of cinema history.

So, what elements of what made the Great Movie Ride so special has Disney “forgotten” since the ride closed? Well, these are the ones that continuously jump out to me:

Where Have All the Animatronics Gone?

As noted above, one of the core elements of the Great Movie Ride was the animatronics. The dark ride had over 100 of them, all sculpted to look like some of biggest stars and characters in Hollywood history, making the ride almost a final evolution of Animatronic-filled extravaganzas like Pirates of the Caribbean and World of Motion… and arguably the last of its kind.

Don’t get me wrong, Disney still turns out some breathtaking animatronics. In recent years alone, the U.S. domestic parks have seen the Shaman of Song from the N’avi River Journey, Hondo Ohnoka from Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run, and Lieutenant Bek from Rise of the Resistance. However, outside of international attractions like Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast of Tokyo Disneyland or Anna and Elsa’s Frozen Journey, few if any of Disney’s recent attractions are loaded with animatronics.

Instead, many of them are either screen or atmospheric attractions with a single animatronic as its main draw (see the aforementioned River Journey) or  combination of technologies that feature a small group of animatronics as part of a larger tableau (Rise of the Resistance).

While I love most of these new attractions, I must admit I do miss the days of MASSIVE animatronic-stacked rides.

The Need for Speed

The Great Movie Ride was a slow, and I mean slow, moving attraction. The “moving theater” ride system was not developed with thrills in mind, simply as a vehicle meant to move guests through scenes with enough time for them to take in the technology. Suffice to say, that’s no longer the case.

Most Disney e-ticket rides which have debuted in the last three decades have had massive thrill elements to them. Now don’t get me wrong, I love these rides. From Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind to TRON: Lightcycle/Run to the more dark ride-like but still “thrilling” Rise of the Resistance, they’re all outstanding in their own ways. However, it would be nice to have them balanced out by more E-Ticket level attractions similar to the Great Movie Ride.

Cast Members

In addition to the film sets and animatronics, the Great Movie Ride is also fondly remembered for breaking the fourth wall. Guests’ vehicles were “driven” by a Cast Member playing a guide. At one point during the attraction (usually in the gangster-themed area, though it could also happen in the Western-themed area during busier seasons) another Cast Member (either portraying a gangster or western bandit) would “commandeer” the vehicle and take the guests hostage. After traveling through more of the attraction, they would attempt to steal treasure in the Indiana Jones only to “fall victim to their hubris” and once again be replaced by the original, triumphant tour guide.

While there are certainly other Disney attractions that have wonderfully committed cast-members “in character” staffing them (I’m looking at you Haunted Mansion and Tower of Terror), there are no others I can think of that feature Cast Members as such an integral part of the narrative. The closest would arguably be Rise of the Resistance and the “Imperial Crew” on the Star Destroyer portion of the experience, and even that is debatably still a part of the ride’s queue.

Non-Disney IP

When the Great Movie Ride first opened, the vast majority of scenes in the ride used non-Disney intellectual property. Suffice to say, that would never happen today as pretty much any ride or attraction coming to Disney parks right now is going to be based on an IP under the Disney umbrella.

Interestingly, two of the other iconic scenes in the ride – – a recreation of the Nostromo from Alien featuring an animatronic of Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley as well as numerous lunging Xenomorphs, and a massive temple from Raiders of the Lost Arc featuring the aforementioned Indiana Jones animatronic – – weren’t Disney IP at the time of the ride’s opening, however, both are now owned by Disney thanks to the respective acquisitions of 20th Century Fox and LucasFilm.

The Great Movie Ride is one of Disney’s most iconic defunct attractions and features many elements that Disney has seemingly abandoned from their current style of ride design. Stay tuned to AllEars for more on Disney history.

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Do you miss the Great Movie Ride? Let us know in the comments below.

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