EPCOT currently features some of the most technologically advanced thrill attractions in Disney World, including the newly refurbished Test Track, the mega-popular Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, the iconic Soarin’, and yes, the controversial Mission Space.
However, the park’s first true E-Ticket attraction — Body Wars — which ushered in the era of thrill rides at EPCOT has been shuttered for nearly 20 years, and forgotten by many guests.
During the initial planning stages of what would become the EPCOT Center theme park, a health-themed pavilion had been a planned concept. When Imagineers first began brainstorming concepts of a whole pavilion themed around “health”, the plans included a large dark ride that would take guests through full-scale sets of the human body. However, the concept didn’t make it past the blue sky stage before EPCOT opened in 1982.
Work began again on a “health” pavilion again in the mid-1980s, and — buoyed by the initial success of EPCOT — MetLife Insurance agreed to become its sponsor. As the Wonders of Life Pavilion was designed, Imagineers decided to revive the ride through the human body concept. However, instead of pursuing the physical dark ride concept due to the sheer scale of the sets, they instead changed their focus to the flight simulator technology from Disneyland’s recently opened revolutionary Star Tours attraction.
By the time the Wonders of Life Pavilion opened in October of 1989, the “trip through the human body” attraction was known as Body Wars. The attraction began when guests entered its queue at the back of the Wonders of Life pavilion dome. During the queue, guests would be told they were now “MET Observation Team Members” – not-so-coincidentally named for the aforementioned corporate sponsor – and would be boarding a “LGS 250”-type probe vehicle – actually the exact same simulator used in Star Tours – that weighed approximately 26 tons, but once miniaturized, weighed less than a drop of water. From there, they would entering the body of a volunteer to extricate Dr. Cynthia Lair (a scientist played by actress Elizabeth Shue) who had miniaturized herself to observe a splinter in the body. Once the ride begins, guests are “miniaturized” and enter the body, encountering a stream of white blood cells on their way to destroy the splinter. Once they arrive, guests meet up with Dr. Lair, who’s then pulled into a capillary. From there, the ride becomes a rescue mission to find her, including visits to the heart, the lungs, and the brain before they’re able to successfully rescue the scientist and exit the volunteer’s body, ending the attraction. Of note, the ride film was directed by the legendary Leonard Nimoy, of Star Trek theme.
At the time of its opening Body Wars was a BIG deal. It was the first E-Ticket thrill ride at EPCOT, and was heavily promoted and marketed as such. In fact, the opening of the Disney World version of Star Tours at the then-new Disney-MGM Studios theme park was delayed for several months to allow Body Wars to establish itself, thus barring the the Star Wars-themed simulator from being an opening day Studios attraction.
Despite its popularity, the ride did run into an issue early in its run. The combination of the attraction’s body-themed ride film, combined with its simulator mechanics, made it particularly prone to afflicting guests with motion sickness. Disney attempted to fix these issues by editing the film; however, that initially made the situation worse, as it caused the film to run slightly out of sync with the simulator’s movements, only increasing the risk of motion sickness. The company was eventually able to snip the film in such a way as to rectify the issue for the most part.
Interestingly, this fix can be compared to issues Disney ran into with Mission Space. However, unlike Body Wars, Disney didn’t choose to alter or tone done the latter ride’s full experience, instead simply creating the secondary Green Mission.
Body Wars remained a relatively popular – and heavily marketed – EPCOT attraction throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, with the image of the ride’s vehicle soaring through blood vessels becoming particularly iconic to millennial guests as it was featured on numerous EPCOT guide maps during this period. However, MetLife ended its sponsorship of Wonders of Life in 2001, leading to the whole pavilion beginning to decay. In 2004, Disney announced that Wonders of Life – including Body Wars – would begin operating on a seasonal schedule. This lasted for just over two years before the entire pavilion shuttered for good in January 2007. Over the next several years, the building was used as the Festival Center for the Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival and the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival, while the Body Wars attraction in particular was strip-mined for parts used to repair Star Tours. In the late 2010s, it was announced that area would be turned into the Play! Pavilion, however the project was canceled in the aftermath of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Body Wars has been closed for nearly two decades, but the mark it left on EPCOT is still felt to this day. Plus, many would probably still choose to ride it over Mission Space. Stay tuned to AllEars for more dives into Disney history.
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Do you miss Body Wars? Let us know in the comments below!
Not just Body Wars, the entire The Wonders of Life Pavilion was great! Cranium Command was a must-do. And The Making of Me starring Martin Short was a masterpiece of education pixie dusted with comedy. I miss the whole thing. It makes me a little sad to see it sitting derelict all these years.