Now playing: “A Spectacular Journey Into the Movies!” A cast of thousands! A sweeping spectacle of thrills! Chills! Romance!
Almost unbelievably, the curtain has fallen on another epic, classic Disney dark ride. And so, our Lost Legends series gains a new entry. For the past few years, Theme Park Tourist has been working to expand our library of Lost Legends, digging into the in-depth stories behind the most-missed classics. We’ve explored why Magic Kingdom sunk its classic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, saw why Disney’s cancelled Beastly Kingdom became Universal’s legendary Lost Continent, checked into California Adventure’s closed Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, braved the perilous streets of New York aboard Kongfrontation, and literally dozens more.
Image: Disney
Through telling these in-depth stories, we hope to collect your memories and thoughts to preserve these ride experiences for a new generation of Disney Parks fans who just won’t understand what the big deal was about The Great Movie Ride. That’s why – today – we’ll explore the history of this cinematic wonder and tell the almost unbelievable story of how it came to be; then, we’ll take a ride through its hallowed halls, dissect the places it was almost duplicated, and look to the future of Disney World’s Hollywood-themed park.
For those new fans’ sake and ours, we need to start at the beginning…
Disney, diminished
Image: Disney
Walt Disney passed away unexpectedly in 1966.
Fifteen years later, the company and the public continued to mull over the same fundamental question: “Should there even be a Walt Disney Productions without Walt Disney?”
That’s because – through the 1970s and early ‘80s, Walt Disney Productions had withered into a shadow of its former self. Year after year after year, Disney just couldn’t seem to get traction at the box office with forgettable and poorly received films like The Cat from Outer Space, The Watcher in the Woods, Herbie Goes Bananas, and The Black Hole.
The once-golden animation studio entered into a dark age, releasing poorly received animated films that failed to meet the high water park set by the studios’ earlier entries, which were already classics… Films from Robin Hood to The Black Cauldron and Oliver & Company simply weren’t hits.
As a result, Disney’s theme parks were stagnating; being left behind as remnants of a bygone era.
Image: Disney
Imagine the implications of this: people during this time simply couldn’t have known that Disney would make a comeback and become a household name and hit-maker once again. To them, Disney was an afterthought; a tarnished brand whose best days had been in the past; an unfortunate footnote in a history book of a company whose founder had been too essential to survive without.
Through the ‘70s and ‘80s, Walt Disney Productions endured a number of takeover attempts from outside firms and conglomerates who would’ve likely stripped the company bare and split its assets among subsidiaries. However, shareholders Sid Bass and Roy E. Disney (Walt’s nephew) had a plan… they ousted CEO Ron Miller (Walt’s son-in-law) as president and CEO and brought in someone new…
Eisner
Image: Disney
Michael Eisner may be a divisive figure among Disney fans, and that controversy is earned. Today, Eisner’s legacy is inextricably tied to his final years as CEO when he cut budgets to bare minimums, opened creatively-starved low-cost parks, churned out horrible direct-to-video sequels to Disney classics, inadvertently created Dreamworks Animation, nearly turned Pixar into a competitor, and surrounded himself with penny-pinching yes-man executives. Eisner’s reign got so bad, Roy E. Disney turned right around and started the “Save Disney” campaign, pressuring the board (and the public!) to rally against Eisner – the man Roy had recommended for the job!
But when he came on board in 1984 (straight from being the CEO of Paramount Pictures), Eisner was the perfect figure to take control of Disney. From the start, he set out to transform Walt Disney Productions. First, he renamed it The Walt Disney Company, signifying the way Disney would grow into a massive, international, multi-media organization we know today…
Much more than movies, Disney is a media juggernaut today because of Eisner – he led acquisitions of ABC, Miramax, ESPN, Saban Entertainment, and The Muppets; he set up strategic partnerships with Pixar, Paramount, and Lucasfilm; most importantly, he used his cinematic experience to rejuvenate Disney’s studios, kicking of the “Disney Renaissance” where the company produced hit after hit after hit, infallible at the box office from The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast to The Lion King, Mulan, and Pocahontas.
And Eisner was determined to give Disney Parks the update they needed, too. And naturally, he believed movies were the way to do it. Walt had supplied Disneyland with the stories and characters that touched his generation – Tom Sawyer, Peter Pan, The Lone Ranger, Alice in Wonderland… Now Eisner would insert the stories and characters that mattered to a new generation!
Image: Disney
Problem is, Disney wasn’t making many generation-defining films at the time… which is why Eisner quickly joined up with someone who was. Filmmaker George Lucas came aboard to inject some stars and pop culture into the parks with Lost Legends: STAR TOURS Captain EO, and later appearances by Indiana Jones and Alien Encounter.
Though they weren’t Disney stories, they were the defining stories of a generation. That made them unexpectedly at home among Disneyland’s classics, and they helped set Disney Parks on a new, cinematic route… and in that regard, Eisner was just getting started.
Great Moments at the Movies
If things had gone according to plan, Eisner would’ve overseen an entire pavilion added to EPCOT Center dedicated to the filmmaking industry (raising “movies” to the level of Imagination, Energy, Life, The Seas, and other landmark pavilion concepts)!
Image: Disney
Like most of EPCOT Center’s pavilions, this one (located between Imagination and The Land) would’ve revolved around a massive dark ride through the greatest licensing-accessible scenes in Hollywood history. This so-called Great Moments at the Movies would’ve been an epic attraction on par with EPCOT Center’s opening-day Lost Legends: World of Motion, Journey into Imagination, or Universe of Energy.
As the concept grew, it became conceivable that the history of filmmaking and a look into Hollywood hits could actually outgrow an EPCOT Center pavilion… as a matter of fact, it might be a topic worthy of an entire park.
Image: Universal
Coincidentally (or maybe not), Eisner had allegedly overheard during his time at Paramount that Universal Studios was looking to build a Floridian version of its famed Studio Tram Tour right in Disney World’s backyard. If Eisner could get a Disney studio park off the ground quick enough, it might even be a preemptive strike to keep Universal out of Florida!
There was just one problem… Universal’s catalogue included a litany of hits both classic and contemporary… a decades-long library from silent films to modern hits; from the Universal Monsters (Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf Man, and The Mummy) to recent hits like King Kong, Jaws, Earthquake, Back to the Future, and more. Universal’s brand, then, was tied not only to hit movies in theaters today, but to that heralded history of Hollywood; the Golden Age of cinema, silver screen stars, and the storied process of filmmaking. Disney? Not so much. A tarnished brand with limited historical significance, no current hits, and seemingly little on the horizon, a park relying only on Disney’s name and characters wouldn’t be enough.
Disney needed brand backup.
Whose studio?
Image: MGM Holdings, Inc.
In the 1980s, Disney was a shadow of its former self. So was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). The difference is, MGM had that legacy that Disney lacked. Even more than Universal, MGM was synonymous with the great, Golden Age classics. And given that MGM was in dire financial straits, they were willing to make Disney a deal.
In 1985, Disney and MGM entered into an unprecedented licensing agreement whereby Disney would acquire the worldwide, global rights to use “MGM” and its logo, brand, and name in association with a new theme park: The Disney-MGM Studios. Eisner himself said in his 1998 book Work in Progress, “In June 1985, we signed an agreement that gave us most of everything we sought, including perpetual rights to use much of MGM’s library and its logo for a very modest fee. For reasons that remain a mystery [MGM CEO, billionaire Kirk] Kerkorian was told about the deal only as it was being signed.” Kerkorian was apparently furious that MGM had sold off its greatest asset – its name and brand – to a competitor for a relatively small fee.
In The Disney Touch by Ron Glover, it’s reported “Under the 20-year agreement, Disney was to pay only $100,000 a year for the first three years and $250,000 for the fourth year. The annual fee would increase by $50,000 in every year thereafter, with an eventual cap of $1 million for the yearly fee.” That’s nothing for an entity the size of the Walt Disney Company, especially in exchange for nearly limitless catalogues of classic Hollywood movies and a competitor’s brand.
Image: Disney
MGM would later turn around and sue Disney over the agreement, but it was too late. The Disney-MGM Studios theme park opened May 1, 1989 as Walt Disney World’s third gate. (Interestingly, MGM would go on to build its own movie-themed amusement park, MGM Grand Adventures, at their MGM Grand hotel and casino in Las Vegas in 1993. Almost unbelievably, Disney would countersue MGM, claiming that by using their own name in association with their Las Vegas theme park, MGM violated Disney’s worldwide, global rights to use “MGM” in association with theme parks and risked harming Disney’s reputation!)
The Disney-MGM Studios was opened with Eisner on hand. The park was distinctly divided into two sections, as per Eisner’s dedication. He called for the Disney-MGM Studios to be “dedicated to Hollywood —not a place on a map, but a state of mind that exists wherever people dream and wonder and imagine…”
Image: Disney
It continued:
…a place where illusion and reality are fused by technological magic…
First and foremost, Eisner had “borrowed” Universal’s behind-the-scenes studio tram tour concept to fuel a two-hour tram-and-walking tour experience that took guests through the real production facilities, costuming shops, and special effects departments that made the actual, working movie studio run. (To see how Eisner’s plan derailed, you need only pick-up the Studios’ story in the complementary in-depth Disaster File: Backstage Studio Tour.)
…We welcome you to a Hollywood that never was—and always will be.
Second (and much less significant), the rest of the park was a more proper pedestrian-friendly “theme park” that, at least briefly, dispensed with “behind the scenes” and instead offered a celebration of the Golden Age of Hollywood. While visitors to Magic Kingdom enter on the lovingly recreated turn-of-the-century Main Street, U.S.A., the entrance to Disney-MGM Studios was a similarly authentic Hollywood Blvd. of even grander scale.
Image: Disney
And that’s where our story really picks up… because like Cinderella Castle at the end of Main Street, the Studios’ Hollywood Blvd. ends at the towering, beautiful, magnificent park icon: an astounding recreation of Hollywood’s Chinese Theater. And inside that would-be park icon was the epic dark ride through the movies that would’ve and could’ve felt right at home among Epcot’s best… a ride that expertly fused the park’s “behind-the-scenes” mantra with a celebration of Hollywood’s best.
Ready to journey into the movies? Read on…
Hollywood Blvd.
Image: Disney
Passing beneath the soaring teal towers of the Pan-Pacific gates, our entry into the Disney-MGM Studios is, of course, Hollywood. There’s no city in the world as tied to the romance, wonder, and excitement of film, and Hollywood Blvd. is the street to see. Art deco towers, neon signs, classic cars… we’ve traveled back to the Golden Age of Hollywood; a city alight with flashbulbs, glitz and glamour, and the promise of stardom.
Fittingly, this golden boulevard terminates in a most hypnotic structure: the Chinese Theater. The real Chinese Theater on the real Hollywood Blvd. has been one of the world’s most famed and celebrated movie palaces since its 1927 opening (a sister of the nearby Egyptian Theater). With thousands of renowned movie premiers over its 60-year life, the Chinese Theater was the perfect cinematic equivalent to Cinderella Castle or Spaceship Earth… a fitting park icon for a park themed to the Golden Age of Hollywood. (But of course, this is not a park themed to Hollywood’s history; it’s a park themed to how movies are made, so the Earful Tower studio-style water tower is the park’s official icon instead.)
Image: Disney
Like the real Chinese Theater, Disney’s full scale recreation includes protective 40-foot tall curved walls creating an inner sanctuary called the Forecourt. There, literally hundreds of celebrity handprints (including Chevy Chase, Burt Reynolds, Daryl Hannah, Goofy, Regis Philbin, and George Lucas) have been pressed into concrete squares – just a small sampling of the prominent figures who have helped shape (or at least visited) Walt Disney World’s cinematic third gate.
But the real sight is the theater itself. A gorgeous combination of Chinese accents atop subtle art deco shapes, the Chinese Theater is a gorgeous piece of architecture in and of itself, with two gigantic coral red columns topped by wrought iron masks holding aloft the bronze roof.
Image: Disney
But rather than showcasing the poster for the latest Hollywood blockbuster as the real theater across the country might, the building’s face is adorned with mirrored neon signs and tapestries signaling what lies within. Passing beneath a gabled pagoda beneath the words THE GREAT MOVIE RIDE, we we enter into the theater’s ornate lobby – an Asian-inspired art deco foyer.
Image: Steve Langguth, Flickr (license)
Real artifacts from Hollywood’s greatest hits are housed here – set pieces, props, and costumes from some of the most acclaimed films ever made. Throughout the ride’s life, guests would be able to amble past the Ark of the Covenant from Raiders of the Lost Ark, Alex Delarge’s hat from A Clockwork Orange, a dress worn by Maria in The Sound of Music, Rose’s dress from Titanic, and a Nautilus model and dive suit used in Disney’s own 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The astounding thing is that this lobby would pass for a sincere museum of the movies anywhere else – a feat in and of itself – but it’s merely the prologue to The Great Movie Ride…
Speaking of prologue, the lobby winds (expectedly) into a full cinema auditorium. It’s here in this ornate classic theater that the silver screen comes alive with trailer snippets from Casablanca, Mary Poppins, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Singin’ in the Rain, Fantasia, and so many more…
You could call it a preshow, but it’s more of a reminder – a clip show meant to jog memories and emotions, bookmarking films so celebrated as to have entered our collective consciousness. While a real theater’s trailers are to advertise upcoming features, this looping sizzle real is a celebration of the past… and yet, it’s also a tease of what’s to come…
Image: Disney
At last, the doors along the south wall open and we’re ushered out of the lobby and into the ride’s loading area. It’s stylized to look like a 1930s studio soundstage set with a cyclorama vignette of the Hollywood Hills around, alight by the neon marquee of a theater, ahead. As the stirring sounds of “Hooray for Hollywood” and other 1930s classics surround, you can feel the excitement of Hollywood in the air! The magic! The music! The magnificence!
Today, our vehicle will be an unusual sort of tram with two distinct cars. It’s fitting that this large ride vehicle echoes the look and feel of a theater. (And that, by the way, is precisely what it is… while smaller and narrower than its use there, these are of the same “moving theater” ride system used by Epcot’s Lost Legend: Universe of Energy.)
As we slide into the rows, an exuberant tour guide through our magical world of the movies joins in the first car. And with the call of “Action!” we are rolling!
Lights, camera, action!
Image: Disney
Hooray for Hollywood
That screwy, ballyhooey Hollywood
Where any office boy or young mechanic
Can be a panic, with just a goodlooking pan
Where any barmaid can be a star maid
If she dances with or without a fan!
And just like that, as the lights of the Hollywood Hills shimmer around us, the theater lumbers to life, slowly advancing forward through the soundstage and toward the shimmering neon marquee ahead. As we pass beneath the glowing incandescent bulbs of the theater entrance, our tour guide catches us up… we won’t be seeing these movies in the ordinary way; it’ll be as if we’re in the movies!
And around the corner, we encounter our first! Busby Berkeley’s groundbreaking 1933 James Cagney musical classic, Footlight Parade. Beneath an ornate carved proscinium, a pyramid of chorus girls stands and sings! (When the ride first opened, this elaborate mechanism made each layer of the “cake” pyramid rotate in opposite directions, creating a dynamic and exciting scene! When the mechanism broke, a scrim with projected art deco decals helped obscure how very static the scene otherwise would be.)
Image: Rain0975, Flickr (license)
Around the corner and more than a decade forward, we pass by an animatronic of Gene Kelly who is, indeed, Singin’ in the Rain, famously perched on the base of a streetlamp outside the Mount Hollywood Art School.
Image: Sam Howzit, Flickr (license)
Passing through stylized art deco clouds, we arrive on the rooftops of London for an encounter with a delightful, floating animatronic of Julie Andrews’ Mary Poppins with Dick Van Dyke’s Bert as they sing “Chim Chim Cher-ee” from the Academy Award winning 1964 film.
Carjacked
Image: Theme Park Tourist
Leaving the merry olde streets of London behind, a very different cityscape comes into view. It’s a dark and stormy night in a 1930s Chicago, and we appear to have stumbled upon a seedy area of town… “Hold onto those wallets folks,” our guide advises, “this doesn’t look like a very good neighborhood… in fact, it looks like the underworld seen insuch classic gangster films such as The Public Enemy.”
And indeed, we glide past an animatronic of James Cagney as Tom Powers.
Now, usually, we’d want to high tail it out of this crime-infested neighborhood. But a red light over a tunnel stops us in our tracks. “I don’t want to break the law, folks… even if it is just a movie.”
Image: Sam Howzit, Flickr (license)
But now, to the left, we notice a few suspicious figures hiding behind shipping crates. “Is it them?” one weasel-voiced gangster whispers. “Nah, just a bunch of rubber-necking tourists…” That’s Beans and Squid… and they’re nothing but henchman to the real baddy. A gangster steps out from behind the shadows on a nearby porch. “Hey, you…”
Our guide looks around and spots him. “You talkin’ to me?” she offers.
The self-identified “Mugsy” asks our tour guide to hop off the tram and join him on the set. She refuses, since she’s not supposed to leave the vehicle. But Mugsy, brandishing a gun, changes her mind. Mugsy ambles off the porch, stepping down toward the ride vehicle. This much is clear… this is not an animatronic.
Image: Disney
Interrupting the scuffle, a car screams into the scene to the tram’s right. “Here they come, boss! Get out your grinders!” Squid and Beans rise up, brandishing tommy guns. An all-out shootout erupts around us as the rival gangsters send bullets whizzing over our heads, ricocheting across the streetscape. As our guide ducks for cover, Mugsy races aboard the tram, taking her place. “Everybody just sit tight,” he says, raising the pistol high. “We’ve got a red light and I never break the law.” He points and shoots, shattering the red light that had stopped us just moments ago. “No more red light,” he muses. Then, he takes control of the wheel and steers us on ahead through the tunnel.
Image: Evan Wohrman, Flickr (license)
Ahead, a very different sight appears: a western mining town as a living tribute to the Western genre. This visit wouldn’t be complete with the Man With No Name (the recurring Spaghetti Western character portrayed by Clint Eastwood) outside a saloon and Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) on horseback. Mugsy – quite unfamiliar with this sudden change of scene – drives us through the town even amidst a shootout between a the sheriff and an outlaw bank robber named Snake.
(This is also the location of one of the Great Movie Ride’s most sought-after scenes. On high traffic days, Disney would dispatch two theaters at once into the attraction, and this is where their ride experiences differed. The first vehicle would actually proceed through the gangster scene without incident, arriving here in the Old West where a live-actor bank robber would take over the tram and use TNT to blow up the bank – an impressive pyrotechnics display in its own right – while the second car was left behind in the streets of Chicago, cut off from its sister by the red light. You can see the rare cowboy scene in action here. On most days, though, the gangster-driven tram would continue through this scene’s Western shootout without stopping, and with animatronics standing in for a live bank robber.)
Suddenly, we’re surrounded by industrial accents and floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on an endless view of space.
Image: Sam Howzit, Flickr (license)
We’re with Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley aboard the space ship Nostromo. Something has gone wrong… Somewhere in the ship, a terrifying creature awaits… We’ve been transported into Alien. As in the 1979 blockbuster horror sci-fi classic, the unknown is our enemy…
The distant voice of the ship’s computer control counts down to self-destruction while the endless, steaming, industrial halls of the ship conceal the horrific creature… Fog bellowing, lights flashing, sirens wailing, the Xenomorph that terrorized a generation claws from the ceiling above the car, its striking mouths gnashing from overhead.
Image: Sam Howzit, Flickr (license)
Then, we hear it scurry back through the wall, erupting to our right with a roar and a hiss.
Our last view is that of Ripley – flamethrower in hand – ready for her final confrontation with the creature… but observant guests will note the thick, slimy mucas dripping ominously behind her… (Interestingly, Alien represents one of the very few films on the ride to be owned by someone other than Disney or MGM. In fact, Disney acquired the theme park rights to Alien from 20th Century Fox in anticipation of building another Lost Legend: The ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter. When the Xenomorph was determined to be too scary for the Magic Kingdom attraction, a new, original creature was devised instead.)
Image: Disney
As the steaming, gritty, industrial wreckage of the beseiged Nostromo fades away, the unforgettable brass of John Williams’ “Raiders March” kicks in. The tram glides effortlessly through a pit filled with hissing, striking snakes, passing by Indiana Jones – famed hero of Raiders of the Lost Ark (the first film in the still-growing Indiana Jones franchise) – as he unearths the glowing, golden Ark of the Covenant.
The tram arrives in a never-before-disturbed ancient burial chamber where a towering, onyx statue of Anubus reigns. And there, embedded in its chest, is a radiating, priceless red gem. Our hijacker, Mugsy, notices the gem and throws on the brakes. He tip-toes off of the tram and begins to ascend a staircare onto Anubis’ lap. Our narrator warns, “The jewel is guarded by a curse… and those who dare defy that curse may pay with their lives.”
Reaching the gem, Mugsy is surprised by a cloaked figure standing on the altar, his back to us. “Halt, unbeliever. Disturb the treasure of the gods and you shall pay with your life.” It’s no skin off Mugsy’s back. He reaches up to the glowing gem and, upon making contact, a great hiss of steam is released from the ground around him. The white fog envelopes the scene and as the smoke clears, we see Mugsy (or what remains of him) reduced to bones. The cloaked figure? Our tour guide! She’s back! She fans the smoke away with her cloak, chipper as ever.
As the audience applauds, she returns to the helm of the tram without much ado. With a smile and a wink, she offers, “Just goes to show you that anything can happen in the movies! Now, on the with the show!”
Finale
Image: Disney
Next, we’re whisked through another kind of ancient Egyptian tomb… the kind seen in classic horror movies like those from the 1930s. As shambling, glowing, mummified corpses awaken, we glide out of the tomb at last and into the deep jungle.
It’s the set of 1932’s Tarzan the Ape Man, the first of a series of Tarzan films throughout the early-mid 1900s. Here, audio-animatronic figures of Tarzan swinging on a vine, Jane sitting on top of an elephant, and Cheeta the chimpanzee can be seen amongst the foliage.
Image: Disney
Then, it’s on to the iconic finale of Casablanca, where animatronic figures of classic Hollywood royalty – Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman – stand in front of a waiting airplane. While classic Disney lore would have you believe that the Lockheed Model 12 Electra Junior they stand before is the actual full-sized plane used in filming, no full-sized plane was even used in Casablanca’s production. But the plane here is special. While its front end stands here, its rear end was aged and rusted and placed in Magic Kingdom’s Jungle Cruise as a piece of jungle wreckage.
Next, we glide into our first taste of the finale… In a darkened room, projections bring the swirling stars, smashing waves, and whirling magic of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (from 1940’s Fantasia) to life to the tune of Paul Dukas’ eponymous orchestral score. That frenzied magical chaos blends into a whirlwind… no, a tornado! And then, we emerge from the darkness and into the ride’s finale…
And what a journey it’s been. For nearly twenty minutes, we’ve been more than spectactors… we’ve been inside the movies. The thrills! The chills! The romance! From the musicals of yesteryear to today’s adventures, we’ve jumped between decades and styles, celebrated the grandeur of old Hollywood, and – maybe, just maybe – learned a thing or two along the way.
But of course, there’s only one fitting end to a cinematic journey: Oz.
Image: Chad Sparkes, Flickr (license)
Emerging from the swirling winds in the darkness, we’re greeted by the crashed home of Dorothy Gale (and the legs of her unfortunate victim, the Witch of the East) landed amongst the Technicolor wonder of Munchkinland. As windows open, the Munchkins emerge… “Ding, dong, the Witch is dead! Which old witch? The Wicked Witch!” they sing.
Image: Sam Howzit, Flickr (license)
But their celebration is cut short…
In a burst of flaming fog, the Munchkins scream and retreat back into their homes… when the flames subside, we see that the green-skinned, hook-nosed Witch of the West has arrived, brought to life via an Audio-Animatronics figure so lifelike, you might swear the role was taken on by a live actress. Indeed, this howling mad Witch made our must-read countdown of the Best Animatronics on Earth.
“Who killed my sister? Who killed the Witch of the East? Was it you?” She points to our guide threateningly.
Image: Sam Howzit, Flickr (license)
“Well, I, uh… I… It was an accident! We didn’t mean to kill anybody!”
“Well, my pretty, I can cause accidents, too!”
“Oh rubbish,” our guide chuckles. “You have no power here! Now be gone, before someone drops a house on you, too!”
Repulsed, the Witch recoils. “Very well… I’ll bide by time… But just try to stay out of my way. Just try! I’ll get you, my pretty… and your little dog too!” Cackling, the Witch is encased again in thick, flaming fog and disppears in an instant, her sinister laugh echoing behind.
The Witch gone, it’s up to us to decide which way to go. Luckily, the Munchkins are here to help us out. “Follow the yellow brick road! Follow the yellow brick road! Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the yellow brick road! We’re off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz! He really is a whiz of a Wiz if ever a whiz there was!”
Image: Disney / MGM
Emerging from the darkness, Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow, the Tinman, and the Cowardly Lion gaze upon the distant, glittering beauty of the Emerald City… a journey nearly complete.
And so it is for us, too.
Finally, both vehicles pull into a darkened theater, leaving their “single file” formation to park next to each other before a wraparound movie screen. Suddenly, the silver screen is alight with a cinematic montage of every other classic we missed (with literally hundreds of films represented). The idea? The movies are literally magic. For a century, cinema has been changing, and along the way, it changed us.
Content that we get the picture, the trams exit the theater one-by-one to return to their single file formation, arriving yet again back at the studio soundstage to disembark.
As always, we absolutely have to end our in-depth Lost Legends entry with a full ride-through video. Since we want to bring you the best video we can find to capture the sights, sounds, and feel of the Great Movie Ride, we’ve chosen the one below even though it includes changes brought to the ride’s narration and presentation in a 2015 renovation. (We’ll explain those changes in a bit):
Thesis
While the Disney-MGM Studios was a sometimes-clumsy balance of “behind-the-scenes” modern moviemaking and an elegant love letter to “a Hollywood that never was and always will be,” The Great Movie Ride struck that balance perfectly. While stepping “into” the movies, we also learned their connections; their stars; their stories. Somehow while inside our favorite films, we also zoomed out to see the big picture…
If nothing else, the Great Movie Ride succeeded at least in conveying the grand scope and scale of cinema, its storied roots, and the electric optimism and wonder of Hollywood’s Golden Age… the promise of stardom, the moving music, the inconcievable magic of the silver screen… If the Great Movie Ride helped at all to inspire a new generation to rent a VHS, DVD, or later Blu-Ray of even one of the classic works represented within, than it was well-worth its weight in gold.
Image: Josh Hallet, Flickr (license)
A stunning, epic, Epcot-sized dark ride through some of the greatest scenes in film history, the Great Movie Ride was a triumph and a fan favorite. And naturally, that meant it would be a candidate for duplication at other Disney Parks across the globe. You may not believe the places it almost ended up… On the next page, we’ll dissect the could’ve-been-clones of this animatronic-packed E-Ticket… then, we’ll finish up this entry by looking at what exactly happened to The Great Movie Ride, and how its closure signals the final curtain call for the “studio” theme park concept. Read on…
While Walt Disney World visitors were whisked through an epic dark ride of silver screen classics, envy inevitably grew amongst Disney Parks fans across the world. Such an epic, detailed, and thoughtful dark ride was destined to become a fan favorite, and plans to replicate the ride across the world were long-rumored!
1. Disney-MGM Studios Europe
Image: Disney
Would’ve opened: 1996
Well before Disneyland Paris had even seen its 1992 opening, Disney had already announced the second gate coming to the ambitious French resort: The Disney-MGM Studios Europe would bring the glamour of Hollywood moviemaking to the City of Lights when it officially opened in 1996! Just as Disneyland Paris had done, the French studio park would realign the concept (and the films highlighted) to the tastes of European guests. Like Florida’s, this iconic headlining dark ride would take up residence in a recreation of the Chinese Theater standing as the icon of the new Parisian park.
There’s just one problem… Disneyland Paris crashed and burned, financially devastating the company for decades and turning Eisner off of any large scale investment ever again. The Disney-MGM Studios Europe was just one of the massive Cancellations, Closures, and Cop-Outs Caused by Disneyland Paris.
Still, contractual obligation meant that the European resort would get a second park… But the resulting “studio” was so underbuilt, underfunded, and creatively starved, it earned its own in-depth walkthrough in our unfortunate series, Disaster Files: Walt Disney Studios Paris. The still-sad Parisian park has no icon at the end of its entry boulevard, and opened with literally three rides. Suffice it to say, there were no dark rides to be found, and certainly not the Great Movie Ride.
2. Disney California Adventure
Would’ve opened: 2001
A proposed “Hollywoodland” including The Great Movie Ride was originally intended to join Disneyland’s Fantasyland, Frontierland, Tomorrowland, et al, but was cancelled. Instead, focus turned to the resort’s second theme park.
With Paris’ disastrous opening dragging the company and Eisner’s ambitions, plans for a second park at the original Disneyland in California began to change, too. The ambitious Westcot was axed, and penny-pinching executives schemed on a way to keep Disneyland’s tourists on property and away from all the other sights worth seeing in the state. The result was the subject of another of our full-blown Disaster Files: Disney’s California Adventure.
Equally underbuilt and underfunded, California Adventure did at least have a single dark ride planned! Designers had developed a sort of Californian equivalent to Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, with guests darting through Hollywood aboard limousines, dodging the paparazzi at every turn.
However, the death of Princess Diana (in just such circumstances) changed everything. Forced to completely reimagine their high-speed Hollywood chase, Imagineers decided to cancel the ride altogether and instead bring in a duplicate of The Great Movie Ride to act as the anchor to the park’s Hollywood Pictures Backlot.
Image: Disney
Eisner balked at the budget, and insisted that Imagineers forget any chance of a Californian Great Movie Ride and instead refocus that limousine chase… just without the paparazzi and without the speed. The result was Disney’s worst dark ride ever, and abysmal subject of its own Disaster File: Superstar Limo. So, no Great Movie Ride for California Adventure, either.
3. Muppet Studios at Disney-MGM Studios
Image: Disney / Muppet Studios
Would’ve opened: 1989
Among the most fun cancelled concepts ever to make its way through Imagineering, one of Disney-MGM Studios themed “lots” was originally going to be Muppet Studios – an entire backlot owned, operated, and obliterated by Jim Henson’s lovable Muppets.
Alongside Muppet*Vision 3D, the land’s signature attraction would’ve been The Great Muppet Movie Ride… a purposeful parody of the E-Ticket just steps away. But don’t worry… in this ride through Hollywood classics, most every moment would’ve been disrupted by Piggy, Kermit, Fozzie, Gonzo, Bunsen Honeydew, Beaker, and the rest of the Muppets gang.
Image: Disney / Muppet Studios
From the stage of Peter Pan to the hot set of Frankenstein, the Muppets would’ve been the cast and crew, leading to hilarious vignettes, laugh-out-loud mistakes, and explosions aplenty.
Unfortunately, the death of Jim Henson sidelined any hopes of a Great Muppet Movie Ride, as his family pulled away from the agreement with Disney. They almost cancelled the completed Muppet*Vision, too! We recorded the would-be history of the almost-built land in its own feature, Possibilityland: Muppet Studios that’s a must-read for Disney Parks fans.
Changing minds, changing times
Image: Disney
Maybe it’s for the best that the Great Movie Ride was never duplicated. After all, it was as custom-built for Disney-MGM Studios as Spaceship Earth was for Epcot… it simply couldn’t be copied-and-pasted. Standing at the literal and proverbial center of the park, it was a perfect fusion of the glitz and glitter of the Golden Age of Hollywood, a “behind-the-scenes” look into the making of movies, and an emotional journey through time.
And yet, this ride that served as a “thesis” for a movie park is now closed forever… On the last page, we’ll dissect the reasons why The Great Movie Ride was closed forever… and discover what’s meant to come next. Read on…
Image: Disney
Every bit as qualified as EPCOT Center’s best, the Great Movie Ride was indeed a wonder, and the “thesis” attraction for the Disney-MGM Studios. And brilliantly, it seemed to exist at a perfect crossroads between the park’s ideologies. Aboard the Great Movie Ride, were we seeing “behind-the-scenes” of how these Hollywood classics were made, stepping on set and viewing a practical timeline of innovation? Or were we entering into the movies, becoming immersed in the magic of cinema and seeing our favorite worlds from within? Or was it both? That’s the truly astounding thing about the Great Movie Ride – no matter from which angle you viewed the park, the Great Movie Ride could stand as its “thesis.”
So, what happens when the park’s thesis changes?
Image: Disney
Therein lies the problem faced by Disney Parks fans. There’s no mistaking it. In 2008, the “MGM” name was dropped from the park entirely (though the MGM film properties present within the Great Movie Ride were licensed separately and thus, safe). The renamed Disney’s Hollywood Studios was – even then – a park at a crossroads.
The era of the “studio” park was waning. Digital effects, DVD extras, and the Internet had more or less removed the mystique of moviemaking, the “untouchability” of stars, and the “glamour” of a park stocked with big, boxy, tan showbuildings. A new generation of parks (led by Animal Kingdom and Universal’s Islands of Adventure) made Disney’s Hollywood Studios look like a cheap cop out…
Image: Disney / Lucasfilm
Which is why few were surprised when it was announced in 2015 that Disney’s Hollywood Studios would gain two brand new themed lands: Toy Story Land and Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. But these weren’t “behind-the-scenes” lands. No. They were fully immersive, cinematic lands that will let guests step into these films with all the magic and surrealism of Cars Land, New Fantasyland, or Mysterious Island… no lighting rigs, soundstages, or production schedules in sight.
Rise…
Image: Disney
Despite the park changing around it, fans collectively breathed a sigh of relief when, in 2014, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) signed an exclusive programming deal with Disney and, as part of that agreement, took over sponsorship of The Great Movie Ride.
In 2015, TCM’s updates went into effect. First, a new pre-show and on-ride post-show were added, each featuring narration by TMC’s film presenter Robert Osborne. Unfortunately, Osborne’s disembodied voice (not exactly “familiar” to those outside of TCM’s classic film afficiando base) also took over a good portion of on-ride narration and exposition (as seen in the point-of-view video earlier). By taking away some of the interaction with our in-car tour guide, Osborne’s presence actually diminished the experience quite a bit, tantamount to a Jungle Cruise skipper having some of her best jokes taken by a pre-recorded spiel.
Still, at least TCM’s presence and funding seemed to signal that – despite the park changing around it – the Great Movie Ride would remain a fixture…
…and fall
The Great Movie Ride closed forever on August 13, 2017 – the same day as another Lost Legend: Universe of Energy at Epcot… Coincidentally, both rides used the same imaginative moving theater ride systems, and their simultaneous closings would make the ride system extinct.
Image: Disney
The ornate doors of the Chinese Theater gained new signage advertising the next “blockbuster” the building would host: Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway. Smartly, the new attraction would at least cast the Chinese Theater in the role played by its real-life counterpart: as a first-run iconic movie palace known for its lavish and star-studded red carpet premieres. In this case, guests will be invited into the theater for the debut of a new Mickey Mouse short (stylized after the new, modern, acclaimed Mickey Mouse shorts series that plays on Disney Channel, developed by Emmy-Award-winning Paul Rudish) called “Perfect Picnic.”
Naturally, things don’t work out quite as nicely as intended, with guests being catapulted into the short themselves. Once through the movie screen (in what’s likely to be an impressive queue effect), guests will experience a “zippy, zany, out-of-control adventure” aboard Goofy’s train.
Image: Disney
Rather than an idling trip through Audio-Animatronic populated scenes narrated by a live host, Runaway Railway’s premise of being “2½-D” is meant to imply that guests won’t need 3D glasses… but screens are likely to be the main medium on board on this first-ever dark ride themed to the Mouse himself.
We have no doubt that Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway will be a sleeper hit and a surprising must-see that fans clamor to have cloned at their local resort (it’s coming to Disneyland’s Toontown in 2022). Is it the right ride to inhabit Hollywood Studios’ park icon? A good star for a park tied to the power of the movies? Would it have been smarter to place the ride in the long-abandoned Animation Building that currently houses the Star Wars Launch Bay exhibit that isn’t destined to long outlive Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge’s opening? We’ll let you decide.
In 2019, the park even got a fresh, new logo and branding, downplaying “Studios” and emphasizing “Hollywood”… fitting, since remnants of its “studio” origins were quickly and purposefully disappearing. And if Disney’s Hollywood Studios is now becoming an immersive, Magic-Kingdom-style park of fully-realized fantasy lands… what role could the Great Movie Ride have played? A montage of old Hollywood hits (the most recent being Raiders of the Lost Ark… 35 years old!) has little purpose in a park supported by whatever blockbuster hits were currently topping the box office.
Curtain call
Now, after more than 28 years, it’s a wrap for the Great Movie Ride.
Was it infallible? Perfect? No. Despite its prominent placement and our assertion (which we stand by) that it was the park’s “thesis statement,” there’s a very real consideration that The Great Movie Ride was a sometimes-odd montage with nothing much to say about the movies.
Image: Disney
Still, it occurs to many Disney Parks fans that we’re unlikely to ever see another ride like The Great Movie Ride built again, and that’s a real loss. It seems that Disney is no longer in the business of epic, animatronic-heavy dark rides… they’re simply a relic of a bygone era, which means that as each flickers out of existence, the genre grows closer to total extinction. Especially as Disney pursues a method of operation closer to Universal (with IP-based dark rides whose lifetime popularities are measured in seasons, not decades), we expect most future rides to be screen-based… not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly a sad end to an era.
Speaking of eras, it seems that, with the closure of The Great Movie Ride, the end of Disney’s Hollywood Studios and the age of the “studio” park is in sight. But even if the “studios” aspect falls away in favor of stepping into the movies, doesn’t The Great Movie Ride still work as a foundation of film? How can a park claim to celebrate cinema without a tribute to the classics? Can a true “Hollywood” themed park exclusively showcase modern films owned by Disney and its subsidiaries?
Image: Disney
And perhaps we ought to mention… until Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway opens, Disney’s Hollywood Studios has exactly six rides, putting it in absolute dead last in our surprising look at Disney and Universal Parks by Ride Count. Is a park with six rides worth the same price as Magic Kingdom or Epcot? That’s a choice for guests to make.
The Great Movie Ride was a treasured classic, and the epic 22-minute dark ride put it on par with EPCOT Center’s best… That’s what we’ll miss. And that’s why the Great Movie Ride lived up to its name for so long.
If you enjoyed your spectacular journey into the movies, don’t forget to visit our In-Depth Collections Library to set course for another Lost Legend.
Then, use the comments below to tell us: What do you think? Could the Great Movie Ride have realistically remained in a park determined to shed its “studio” roots? Was it so out of sync with the park’s new “immersive” lands that it had to go? Is a park themed to the movies really telling us the whole story if it only features Disney movies? Will Mickey and Minnie offer a worthwhile replacement? What does it mean that Disney’s Hollywood Studios is now losing yet another attraction… and this time, its thesis?
Then, be sure to make the jump to our Legend Library to set course for another classic Lost Legend!
