Shattering glass. Pitch black darkness. Pulsing heartbeats. Sparks illuminate a twisted, spider-like figure with gnashing fangs and horrible claws, its eyes fixed on you… Wings beat against the stagnant dusty air, thick with breathless horror. A guttural growl rumbles inches from your ear. Warm, thick drool drips against your neck… This is the end.
Though it may sound like the horrific makings of a paralyzing nightmare, a carnivorous insectoid alien was set loose among the crowds of Magic Kingdom every ten minutes or so, every day, for eight years. With one of the shortest lifespans of any attraction to occupy a Disney Park, The ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter (emphasis included) has developed a cult following from those who experienced – and in some cases were traumatized by – Disney’s edgiest attraction.
In the hazy view of hindsight, Alien Encounter has become little more than a hazy memory for some, and an urban legend for many, many more. But that’s what Theme Park Tourist’s LEGEND LIBRARY is here for: to capture the full stories of closed classics and forgotten favorites for a new generation, while allowing Imagineering fans to relive the rides of yesteryear. Today, we’ll walk you through the making of this one-of-a-kind Disney attraction, endure the harrowing experience of Alien Encounter from the entrance doors to the exit and then discuss what brought about its demise. Think you know the story of Disney’s scariest attraction ever? Let’s look back together.
Naturally, the story of any Imagineering experience begins long before the first guests ever step inside… And today’s tale begins with a prologue familiar to fans of Disney parks history…
The Disney Dark Ages
Image: Disney
In the 1970s, Disney was in decline. Though it’s difficult to imagine today, the decade after Walt’s 1966 death had seen Walt Disney Productions spiral into obscurity, with the studios’ films faltering at the box office. Movies like The Black Hole, The Watcher in the Woods, Dragonslayer, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and The Black Cauldron simply failed to land, and one after another, Disney’s descent looked less and less likely to ever reverse. Could it be that “Disney” was simply a tarnished studio that wasn’t meant to outlive its iconic namesake?
By the end of then-CEO Ron Miller’s tenure in the early ’80s, it appeared that Disney was destined to fall to corporate takeovers that would undoubtedly sell of the company’s assets and licenses for good. Luckily, Walt’s nephew, Roy E. Disney (who retained a seat on the board of directors) decided to fight back. His first “Save Disney” campaign ended in the ousting of Miller, to be replaced by someone Roy had helped hand-select…
Image: Disney
In 1984, Frank Wells (left) and Michael Eisner (right) became the president and chairman of Walt Disney Productions, respectively. With extensive résumés at Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures, respectively, the duo were chosen very intentionally with hopes that their cinematic experience could revive Disney’s core business – its live action and animated studios.
As we know, they succeeded wildly, kicking off the so-called “Disney Renaissance” with 1989’s The Little Mermaid, with a string of critically-acclaimed box office blockbusters that lasted a decade. But all the while, Wells and Eisner also expanded Disney as never before. In fact, Eisner’s acquisitions of ABC and ESPN literally helped rename Walt Disney Productions to today’s Walt Disney Company, forming the basis of the international media conglomerate we know.
But Eisner’s massive transformation of Disney also included taking a fresh look at its theme parks, which had similarly stagnated in the ’70s (mostly marked by bare steel coasters rather than the epic dark rides of the ’60s overseen by Walt, like Pirates and Haunted Mansion). Though he admitted to knowing significantly less about theme parks than films, he was determined to get hands-on to give them a new lease on life, too… and it would change the parks forever…
Pop Parks
Image: Disney
As part of Eisner’s onboarding with Disney, he was invited to tour Disneyland with his family. As the story goes, the new chairman asked his pre-teen son Breck to come along, only to have him retort, “Dad, that place is for babies.” Naturally, that insinuation horrified Eisner. For all the work he was planning that would modernize Disney’s studios and make the brand relevant again, his own son was reporting that Disney’s theme parks were old-fashioned, tired places that teens detested. And frankly, he was right.
Think about it – Disneyland and Walt Disney World were still largely products of Walt’s time thirty years earlier. They boasted dusty Frontierlands echoing the heyday of The Lone Ranger and Davy Crockett (with the “Old West” long since left behind in popular media), aged Adventurelands promising the mid-century exoticism of Africa leftover from the ’50s, and tired Tomorrowlands of the long-gone, pearly white, naive Space Age.
Eisner made a pledge then and there to change the perception of Disney’s theme parks, bringing Breck along for a tour of WED Enterprises (today, Imagineering). It’s there that Eisner green-lit projects left and right, with particular emphasis on thrills, media, and pop culture. And what could be wrong with that? Just as Walt himself had shaped Disneyland to the tastes of the 1950s, Eisner decreed that the parks should evolve to cater to today’s pop culture.
For example, in a record 100-day turnaround from concept to opening, on June 22, 1985 Disneyland debuted Videopolis – a live entertainment venue that would transform each evening into a teen-oriented dance club, broadcasting top 40 music videos on 70 massive video monitors. The makeshift “nightclub” was designed to give Disneyland an edge in attracting young people and refreshing its identity. It worked.
Still, it was merely the first step in Eisner’s quest to infuse Disney Parks with pop culture. It was his (controversial!) vision that Disney Parks should be places for people to encounter the characters, stories, and stars that mattered to modern audiences – to “Ride the Movies“! The trouble was, Disney wasn’t making many movies worth “riding” at the time. But someone was…
Image: Disney
In the 1980s, no one was shaping pop culture like George Lucas, the visionary creator of Star Wars. As luck would have it, Lucas’ second pop culture coup had been the introduction of Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark – a film Eisner himself had greenlit while back at Paramount Pictures. So it’s no surprise that, in an effort to infuse more meaningful pop into Disney Parks, Eisner managed to broker an unprecedented deal with George Lucas to put his talents (and teams) to work for Disney Parks.
In an effort to fast-track more pop-friendly projects for Disney Parks, Lucas was brought into a pop culture powerhouse production – at the time, the most expensive film per-minute of any ever made; part music video, part sci-fi adventure; combining cutting-edge 3D technology with unprecedented in-theater effects… We can only be talking about the Lost Legend: Captain EO, a musical extravaganza melding Lucas’ production with the direction of Francis Ford Coppola (director of The Godfather) and the unrelenting star power of the world’s biggest celebrity at the time, Michael Jackson. Captain EO was a bold, brash, expensive, and pop-infused example of what Disney Parks would become.
Image: Disney / Lucasfilm
Captain EO was followed in quick succession but another stellar E-Ticket – a ride that would literally change Disney Parks forever: the Lost Legends: Star Tours. In fact, this simulator serves as the pivot point in two of our in-depth industry insider stories: the Age of the Simulator and the “Ride the Movies” Era. Star Tours singlehandedly signaled that the pop culture transformation of Disney Parks was underway while unthinkably inserting cool, modern, hip characters into the parks, even if they weren’t Disney characters.
Just two years later, Disney’s Hollywood Studios opened with a stunt show based on Lucas’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Indiana Jones popped up again in his own dark-natured, cinematic ride through the Modern Marvel: Temple of the Forbidden Eye in Disneyland in 1995.
But the groundwork was set: Disney Parks didn’t have to be just for children. Using advancing technology, Eisner’s cinematic spin, and a proven model of licensing external properties for use within the parks, Imagineering was unleashed. Now that Disney Parks could host elaborate, expensive, and modern stories, a whole new catalogue of ideas began to develop. And that’s where the path to Alien Encounter really begins.
Extraterrestrial inspiration
Image: Fox
Flash back briefly to a decade before Star Tours’ debut – the 1977 premier of the first Star Wars film. In some ways, the debut of Star Wars had relaunched the Space Race. But this time, it wasn’t coordinated by NASA and delivered via rockets. Instead, film studios were suddenly willing to invest big time in a genre that had been declining for decades: science fiction.
Studios raced to find their own sci-fi counterpart to Star Wars (see Disney’s The Black Hole, cited earlier for its disastrous box office). Though 20th Century Fox had distributed Star Wars itself, they still moved ahead with a space-set sci-fi follow-up: 1979’s Alien.
When Alien debuted in 1979, critical reception was mixed. But the film was positioned at the forefront of a resurgence of sci-fi, and it offered something Star Wars didn’t: terror. Reflecting on a screening of the film in Dallas, Texas, editor Terry Rawlings recalled in The Beast Within: The Making of Alien:
“It was the most incredible preview I’ve ever been in. I mean, people were screaming and running out of the theater.”
Suffice it to say, Alien was a generation-defining horror film in the vein of Jaws. The R-rated feature won an Academy Award for its special effects, trapping guests aboard the spaceship Nostromo as an unstoppable terror is set loose on board. Born of a parasitic “Facehugger” depositing an embryo down the throat of an unwitting crew member (and eventually bursting out of his chest), the monstrous creature became an iconic figure in cinema; so much so that Alien was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
Image: Fox
Speaking of which, those instantly-recognizable aliens – Internecivus raptus, common name Xenomorphs – stand in the pantheon of horror movie creatures… Hideous, skeletal, eyeless, biomechanical creature with elongated skulls, retractable inner pharyngeal jaws, slimey drool, acidic blood, and barbed tails. Unlike the intelligent, technological, ritualistic, humanoid hunters of 1987’s Predator, the Xenomorphs aliens are primal, hissing, insectoid animals driven by instinct – more interested in eating than invading.
Alien also introduced audiences to a very different kind of future than the prevailing image of the ’60s and ’70s. Whereas gleaming white spaceships, Lycra space suits, and pastel mid-century optimism had been the norm prior, Alien took shape around the amoral Weyland-Yutani mega-corporation; in a hissing, industrial, claustrophobic spaceship with labyrinthine corridors; a dark, corroded, future of rusted ships and frazzling technology…
Concept art for a never-built Alien attraction at a Fox theme park not affiliated with Disney. Image: Legacy Entertainment
Perhaps all of that makes it sound even more unexpected that Imagineers were tasked with creating a dark ride experience that would envelope the audience into the world of Alien. Yet that attraction – allegedly to be called “Nostromo” – would’ve placed guests aboard the faltering space tug of the same name, arming guests with laser guns, as Audio-Animatronic Xenomorphs attacked from the shadows and leaping Facehuggers burst from eggs.
As the story goes, senior Imagineers were horrified by the idea that Disney Parks would bring an R-rated film to life. Imagine it: the spider-like Facehugger aliens that implant exterrestrial embryos down the throat of unwilling human hosts; juvenile Xenomorphs bursting out of their host’s chest cavity; nudity and sexual undertones; cursing. Alien was just too intense, they argued.
And if you can imagine, those senior designers also balked at the idea of arming guests – especially young ones – with guns and telling them to shoot them during the ride. (This fear, we now see, they managed to get over.) Allegedly, these long-standing designers had a few heart-to-hearts with Eisner, eventually convincing him that the Alien shooting dark ride was simply not right for Disney Parks. Eisner relented and allowed the project to die.
However, the story doesn’t end there… a young group of upstart Imagineers was enthralled by the idea of a dark and sincerely gritty Disney ride, complementing Eisner’s “Ride the Movies” mantra in transforming Disney Parks… In secret, they began to develop a plan to move forward with bringing Alien to life, and their idea would cast the ride in an even more sinister tone that would make the controversial shooting dark ride look like an elementary school field trip…
Let’s regroup.
In the 1980s, films like Star Wars (1977) and Alien (1979) had not just jumpstarted a renewed interest in science fiction; they had fundamentally reshaped our cultural collectively shared image of the future. Meanwhile, Michael Eisner had overseen the opening of both Captain EO and STAR TOURS, signaling a new path forward for Disney Parks – incorporating the films, characters, and stories that mattered – all in hopes of attracting thrill-seekers, movie-lovers, and even teenagers to see Disney Parks differently.
And here’s the setting where those two narratives collide: Tomorrowland.
Yesterday, today, and Tomorrowland
Time and time again, Imagineers have come head-to-head with “The Tomorrowland Problem” – the inevitable inability to keep Tomorrowland looking like tomorrow.
Think about it: when Disneyland opened in 1955, its Tomorrowland was set in 1986 – immeasurably far off for mid-century audiences! (And honestly, consider if Tomorrowland today were determined to accurately showcase what technology, architecture, and culture would be like in 2050…)
Given just how unlikely it seems, Walt and his designers actually did a respectable job envisioning the look and feel of the Space Age, even if that opening day Tomorrowland would be laughably retro by today’s standards.
Take, for example, ROCKET TO THE MOON – a (motion-less) simulator located in Tomorrowland (above). The premise of the attraction was that by 1986, Trans World Airlines (TWA) would be offering 8-hour commercial flights to the moon, and that guests could get a glimpse of this really-for-real prediction at Disneyland today.
Guests would be routed to one of two domed theaters, and seated in concentric tiers around projected “windows” embedded in the floor and ceiling. Given that Sputnik-1 – the Earth’s first artificial satellite – wouldn’t launch until 1957, the simple premise of a trip to the moon was sincerely futuristic in 1955, even if the film guests saw through those “windows” dreamed of extravagent alien cities on the far side of the moon…
But barely a decade later, the “Tomorrowland Problem” struck. By the mid-1960s, America was in the midst of the Space Age; a generation was shaped by America’s race to the moon and the mid-century stylings that came with it. The world was alight with neon signs, doo-wop music, and mid-century modern architecture marked by curves, parabolas, boomerangs, and upswept roofs, and Disneyland’s Tomorrowland suddenly didn’t look like the future at all.
In 1967 – just a few months after Walt’s death – Disneyland debuted an electric New Tomorrowland. Though it may have taken a complete rebuild from scratch, Tomorrowland at last felt like it aligned with the prevailing pop culture of the era – a “World on the Move” marked by spinning rockets and sleek Googie curves; a land embracing the wonders of the Atomic Age via the Lost Legend: Adventure Thru Inner Space while setting the stage for the sleek, Space Age brilliance of the Modern Marvel: Space Mountain, and with the zippy Lost Legend: The Peoplemover and its pastel cabs darting to-and-fro through an effortless, white, geometric land.
And in fact, let’s keep following the thread of that theater-in-the-round Rocket to the Moon attraction. In the midst of the Space Race, Disney’s decade-old attraction about the moon was a laughable relic, necessitating its update to FLIGHT TO THE MOON, a more scientific (and timely) journey fit for the 1967 mid-century modern rebirth of the land…
Which would’ve been all well and good except that just two years later, NASA’s Apollo 11 manned mission actually made it to the moon, dating the attraction considerably. Yep – the “Tomorrowland Problem” again. Trips to the moon were no longer the stuff of the future… they were headlining news!
When Magic Kingdom opened in 1971, its unfinished Tomorrowland had taken many of the best aspects of Disneyland’s Space Age iteration of the land, expanding with bolder, monumental architectural touches of the ’70s. It even borrowed the contents of the Californian land, including the dual theaters of the already-outdated Flight to the Moon (in the northern showbuilding along the land’s mirrored promenade entry, on the left above).
It wasn’t until 1975 – seven years after the real moon landing – that Magic Kingdom’s Tomorrowland was completed and Disney updated both attractions simultaneously to MISSION TO MARS; a third version in twenty years needed to keep these Tomorrowland attractions looking sincerely forward-thinking to audiences….
And even in 1992 – nearly two decades after Mission to Mars launched – that theater-in-the-round attraction will still playing to audiences at Disneyland and Magic Kingdom! Yes, a two-decade-old ride film in Tomorrowland. But Mission to Mars was the least of Tomorrowland’s worries. Both versions of the land – Disneyland’s (1967) and Magic Kingdom’s (1975) – were as good as dead.
The Tomorrowland Solution
Don’t misunderstand – those Space Age-inspired Tomorrowlands remain the most iconic and sought-after versions of the lands… even for Imagineering fans who never saw them in person! And it’s true that, even in the 2020s, that simple, nostalgic, optimistic, mid-century view of tomorrow feels like an evergreen, timeless, retro-future… a reminder of the wonders of the Space Age.
But we have to remember that, in the ’80s and ’90s, pop culture had moved on. Films like Star Wars and Alien had completely rewritten America’s shared image of tomorrow… For a brief blip of time, that naive mid-century Tomorrowland wasn’t old enough to be retro, or new enough to be cool.
As executives stared down the barrel of yet another facelift for Tomorrowland, they mulled over that longstanding “Tomorrowland Problem,” knowing full well that no matter how much money they through at it, any Tomorrowland determined to actually predict the future was bound to fall behind. Eventually, Tomorrowland would need reimagined again in continuous and costly updates… forever.
Unless, that is, designers could find a way to change Tomorrowland at its core.
In 1992, Disneyland Paris opened. Given the extensive reimagining needed to make the park feel at home in Europe, designers had gone back to the drawing board on many Disneyland staples to sap the inherent Americana in favor of a more European-friendly literary romanticism. Tomorrowland, for example, was entirely missing from the European park’s lineup, replaced with Discoveryland – a land inspired by great European fantasy writers. Replacing rockets and saucers with zephyrs and the Nautilus, the land even had its own Lost Legend: Space Mountain – De la Terre á la Lune, interpolating Jules Verne’s novel of the same name.
Discoveryland didn’t even try to predict the actual, scientific advancements of tomorrow, or to imagine the architecture and attitudes of the future. By being rooted in the past, this was a “Tomorrowland” that would never need updating! It was timeless! And so, the race was on to design similarly evergreen styles for the Tomorrowlands in California and Florida…
A recipe for disaster?
Standing in the early 1990s, we’ve collected all the ingredients we’ll need. The recipe is simple.
Take a dash of Michael Eisner’s obsession with cool, hip, edgy, cinematic attractions – and his willingness to fund them; add two outdated Tomorrowlands, each needing a full reimagining; mix in a requirement that those New New Tomorrowlands needed to be the last facelifts for the lands – timelessly rooted in fantasy, history, or fiction; knead in the bleak futurism of the ’80s shaped by Star Wars and Alien; and finally, add a dash of Imagineers’ covert plans to bring Alien to Disney Parks…
Blend it all together and that newest generation of Disney’s designers had developed a win-win concept that would terrify teens, impress Eisner, and keep costs low… Which brings us to the secret ingredient:
Image: Disney
… those Mission to Mars theaters, still playing a tired film from the ’70s at both Disneyland and Magic Kingdom…
Sure, the gun-blasting dark ride through the Nostromo was out – deemed too intense and too violent for Disneyland… But with just a few tweaks, the tired and passive Mission to Mars theater in California could become a next generation Alien attraction; a multi-sensory special effects show using Audio-Animatronics, cutting edge binaural sound, and special effects embedded in the seats to release the Xenomorph into the unsuspecting crowd…
When they presented their idea to Eisner, he beamed. It was perfect. Re-using much of the former theater would keep installation costs low, and this new concept – this “Alien Encounter” – was simple enough to export a clone to each Tomorrowland as they got their own respective renovations.
The Alien advantage
Then there was the best news yet: exit surveys of guests leaving Magic Kingdom reported that 80% of adult visitors had seen Alien. That meant that explicitly using the Alien film tie-in and the Xenomorph provided this “Alien Encounter” with three invaluable commodities:
- The attraction could market itself. Like Star Tours, Alien had a built-in following that would be dying to try the new attraction. Just hearing that such an incredible film now had an associated show at Disney would attract thrill-seekers who would be dying to see what Disney had done.
- An official Alien attraction had built-in parental controls. If 80% of guests recognized the R-rated film and its horrific creature, they would also recognize how intense an associated attraction was bound to be. If you wouldn’t let your child watch Alien, then you’d already know to not let your child experience the Alien attraction. No need for constant warnings in the queue; Alien speaks for itself.
- Imagineers wouldn’t have to waste precious attraction time introducing the setting or creature since guests would come into the experience with at least some prior knowledge about the alien and its abilities, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, the Nostromo… Every second that didn’t have to be spent establishing a mood or character could instead be put to good use in the show itself.
Eisner was allegedly thrilled and greenlit the project hoping to quickly add another thrilling attraction to Imagineering’s portfolio. But the senior Imagineers were still horrified. They were sure that all this Alien nonsense was behind them. Now, this upstart group of new designers had somehow conned Eisner into thinking that an R-rated film was appropriate for Disney Parks, again. What would Walt have said?!
Image: Disney
Behind the back of the now-official Alien Encounter team, the senior Imagineers allegedly went to none other than George Lucas with a plea to help set Eisner straight. Lucas agreed that Alien probably was a little too intense for Disney, and offered to speak to Eisner on behalf of the senior Imagineers and voice their concerns to him.
Apparently based on what Lucas told him, Eisner returned to the Alien Encounter team with yet another change of heart. He told them that he had decided against using Fox’s signature, R-rated Alien, but that he still loved their plans for converting the Mission to Mars theater, and was confident they could come up with something just slightly less frightening to be the basis for their Alien Encounter. The team recoiled. They wondered if the attraction could even work without the Xenomorph. They’d suddenly lost their built-in marketing, parental controls, and backstory.
What did they come up with? We’ll step into Alien Encounter on the next page… but we bet it’s not the Alien Encounter you expect or in the park you think… Read on…
Close Encounters
By 1992, the Imagineering team developing Alien Encounter was dealing with a much different attraction than they’d expected. Eisner had pulled the plug on the use of 20th Century Fox’s Alien Xenomorph, weighing Imagineers with the task of designing an original backstory, a brand new alien creature, and a way to convincingly catch guests up on the made-up mythology without an explicit connection to Alien.
Still, production on this Xenomorph-free Alien Encounter pressed onward. It had to! After all, it would be a centerpiece of the newly-evergreen, Space-Age-free Tomorrowland en route to Disneyland in California: the subject of an in-depth Possibilityland: Tomorrowland 2055. Set a hundred years after Disneyland’s opening, this timeless Tomorrowland would be transformed into an organic alien oasis powered by glowing gems burst forth from the ground, acting as a homing beacon for interstellar civilizations around the galaxy…
A convincingly sci-fi setting prepared for it, Alien Encounter could at last make its debut in those two circular theaters at the rear of Disneyland’s Tomorrowland… And unlike the glowing, prismatic land’s entry or the playful landed alien ships around it, there would be something ominous about this Alien Encounter…
Image: Disney
Since Imagineers were now starting from scratch in introducing a completely original backstory, the architecture of Disneyland’s Alien Encounter needed to convey that something dark resided within… An odd, techno-deco style equally imposing and inviting.
Pillars carved like hunched humans would hold aloft great stone reliefs of almighty beings in the sky, and carved gargoyles of dragon-like insectoid aliens pierced out from the rooftops as steam bellowed from its roof.
Clearly interpolating the cold, biomechanical illustrations of H. R. Giger (whose surrealist prints inspired the Xenomorph, which he co-designed with filmmakers), the exterior of the West Coast Alien Encounter would paint a picture of an imposing, Gotham-esque laboratory; a steampunk-gothic facility that’s technological and grand… and harboring something dark.
Inside, guests would be funneled into a briefing room, introducing an eerie, amoral alien mega-corporation before passing through a Grand Hallway showing their otherworldly scientists at work on chilling experiments… Then, they’d endure a small-scale demonstration of teleportation before being ushered into one of the two Mission to Mars theaters for the real highlight – something new… something terrifying…
Disneyland’s Mission to Mars closed November 2, 1992 to begin its transformation. Except, as we know, Alien Encounter never opened at Disneyland. In fact, Tomorrowland 2055 was scrapped entirely. When Disneyland Paris opened in 1992, the massively overbuilt resort was met with near-immediate financial collapse. A massive turning point for Disney Parks, nearly all ambitious projects were cancelled – including Disneyland’s Tomorrowland 2055.
Okay, so plans for Alien Encounter to debut at Disneyland were dashed.
But Michael Eisner was still certain Alien Encounter would be the next great hit from Imagineering, and that it would be an inexpensive add that could be exported across the world! The difference is that now, it would need to skip its planned Disneyland debut and instead be prototyped at Magic Kingdom, where it was too late to cancel the New Tomorrowland en route.
With its launch shifted from Anaheim to Orlando, designers raced to put the finishing touches into the show before it was shipped out for installation. Imagineers hoped that their plans to very simply retrofit the Mission to Mars seats with special-effects-packed restraints (above) would make the attraction’s Test & Adjust phase roll on smoothly…
Forget Tomorrowland 2055… The final version of Alien Encounter was heading across the country, and to a very different timeless Tomorrowland.
The City of Tomorrow
Image: Disney
Though Disneyland’s New Tomorrowland was now officially delayed thanks to the financial pitfalls of the new Parisian resort, Orlando’s New Tomorrowland was already under construction, and Alien Encounter would make its grand debut there.
Dispensing with the “outdated” aesthetic of ’70s simplicity, Magic Kingdom’s New Tomorrowland would take the future in an entirely different direction. Like Discoveryland, it would be a vision of tomorrow rooted in the past. But rather than Paris’ 19th century literary fantasy future, this Tomorrowland would be stylized as a sci-fi city born of Buck Rogers and other 1930s pulp serial space comics, fused with art deco embellishments and Factory Pomo design elements and aesthetics – the “future that never was.”
Admittedly, there was something briefly brilliant about this New Tomorrowland – perhaps Disney’s first stateside adopter of the truly immersive world-building practiced in Paris. This pulpy metropolis of mechanical palm trees, robotic newsboys, brushed metal fins, saturated cogs, and intergalactic payphones wasn’t just a land, it was a world. Each of the area’s rides, shows, attractions, and even restaurants was meant to be part of the “real” functioning city of Tomorrowland, playing a role in the city’s narrative.
Image: Disney
For example, the land’s entry became the Avenue of Planets, dotted with municipal signage for the city and neon signs in alien languages; the long-running Peoplemover became the Tomorrowland Transit Authority – the city’s functioning mass transit system (with on-ride announcements suggesting further lines connecting to suburbs and other inner city stations); Space Mountain was wrapped in as the city’s space port, while Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe (home of famed lounge singer Sonny Eclipse) played the role of a real downtown eatery frequented by interstellar visitors.
Those two mirrored showbuildings along the land’s entry were wrapped into the story, too. To the south, the Tomorrowland Science Center housed the Lost Legend: Timekeeper, explained as a rotating exhibition on display. The north building, meanwhile, was puzzlingly dark. With dominating angular towers, industrial iron fins, and sharp metallic edges, the building was somehow… sinister. As part of Tomorrowland’s continuity, the Transit Authority sailed by and explained that this unusually unfriendly building was the Tomorrowland Interplanetary Convention Center.
Even when New Tomorrowland opened in 1994, the “Convention Center” remained closed. Inside, Imagineers were ushering in the Martian technology corporation X-S Tech, whose teleportation technology would be at the heart of the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter. With a few finishing touches yet to go, the new attraction opened to “test and adjust” audiences… and boy did Imagineers have to adjust.
Test and adjust
The show took in its first test audiences in December 1994, with guests allegedly reporting that the attraction was much too intense. Insiders say that while the first visitors expected Alien Encounter to be thrilling, they hadn’t expected to be legitimately uneasy afterward. Even though Imagineers hadn’t used the Xenomorph, they’d still crafted a creature, story, and effects that audiences were unprepared for. Before the attraction could officially open, they’d need to do some retooling.
Image: Disney
First, Imagineers rewrote the pre-show. An original version featured the sarcastic cyborg T.O.M. (Technobotic Oratorical Mechanism, voiced by SNL alum and comedian Phil Hartman) humorously demonstrating X-S Tech’s teleportation technology on a small scale by accidentally frying a hapless alien. Though the demonstration went wrong, the mild pre-show failed to prepare audiences for the sincerely frightening experience beyond.
As such, the pre-show was re-written with T.O.M. becoming the more sinister and amoral S.I.R. (Simulated Intelligence Robotic) with famed actor Tim Curry taking on the role. The unsettling and even disturbing pre-show, it was hoped, would weed out crowds put off by the dark tone, acting like a filter to more closely match the horror-based experience of the main show.
Speaking of which, the attraction itself needed some fine-tuning based on test audiences. After Eisner’s first time experiencing his pet project, he reported that there were far too many plot holes and that the story was much too complex, with long bouts of exposition between moments of action. There were also reports that too much of the show took place in absolute darkness, requiring that Imagineers create additional on-screen visuals and occasional “sparks” to illuminate the show scene, just to re-orient guests.
Plus, it turned out that guests were screaming longer than expected, making important dialogue and plot points impossible to understand. Imagineers had to re-pace the show to account for audience reactions, and in 1994, that required extensive reprogramming of every computer system separately as each show element – sound, lighting, fog, animatronics, in-seat effects, and video – was re-sequenced and re-timed.
After six weeks of soft-opening for testing and adjusting without ever officially premiering, the attraction went dark. Rumors swirled among visitors, Cast Members, and fans about why Alien Encounter had closed. Was it too scary? Not scary enough? Flyers noted that the ride may have missed its December ’94 opening with the rest of New Tomorrowland, but promised that Alien Encounter would be ready by Easter.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen either. When Alien Encounter finally opened in June 1995, insiders say that Eisner had lost all interest and passion in the project, privately declaring it a lost cause. Maybe it was the $10 million needed to revise the show for six months. It might also have been that Eisner finally agreed with his senior Imagineers: Alien Encounter was just too scary for Magic Kingdom. But the show must go on, and Alien Encounter did. Shall we step inside?
X-S Tech
Image: Disney
Welcome to the Tomorrowland Interplanetary Convention Center. This spacious and luxurious expo center is home to exceptional traveling exhibits from around the galaxy. And you’re in luck! Currently, the Convention Center is hosting an advanced Martian conglomerate known as X-S Tech. (Maybe read that as Excess Tech?) With their promise to Seize the Future, X-S Tech has rented the Center to demonstrate its newest technological accomplishment: intergalactic teleportation.
The looming yellow antenna atop the building isn’t just for looks. It’s capable of beaming organisms into space. In fact, occasional humming flashes of the massive spire really do signal incoming and outgoing teleportations… (Only the observant will notice that the high-intensity beaming antenna is seemingly plugged into wires that scale down the building’s side and into an open manhole cover in the city streets below… evidence that X-S Tech might not be as reputable as they’d like us to think…)
Just inside the Convention Center, a video produced by X-S Tech (and underscored by a disturbing white noise) explains the company’s origin and its number one status in “electro-robotics, techno-surveillance, planetary restructuring, genetic engineering, and hyperspacial transport.”
You might recognize the beautiful face X-S Tech’s greeter, played by Tyra Banks.
The amicable video hostess then introduces the CEO and chairman, L.C. Clench (played by Jeffrey Jones) who growls, “We were, of course, extremely enthused when our market research probe discovered the Earth. A world with so many eager customers is always worth our greatest effort.” Hmm…
Pre-Show
Image: Disney
Guests are then ushered into a new chamber overseen by a robotic figure called S.I.R. – or Simulated Intelligence Robotic. Voiced by Tim Curry and his trademark sinister snarl, S.I.R. plans to show us a simple and “practically painless” demonstration of X-S’s newest innovation: the Series 1000 teleportation system.
There’s one glass tube on each side of the room, but only the right one is occupied. Inside is an adorable antenna-crowned alien with bulging sweet puppy dog eyes, a trunk, and six chubby little legs. This benevolent life form – Skippy – seemed to have been placed in the teleportation tube against his will. He kindly coos, to which S.I.R. demands, “What do you want, Skippy?” The adorable alien squeaks a response, but S.I.R. plays it off: “No, you may not get out… You’re our lucky volunteer!” The dark exchange with the innocent alien may give you goosebumps and twist your stomach. It’s meant to.
With the touch of a button, Skippy’s tube fills with an electrical crackling and billowing smoke. Guests listen as Skippy shrieks horribly. After a few agonizing seconds, the second tube on the other side of the room begins to crackle as well. When the fog clears out of each, the right tube is empty. And in the left tube? The sizzling, fried, charred remains of the tortured Skippy with glowing eyes yelps in pain.
Image: Disney
Have a good feeling about X-S Tech? If not, Disney hopes you’ll take the chicken exit or ask to be escorted out now. The intentionally macabe demonstration is meant to weed-out those who overlooked the queue signage warning of how sincerely scary the attraction beyond will be.
Now, if you’re still interested in X-S Tech, listen to S.I.R. The robot, suddenly a little more forceful and intimidating, mentions that this little demonstration is nothing compared to the real thing. Imagine if, instead of simply being teleported the width of a room, you could be teleported the width of the universe. That, we’re promised, is what will happen in the room beyond, where one of us – the lucky guests – will be chosen to teleport to Planet X-S across the galaxy.
S.I.R. loses power and goes dark as a familiar friendly alien voice presses you forward into the Testing Chamber. (Just don’t lag behind or you may hear her get pushy.)
The Testing Chamber
Ushered quickly into the Testing Chamber, guests find themselves in a room that’s suspiciously similar to the “Mission to Mars” theater of yesteryear. Seats are still arranged in stadium-style concentric circles around the room But now, there’s something new in the room’s center. A massive metallic shield stretches from floor to ceiling. The foreboding steel tube is covered in rivets and bolts, and overhead, hundreds of wires and pipes connect to the tube’s top as if channeling power into it.
And those seats that were formerly simple theater seats have something new, too: over-the-shoulder restraints. No, this is not a roller coaster. It’s not a ride at all. You won’t move anywhere. But the restraints will play a large role in the attraction, and they’ll keep panicked children from running through the dark theater to escape. Truthfully, they’ll probably be paralyzed with fear anyway. And unlike a normal Disney attraction, closing your eyes or plugging your ears won’t make this attraction any friendlier. Because on Alien Encounter, the show is in your head.
As the experience begins, you’re introduced to a few of X-S Tech’s technicians who will be along for the experience: Spinlock (played by Kevin Pollack) and Dr. Femus (Kathy Najimy). Projected onto circular screens positioned around the room, these new characters are barely through introducing themselves when the CEO himself, Chairman Clench, arrives to make sure the demonstration is on schedule. “We’re just about to pick a volunteer,” Spinlok offers.
“It’s off. I’ve been seized,” Clench says.
“Something you ate, sir?” (Cue Michael Eisner’s raucous laughs, no doubt.)
Image: Disney
But Clench has been seized by inspiration! He’s decided that instead of teleporting a single human to X-S, he will teleport himself to Earth where he can personally answer each question of the audience. On the screens, Clench steps into a tube where he demands to be sent. When technical difficulties seem to delay his departure, he begins to get upset. Dr. Femus cries, “I’m going as fast as I can!”
Just as Clench’s tube fills with smoke on the screen, the metallic shield rises to reveal our tube doing the same. Red lights billow against the smoke as the steaming pipes overhead buckle while the theater’s lighting fluctuates, no doubt dying from the power surge. A vortex of steam builds in the tube as Dr. Femus warns, “there’s another planet in our transmission path. Something’s intercepted the signal… Wait… I’ve got something.”
“Well boost the power and send him to Earth,” Spinlock bites.
“But what if it’s not him?”
“Send. Him. To. Earth.”
The escape
Overhead wires begin to vibrate and fluctuate as the tube fills and electrical static crackles inside. “Ladies and gentlemen,” Spinlock announces, “Chairman… Clench!”
But as the smoke dissipates, something else is inside the tube. The extraterrestrial Imagineers designed for the attraction looks nothing like Alien’s Xenomorph. It’s tall with spider-like legs and a long body something like a praying mantis. It has gnashing fangs and glowing red eyes, plus transparent wings like a dragonfly. The creature shrieks horrifically and begins to bang its head and spindly legs against the glasstube. Femus’s computer readings scan the creature and determine that it’s carnivorous.
“Carnivorous? It eats meat?”
The creature rears back and slams itself against the tube as the sound of shattering glass and a burst of pressurized air blasts out of the center of the room. As electricity crackles, we see the shattered tube with smoke billowing out, the creature snarling. Thinking quickly, Spinlock engages a set of security beams that surround the tube. “People of Earth: do not be alarmed! As long as those beams are on, the alien cannot fly out!” An electrical spark falls as the sound of a failing generator disappears; the security beams are gone. A sense of dread fills the room.
In pitch black darkness, the sound of spreading wings and falling glass echoes through 3D sound. Sheets of air rain down from overhead, mimicking the beat of the creature’s wings as it takes flight. A few final flashes of electricity show the shattered tube with smoke billowing out… and the alien is not inside. Guests shriek.
“It flew out! The alien’s out! Get it back before it eats someone!”
Now, the experience really begins. The joy – and terror – of Alien Encounter is that the entire experience is in your head. You can’t escape it by shutting your eyes. In fact, shutting your eyes will do very little. Now that the alien was escaped, the rest of the attraction takes place in absolute pitch black darkness.
An Alien Encounter
If you’ve experienced Disney’s 3D sound shows, like Sounds Dangerous Starring Drew Carey, formerly at Hollywood Studios, you understand the idea of Alien Encounter. But while that show used the sophisticated sound technology to leave guests shimmying in their seats to the sound of a haircut or bees, Alien Encounter is a little darker. By just briefly showing the alien, Disney has now convinced your mind that it exists. By letting you see, feel, and hear its escape from the tube, touch and sound alone can take it from there.
The alien has settled somewhere in the room, cocooning itself high in the rafters.
In the catwalk overhead, an X-S Technician with a flashlight has arrived just in time to restore power. Dr. Femus and Spinlock encourage the tech to do so, and quickly. They hush each other when either begins to mention that an insectoid, winged alien is roosting somewhere in the chamber. As the tech’s flashlight beam searches the room for the circuit breaker, it grazes across the shattered tube. The tech seems wary as the screens come alive with his night-vision helmet camera.
With bated breath, you watch on the overhead screens as the technician’s night-vision searches the room. We all know what’s coming, and it’s not going to be pretty. After a few agonizing minutes of watching through the tech’s night-vision eyes with the flashlight scanning from the catwalks overhead, it happens. The tube crackles as the screen reveals the alien ahead. The tech is silent as his flashnight drops. Before he can respond, it lunges at him. His camera goes dark as he screams, and warm blood rains down from the catwalk onto us below.
Everyone around you has lost control – screams, tears, panic, horror, fear, laughter. The audience collectively believes in this experience and allows it to become real, perhaps more so than any other attraction on Earth. It’s a group experience, and we’re all in it together. In the freedom of the darkness, people laugh and scream openly. It’s pure, terrified fun.
Spinlock calls out, “People of Earth, listen, please! Do… Not… Scream.” After a moment of dead silence, the floor rumbles and bangs as the alien slams its way around the theater, sending the crowd shrieking. After pounding its way around the room, the alien ultimately stops… just behind you.
The 3D sound allows you to hear its deep, raspy breath in your ear, perfectly in time with warm, moist air blown against your neck. Out of everyone, the alien has chosen you. It’s smelling you. Looming directly behind you. Try to remain perfectly still as a drip of warm, thick drool lands against your arm…
Then, the alien’s soft, wet tongue licks along the top of your head.
Cue absolute pandemonium in the crowd.
The tube crackles with electricity and steam pours from the overhead pipes. “Spinlock, we’ve got power!” Dr. Femus has an idea of how to get rid of the Alien once and for all. She activates the tube’s speakers and screams into it, drawing the Alien’s attention.
You feel the alien pull away from you, its attention focused on the source of the sound in the center of the room. With another beat of its wings, it flies just past you and breaks its way back into the tube. A few flickering emergency lights switch on, revealing the alien again as Dr. Femus powers up the teleportation tube to send it home.
Spinlock cries, “Boost the power! Boost the power!” The teleportation tube glows and pulsates as it fills with smoke, overcompensating for the shattered hole. The whole room is vibrating with power as the tube sparks and the wires overhead come unattached, spewing fog. The energy is too much. “It’s going to explode!” The room rumbles as, at the last second, Femus lowers the metallic shield around the tube. Smoke erupts from it as the creature explodes, sending water spraying out across the audience as the sound of raining fleshy chunks strike the ground all around.
As the panic dies down, the lights begin to flicker back on. Frazzled, Spinlock whimpers. “Well… there you have it. Certainly you see the potential of X-S technology and… we certainly apologize for any inconvenience. But after all, it does take time to Seize the Future.
Though the experience of Alien Encounter might’ve been lost to time (especially given the relative unavailability of cameras in the ’90s and the attraction’s persistant darkness), we can be eternally grateful that the incomparable multimedia Disney historian and archivist Martin Smith coalesced source video and multiple point-of-views of the attraction to create a 2019 tribute. Check it out here:
Signs of the end
Though fans today remember Alien Encounter as a sort of “misguided,” could-be classic that terrified (and maybe traumatized) a generation, the truth is that this “legendary” show lasted just eight years – 1995 to 2003. The Tomorrowland Interplanetary Convention Center closed its doors on October 12, 2003. Here are six reasons we suspect Alien Encounter met its demise.
1. THE LOSS OF THE XENOMORPH – There’s just no denying that when Eisner opted out of using the Xenomorph from 1979’s Alien, he also made Imagineers’ jobs a whole lot harder. Not only did they need to construct their own alien from scratch; they needed to quickly and efficiently convey its anatomy, abilities, and attitude to guests – a very, very difficult balance of exposition and action that’s nearly impossible to get right, especially when the creature is only ever seen through fog and strobes.
For example, exit interviews during the attractions Test & Adjust phase revealed that guests just didn’t understand how it was supposedly getting around the auditorium so quickly (since they hadn’t seen that it had wings). As a result, designers had to add new sound effects, lighting, and on-screen footage of the alien, highlighting its wings in an attempt to clarify its abilities – something they wouldn’t have needed to balance if they’d used the Xenomorph, whose physiology and abilities are more widely known.
(Don’t cry for the Xenomorph – Disney’s licensing of the character from Fox didn’t go to waste, as the creature was already in use on the fellow Lost Legend: The Great Movie Ride, as seen above.)
2. THE “FRANKEN-STORY” – That said, we can’t fault Imagineers for the “original world” they built around Alien Encounter. When it’s all said and done, they created a commendable mythology for the attraction and for X-S Tech, communicated skillfully in the attraction’s preshows and even its architecture.
Image: Disney
However, six months of rewrites and cobbled-together adjustments certainly took its toll on the narrative and its clarity. Odd moments of humor alienated those looking for a thrilling experience while providing no solace to kids strapped in and terrified. It’s clear that the final script for Alien Encounter was essentially written by a committee with many, many rewrites and adjustments along the way.
That’s evidenced by two “alternate endings” tested.
- In one, the alien teleported back to its planet with Clench correctly arriving at the Tomorrowland Convention Center. However, his techs were far too nervous to lift the shield, so exiting guests could hear Clench pounding away from inside demanding to be let out. Ultimately, it was deemed too lighthearted a way to finish the ultra-intense experience.
- In an even earlier concept version of the attraction, X-S Tech was revealed to be an evil corporation using humans as test subjects, purposefully releasing the alien to determine humanity’s strength and resilience (possibly hoping humans were weak enough to succumb to an invasion by X-S’s alien race). In that storyline, the Alien revealed itself to be sentient, trying only to communicate with humans. In the big finale, the alien cut the power to release guests from their harnesses, and as they walked down the exit corridor, they could hear the alien massacring X-S’s staff – an ending deemed too dark and too difficult to communicate in such a chaotic attraction.
While neither of those endings became the official ending, elements of each seem to be embedded in the final story, leaving an experience that was admittedly quite uneven.
3. THE SCARE FACTOR – The truth is, Alien Encounter was terrifying. Plenty of twenty-somethings today recall being absolutely traumatized by it during their childhoods. Even with plentiful signage, guests truly did not imagine that Disney would actually scare their kids. Like, sure, Haunted Mansion is “spooky” to elementary school kids, and Tower of Terror is pretty frightening to pre-teens, but Alien Encounter was enough to make kids want to go home. Not back to the hotel, but home.
Image: Disney
Even abundant signage did little to stop the constant swell of complaints from parents who were appalled that they had stepped off of “it’s a small world” or the charming and timeless Jungle Cruise to find themselves strapped in and terrorized by an alien spraying them with the blood of a maintenance worker. It didn’t fit what Magic Kingdom was. Which brings us to number four.
4. DEBUTING AT MAGIC KINGDOM – As we know, Alien Encounter was actually supposed to debut at Disneyland, but because Magic Kingdom’s New Tomorrowland had been salvaged from the financial slow-down after Disneyland Paris’s problems, the attraction was prototyped there instead ahead of an expected chain-wide rollout. Our opinion? Simply debuting at Magic Kingdom might’ve been enough to kill Alien Encounter.
After all, in its five decade history, Magic Kingdom has rarely if ever offered an experience that deviates from “G-rated.” It’s a purely fantasy family park where troubles are few and far between. Conversely, Disneyland offers the thrilling and gritty Star Tours, a dark, cursed Adventureland reigned over by Indiana Jones Adventure, the frightening Space Mountain: Ghost Galaxy, and the war-torn outpost of Galaxy’s Edge. In other words, Disneyland isn’t afraid of darkness, and it’s frankly quite possible that the “PG-13” experience of Alien Encounter would’ve been right at home in Disneyland’s Tomorrowland had it only debuted there as planned.
5. JEFFREY JONES – Actor Jeffrey Jones playing the prominent starring role of Chairman Clench was a major coup for Disney and Lucas. The acclaimed thespian and his classic deadpan delivery earned praise in acclaimed films throughout the 1980s and 90s, from Amadaeus to Beetlejuice.
However, in 2003, Jones was arrested on some very disturbing allegations regarding minors. After pleading no contest, Jones was placed on probation for five years and required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. (Subsequently, he was arrested twice for not updating his sex offender registration as required.) It did not go unnoticed that, shortly after his 2003 arrest, Disney closed the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter. Was Jones’ arrest the primary impetus? Probably not. But it might’ve been a cherry on top.
6. MICHAEL EISNER – Michael Eisner was known to become very personally invested in key pet projects. Maybe the man just didn’t have a good sense for it, because other projects he enthusiastically supported were the Declassified Disasters: The Backstage Studio Tour, DisneyQuest, Dinoland, Disney’s California Adventure, Superstar Limo, and Walt Disney Studios Paris. Eisner was a man of great ambition who – at least early in his tenure – invited equal ambition among creative types. He recognized the power of film and of bringing that to life inside the Disney Parks.
But when Eisner turned on a project, he did so ferociously. Alien Encounter was perhaps a victim of his infamous micromanagement. He couldn’t leave well enough alone and instead tinkered and retooled the show at every step rather than leaving it up to the professionals. Eventually, he lost interest in the project. Perhaps out of embarrassment, he just let it be until a better option came along… and before long, it did…
Stitch’s Great Escape!
Image: Disney
Frankly, though the terrifying tale of the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter ends with its closure in October 2003, it’s hardly to end of the story. After all, when X-S Tech closed up shop, it marked the end of the ambitious (and exceedingly short-lived) New Tomorrowland that had debuted just a decade before. Though the land itself still maintained the pulp sci-fi styling of “the future that never was,” it was merely gilded shell once the original inhabitants and the land-wide continuity they played a role in were wiped away.
The epic and short-lived era of Eisner’s ambitious “Ride the Movies” mantra had come and gone (doubtlessly quelled by the big budget Disneyland Paris), and quick-fix, low cost character injections became the M.O. of Disney Parks management. Tomorrowland, in particular, became a blank canvas for the “Pixarification” of Disney Parks, with attractions based on Toy Story, Monsters Inc., and Finding Nemo displacing original classics like the Lost Legends: If You Had Wings, The Timekeeper, and California’s Submarine Voyage all in the matter of a decade.
Image: Disney
Which is why the story of the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter now shifts its focus to the next inhabitant of those theater-in-the-round auditoriums in Tomorrowland.
After a year of closure, in November 2004 the attraction re-emerged from behind construction walls as Stitch’s Great Escape!, featuring the alien protagonist of 2002’s Lilo & Stitch. Now, the Interplanetary Convention Center had been recast as the Galactic Federation Prisoner Transport Center, with guests recruited as trainees in the cosmic government’s justice system. Their mission? To observe the arrival of a dangerous, Class 3 prisoner being beamed into the Center.
Image: Disney
Re-using Alien Encounter’s premise and effects, the new show involved an escaped Stitch spitting on guests, burping in their faces, firing laser cannons into the crowd, and jumping repeatedly on guests’ shoulder restraints. Though the inclusion of the marketable and merchandise-friendly Stitch was no doubt seen by Imagineers as an improvement on the horrifying alien and the genuinely scary premise of old, it turned out that there was much more to it than it might’ve seemed on paper. If you dare strap into an attraction often called “the worst Walt Disney World attraction ever designed,” make the jump to our Declassified Disasters: Stitch’s Great Escape! feature to finish the story – a sort of depressing sequel to this Lost Legend.
Times a’changin’
Image: wdwinfo.com
Tomorrowland ’94 tried something brave… something we’ll probably never see from Disney again: it was an entirely original land created in the minds of Imagineers, marked by entirely original attractions with entirely original characters. The “world-building” Imagineers managed in this Tomorrowland would go on to inspire other “immersive” worlds of interconnected plots.
The outrageous ornamentation of the land’s Factory Pomo sci-fi styling was an impressive (if, to some fans, offensive) attempt at turning back the clock and disassociating Tomorrowland from reality. It was a clever way of creating a sci-fi complement to Paris’ fantasy future – both equally “timeless.”
Yet, even the “evergreen” Tomorrowlands of the ’90s turned out to be shaped by the pop culture and styles of the decade. Especially devoid of the substance that made it work, the style of Magic Kingdom’s Tomorrowland lasted another two decades before becoming an obvious remnant of another time. Beginning in 2018, a slow-but-steady process began dismantling the land’s alien spaceport styling, tearing down those metallic fins and spaceships, and gradually revealing the ’70s simplicity that had been hiding underneath the whole time.
Image: Laughing Place
Though the transition has been slight, the introduction of a new Tomorrowland entry marquee in September 2019 seemed to cement the definitive direction going forward: a return to Magic Kingdom’s now-nostalgic ’70s style. Of course, even if Tomorrowland were perfectly restored to its ’70s architectural origins, Monsters Inc., Stitch, Toy Story, and the new Modern Marvel: TRON Lightcycle Run won’t exactly feel like natural fits. Even in the (unlikely) event that Alien Encounter had survived to today without a character overlay, the coming Space Age redesign of the land likely would’ve spelled its doom…
But then again, Disney’s $71 billion acquisition of Fox in 2019 brought 1979’s Alien into Disney’s catalogue for good…
Seize the future
We wanted to take the time to build this Lost Legends walkthrough because, just as “tomorrow” becomes “today,” it’s easy to wake up and find that “today” has become “yesterday.”
Even now, new fans join the Disney Parks community every day. Some are of a new generation just becoming old enough to appreciate the parks, while others simply didn’t know what all the parks had to offer until today. Either way, this new generation is full of folks who never got the chance to experience Alien Encounter or other Disney rides that disappeared before their time. We hope that this entry – like the rest of our Lost Legends – helps fill in the blanks where hazy memories and YouTube videos can’t.
Now, don’t forget to make the jump to our Declassified Disaster: Stitch’s Great Escape entry to continue the story of Magic Kingdom’s escaped alien fiasco. Or, if you enjoyed our look into Disney’s scariest attraction ever, make the jump to our Legend Library and set course for another Lost Legend. In the comments below, share your memories and stories of Alien Encounter. Were you one of the young people terrorized by – and now fascinated with – this one-of-a-kind attraction? Did you know of the tumultous story behind-the-scenes?
And until next time, remember the words of Chairman Clench: “If something can’t be done with excess, then it probably shouldn’t be done at all…”
Er… uh… X-S.
