There is no objective truth in art. Some people find the Mona Lisa to be dull. Others think the 1990s film BioDome is funny. But, despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of individuals disagree with those two points, neither cannot be proven to be incorrect. That is the great difficulty when dealing with art.
And so, when we do talk about art (and, yes, theme park attractions like the kinds you’d find at Disney and Universal are art), it’s important to remember that there is no inherent “good” or “bad.” Attractions we think of as “bad” are merely perceived that way because a plurality of people, many of whom write words such as these on blogs such as this one, have deemed it so.
Yet, if you look at all of those attractions that we have, collectively, said are subpar, you begin to notice a few trends. It’s those trends that I want to look at today – specifically, I believe there are five tell-tale signs that a theme park attraction is, for lack of a better, more American word, rubbish.
1. It will have a needlessly elaborate plot
Image: Disney
There is a difference between plot and story. This is, perhaps, the most important lesson from classic Disney rides such as Pirates of the Caribbean and the Jungle Cruise. Good storytelling is about far more than conveying a sequence of events, but rather, the goal is to teleport guests to another world, let them inhabit it, and allow something amazing and fantastic to happen.
Seriously – what is the plot of Pirates of the Caribbean? Could you tell a friend what it is about? “Um, there are these pirates and they’re plundering a village. I guess? I dunno.” Right.
But still, that attraction has endured as one of the best at any Disney park. Compare that to the oft-maligned Stitch’s Great Escape, which features painstakingly detailed plot points about a prison transfer. And, lest you think this is a Disney phenomenon, Poseidon’s Fury over at Universal is just as guilty of this problem – forsaking action and adventure for needless exposition about Poseidon and Darkanon and our milquetoast guide, Taylor.
My personal favorite attraction at Walt Disney World is Space Mountain – an attraction that offers little in the way of plot, but has as rich a story as any on Disney’s property. Conflating the two is the sure sign that ride designers felt the attraction wasn’t engaging enough on its own design merits and needed an extra level to keep guests entertained.
2. It will take place in an corporate office or training center
If an attraction is set in an office, training center, institute, or facility, it means that the attraction’s designers don’t trust that you’ll be able to engage in a story that isn’t grounded in a real-world setting.
The thing is, the best theme park attractions ignite your imagination on their own. They are so invigorating and so inspiring that you can’t help but enter the world they’ve created for you. When an attraction is well-made, it could be set on the surface of mars or in the insides of a computer, and you won’t need to be told how you got there for it to make sense. It just will, like in a dream.
While I mostly enjoy Mission: Space at Epcot, it is not without its faults and it deserves all of the criticism it gets. Most notably, the problems with Mission: Space derive themselves from this exact issue.
Presumably, Imagineers don’t trust you to believe that you’re really going on a journey into space, and so, they concocted a story about how guests would be taking a simulated flight to Mars onboard a simulated spacecraft.
You know you’re boarding a flight simulator before you get on the ride, and, even if you didn’t, the ride’s story makes that fact abundantly clear. And, stunningly, such an aesthetic distance causes the ride to lose any illusory magic it might have possibly created. You’re constantly reminded the ride is fake, so why should you bother imagining any different?
Of course, other attractions are also set in offices and institutes and training centers: Dinosaur, Terminator 2: 3D, Men in Black: Alien Attack, all of which pull this off to varying degrees of success. But, the point is, there was once a time when rides didn’t have to tell you exactly where they were taking place, and if the ride you’re on does this very intently, it’s not a good sign for its quality.
3. You will be a tourist
What are you on Space Mountain? Or Splash Mountain? Or the Tower of Terror? What is your role in these attractions? Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide. Maybe you’re just taking your daily commute home from Alpha Centauri. Maybe you’re just watching a story unfold while avoiding thorns in a briar patch. Maybe you’re a hotel guest in the 1920s, or 1950s, or today. Those are decisions you get to make, and those decisions affect how you experience an attraction.
But, sometimes, a ride’s designers make that decision for you – you are told, explicitly, that you are a tourist. You are you. No magic. No mystery. Just you.
The whole point of theme park storytelling is to transport guests into a different world – to show them something they couldn’t see in real life, not to reinforce their role as a passive observer.
Now, yes, there are some very good attractions that do this – The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man and MuppetVision 3D being among the best – but, on the whole, it’s not a good sign.
The most obvious place where this concept fails is in Chester and Hester’s Dinorama at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Designed to mimic roadside tourist traps along Route 66, these attractions provide little by way of theming and have no real aesthetic value. While rides like Kilimanjaro Safaris try to make guests feel like they’ve been transported to the African savanna, the Dinorama attractions are designed to make you feel like you’re at a tourist trap. And, unfortunately, they succeed. Being told you’re a tourist, usually with some disdain, is inauspicious for an attraction’s quality.
4. There will be ironic “jokes”
Image: Disney
One of playwright Bertolt Brecht’s great contributions to the world of theater is something called “alienation effect.” According to Brecht, an audience that was emotionally engrossed in a play would only perceive it as a generic form of entertainment, and would fail to get any social or political message inherent in the text. And so, Brecht devised techniques that would distance the audience from the emotional aspects of the play in order to let them engage their analytical minds with the social overtones. So, for example, a character in a Brecht play might directly address the audience, thereby reminding them that what they’re seeing is a play, which allows for more political thought and discourse.
Why do I bring this up? Well, for some reason, many of Disney and Universal’s bad attractions employ these same type of distancing techniques. But, while Brecht was doing it to convey a political message, it’s unclear why a theme park would want to do the same. Instead, they seemingly do it to be clever – however, the result is simply that it makes those attractions hard to care about.
Not to pick on Stitch’s Great Escape again, but when it names a character Sgt. C4703BK2704-90210, calling to mind the TV show Beverly Hills 90210, it clearly shows that imagineers were trying to get members of the audience to disengage with the show’s central story. This happens on other rides and shows as well – perhaps most memorably on the Enchanted Tiki Room (Under New Management), when Iago would interrupt the traditional Tiki Room show in order to tell the audience how boring it was. And, famously, Superstar Limo out at Disney’s California Adventure featured nothing but pop-culture jokes that were immediately dated – drawing guests’ attention to how bad the jokes were, rather than anything particularly evocative about the ride itself.
Now, ironic jokes and snark aren’t always the sign of a bad attraction – MuppetVision 3D is essentially a hilarious Vaudeville comedy act (and Vaudeville heavily drew on the work of Brecht, interestingly enough) – but when combined with all these other facets, you end up getting a lesser attraction.
5. You will be told you are deficient
Epcot’s Journey into YOUR Imagination, which operated for a short time from 1999-2001, is in the conversation for worst Disney attractions ever – largely because it featured everything on this list. But, particularly, that ride was bad because it told you that your imagination was terrible.
That was how the ride began – your brain was “scanned,” and you were quickly informed by an ex-Monty Python performer that you simply lacked the capacity for imagination. But, have no fear, he was there to fix it.
It’s one thing to create a ride that fails to transport guests to an exciting new place. It’s one thing to tell guests that they are, essentially, themselves for the duration of a ride. It’s a whole other thing to set that expectation, and then insult them in the process. Do you want to know why this ride was a failure? It’s really rather simple – people don’t like being insulted, particularly when they paid nearly $100 to have the privilege.
Ultimately, these aren’t hard and fast rules. Excellent rides can and do employ these concepts, and they often do so successfully, using them to take a good ride and make it great. However, they can also be used lazily in order to try and make an otherwise bad ride make sense, seem funnier, or have more of a purpose. So, if there are any theme park designers out there reading this, allow me to offer a bit of helpful advice:
Stay away from the 90210 jokes.
