Over the past few years, we’ve been working hard to build a library of Lost Legends, telling the in-depth behind-the-scenes stories of beloved-and-lost rides from around the globe. We’ve survived Disney’s scariest attraction ever, Alien Encounter; ventured 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to revisit the sunken Magic Kingdom classic; taken flight to relive the lost experience of Soarin’; toured the skies of Walt’s Tomorrowland aboard The Peoplemover; we’ve even merrily raced along to Nowhere in Particular aboard Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Across the site, keep your eye out for links to other Lost Legends, or set course for your favorite in our In-Depth Features Library.
But today, we return to what may be the international capital of closed classics: Epcot. It seems that rides at this uniquely futuristic park are doomed from the start, and a number of our Lost Legends resided here once upon a time. Today’s entry earned its place in Disney Parks’ history books by being the first thrill ride at EPCOT; a unique fusion of education and entertainment in a shuttered pavilion.
This can only be the story of BODY WARS, the would-be classic that nauseated a generation en route to an unfortunate and unusual closure. Even today – a decade after its closure – Body Wars is sealed away behind closed doors, rusting and awaiting its own demolition. In today’s in-depth entry, we’ll explore the history of the doomed Wonders of Life pavilion, the experience of its headlining thrill ride, and what became of it. Brace yourself, because this ride is not for the feint of heart… or stomach.
Origins of Life
Image: Disney
Frequent readers know by now that the story of a Lost Legend invariably begins years – sometimes decades – before the ride even opens. In this case, the story of Body Wars starts with the origins of EPCOT Center. The park was a conceptual marvel, dedicating massive themed pavilions to areas of science and industry, each pavilion sponsored by a mega-corporation who fit the theme and could foot the bill. Each pavilion would be populated by multiple rides, shows, attractions, even restaurants all meant to convey its central topic and the whims of its sponsor.
Think of it this way: it’s as if “science and industry” were sliced into a pie-chart, with pavilions representing each slice: from oceans to agriculture; imagination to communication. Even among these grand, abstract concepts brought to life, at least one topic was conspicuously missing… While less conceptually enormous than the topics covered elsewhere in Future World, the idea of the human body was no less important. And even if there were no pavilion dedicated to life when the park opened in 1982, from the very earliest Blue Sky plans for EPCOT, designers always intended for the park to host a pavilion themed to health and the human body.
In fact, by 1978 (four years before the park was open), Imagineers had already designed a Life pavilion. This circus-themed pavilion would invite guests to learn more about themselves in a number of attractions jutting from the Midway of Life. For example, Good Health Habits was to be a Carousel of Progress style revolving theater; Head Trip would feature animatronic emotions to humorously explain “the data handling and communication capabilities” of our nervous system; Tooth Follies was planned as a musical-mouth revue.
Image: Disney
But the headlining attraction for this massive pavilion would be The Incredible Journey Within. Following the template laid out by EPCOT’s best Lost Legends: Journey into Imagination and Horizons, this spectacular dark ride (using a suspended vehicle system like Peter Pan’s Flight) would’ve sent guests through the inner workings of the incredible human machine.
The pavilion’s overarching theme? Fun! Life is a carnival; a joy; a wonder!
Lead by Disney Legend (and at that time, president of Walt Disney Imagineering) Marty Sklar, Disney even hosted a Good Health in America conference to bring together leading MDs and CEOs of international health organizations) to piece together the message for this brand new pavilion. By his own admission, Sklar believed the health pavilion would be “more controversial than any subject we’ve taken on, because theories about health care and how you manage your own body have changed a lot.” That’s why their pavilion would need to be about personal choice and not preaching… and why it would need a sponsor willing to invest in keeping this pavilion ever-changing, fresh, and alive.
Evolving Adventures
By time Disney secured a sponsor to foot the bill for the development of a life pavilion, things had changed. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (better known as MetLife) had come on board to finance the $100 million pavilion and as Disney readied itself to build the new E-Ticket Incredible Journey Within, they ran into a snag – their plans were too ambitious.
Image: Disney
Sklar and his team reportedly mulled endlessly over how they could realistically build and maintain the massive set pieces that such a journey would require. “If you can think of moving a section of lung, for instance, that was 30 feet high on a continuous basis as people ride through… you can imagine how ponderous and difficult that turned out to be.” Indeed, the physical limitations of technology and cost make the fluid, fluctuating world of the human body inaccessible.
But as the pavilion readied for a 1989 opening, a brand-new and astounding technology seemed to offer exactly what EPCOT Center’s life pavilion needed to bring a trip into the human body to life.
For years, Disneyland’s Tomorrowland had hosted its own microscopic adventure ride, itself a Lost Legend: Adventure Thru Inner Space. However, it had closed just a few years earlier in 1985. Its showbuilding was being reused for a new attraction spearheaded by a new CEO, Michael Eisner, who was determined to make Disney Parks into the kind of places that teenagers wanted to visit.
Image: Disney
Eisner and famed Imagineer Tony Baxter had paired with legendary filmmaker George Lucas to bring the universe of Star Wars to Disney Parks in a cutting-edge new ride where guests would sit aboard military-grade motion-base simulators, programmed to pitch, roll, and yaw in sync with an in-cabin film projection to simulate a windsheild. There’s no use being coy here… you know about the stellar ride that opened at Disneyland in 1987, and you can catch up with the full, in-depth story behind its development in its own entry – Lost Legends: STAR TOURS – that’s a must-read for Disney Parks fans.
In any case, the idea of utilizing the newly-development simulator technology for a ride through the human body seemed the perfect way to create a headlining attraction for the new Wonders of Life pavilion.
Wonders of Life
Image: Disney
When MetLife’s Wonders of Life pavilion opened on October 19, 1989 (almost seven years to the day after the opening of EPCOT Center), the brand new pavilion could be found on a plot of land between Universe of Energy and another Lost Legend: Horizons. While it was actually made up of a series of wings branching from a main structure, guests could only see the pavilion’s most obvious and spectacular architectural feature: a 250-foot-wide, 65-foot-high golden dome set back from a 76-foot tall strand of DNA called the Tower of Life.
Most of the pavilion’s attractions were natural extensions of the lineup Sklar and his companions had imagined a decade earlier – for example, the Sensory Funhouse allowed guests to explore optical, physical, and auditory illusions.
Image: Disney
Cranium Command was an Audio-Animatronic show wherein guests would join Buzzy, a brain-operator-in-training, as he tries to tackle piloting “the most unstable craft in the fleet” – a 12-year old boy.
But set away from the Midway under a banner representing the inner complexity of the body, a glowing sign signaled the entrance to the pavilion’s star: Body Wars. Despite a sign promising “a high speed thrill ride into the heart of adventure,” it would be difficult for guests to understand exactly what Body Wars was (especially given that Disney World’s copy of Star Tours wouldn’t open for another two months, allegedly having been delayed at MetLife’s demand so their ride could open first).
Are you ready to venture into the inner workings of the human body? On the next page, we’ll dive into the bloodstream and figure out exactly why Body Wars was left behind. Read on…
Image: Edward Russell, Flickr (license)
Making your way through the Midway-styled interior of the Wonders of Life pavilion, the entrance to Body Wars feels like a stark contrast. The massive mural that wraps around part of the pavilion’s inner circumference might be enough on its own to ward away those grossed out by blood – it’s a collection of blood vessels, tubes, and alien-structures that, shockingly, must be – gulp – something inside of us.
And indeed, stepping into the ride’s queue, the pastel whimsy of the pavilion’s rotunda melts away as guests pass through Dermatopic Purification portals. The idea is simple: we’re in some sort of research facility sealed off from the pathogens of the rest of the world.
Soon, our location becomes clear: we’re at a laboratory run by MET (that’s Miniaturized Exploration Technologies), a pioneer in health and medicine dedicated to the betterment of our lives. Their newest breakthrough is why we’re here: the incredible LGS-2050 Body Probe Vehicle is a cutting-edge way to explore the human body. These sleek white pods can be miniaturized to barely the size of a cell and beamed into a human body for research and exploration. When all is said and done, the 26-ton vehicles will weigh less than a drop of water.
(The clever conceit masquerades our lesson on the body as a science fiction adventure, doubtlessly inspired by the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage.)
But today, you’ll be more than just a witness to this newfound technology; you’ll be a participant. In the ride’s preshow we learn that we’re mere minutes behind Dr. Cynthia Lair (played by Academy Award winning actress Elisabeth Shue), who’s volunteered to be miniaturized and beamed into a patient to study the body’s immune response to a splinter. Our mission is simple: follow Dr. Lair’s route inside the patient aboard Probe Bravo 229 piloted by Captain Braddock (Tim Matheson) to retrieve her and bring her out. Ready for miniaturization?
The Ride
Strapped aboard Bravo 229, Captain Braddock appears via a small screen to the right of our viewport. As he welcomes us onboard and signals the start of our reduction sequence, a shield covering the viewport falls away.
It’s important to note that the ride film you’re about to see is cutting edge, with CGI animation to create the (startlingly realistic) look and feel of the body. And the whole thing is directed by someone with a keen understanding of “incredible journeys” – the late, great Leonard Nimoy, best known as Spock in Star Trek.
We’re pulling up to a particle reducer that’ll beam us just beneath the skin of our patient. As the particle reducer powers up, the vehicle lifts and jostles before being propelled forward (seemingly a re-use of Star Tours’ “lightspeed” maneuver, here beaming us under the skin).
Image: Disney
When our view returns, we’re microscopic, drifting in a chamber of vessels and tubes with oblong spheres drifting past in the channel. “Directly in front of us is a group of white blood cells on their way to destroy the splinter.” As we drift aside to follow them, a continual pulse draws us back and forth, shuffling the pod. Then, it appears – a splinter which, on this scale, might as well be a skyscraper pierced through the skin with white blood cells clamping on.
Dr. Lair’s here. She needs just one more cell count before she can join us onboard. As we drift under the splinter, she calls out “Mayday!” Dr. Lair had been pulled into a capillary. We’ve got to find her, so the probe tears through a bulbous, fatty layer and races into a vein, slamming left and right as the heart’s pulse tears the ship forward and back. “I’m being pulled into the heart!” she cries.
Image: Disney
We’ve got to time it just right so as not to be crushed by the flaps of the right ventricle’s valves. Still, she’s drawn further through the circulatory system and toward the lungs. “We have to chance it,” Braddock commands. As deep, guttural breaths from the patient draw the vehicle forward and back in nauseating tilts and thrusts, we stun a white blood cell determined to consume Dr. Lair and she climbs aboard.
Unfortunately, our journey so far as used too much power; we can’t beam out.
“We need an energy boost!” Braddock orders.
“The brain! It works on electrical impulse.”
Image: Disney
The path forward? Another capillary. This time, we’re drawn backwards into the heart again, slamming and swaying with every pulse. We have only 5% power now. We’ve got to use the heartbeat to propel us!
With a pulse, we’re off, slamming again until a hard right takes us into the spinal fluid. With a jolt, we pass the blood-brain barrier as electrical nerves surround us, their sparks lighting the dark cabin. “The cerebral cortex!” Lair muses. “We’re in the brain!”
“Braddock, your power is gone!” the Mission Commander reports via radio. “I repeat, your power is gone!”
With the last bit of strength, the ship drifts against a neuron. “This neuron better fire…”
Then, with a pulse of energy, we enter into the warping beam again. In a flash, we’re back outside the particle reducer.
“Incredible!” Lair celebrates. “Do you realize what we just did?!”
“You broke every regulation in the book! You also managed to pull off the most spectacular mission this place has ever seen! Congratulations.”
We always include a point-of-view video in our Lost Legends entries to give you a first-person perspective of what it was like to experience these forgotten attractions. This one is particularly telling, as the videographer rides alone. A sure sign of things to come… Watch here:
And just like that, your mission is complete. You’ll pass down a series of simple, laboratory hallways before the pastel midway of Wonders of Life comes back into view. Sure, Body Wars might not have the stellar, emotional story of some of Disney’s best, and it’s a little more light on content than many of Epcot’s storied dark rides. But it was one hell of a ride. The question is, would you ride it again?
On the next page, we’ll dissect the issues that might’ve meant Body Wars’ time was short from the start.
Rough Road
Each of the four probe vehicles weighs 27,000 pounds fully loaded (that’s before miniaturization, of course) and can hold forty guests, just like the ones used on Star Tours. And like Star Tours, each is supported by six hydraulic servo-actuators offering six degree of freedom movements (planes in heave, surge, and sway; axes in pitch, roll, and yaw). The ride film cues the physical motions of the pod, as each frame generates a time code pulse with an associated positioning for the ride’s motion base arms.
Given that structurally each Body Wars vehicle is operated within the same constraints as Star Tours, it may be odd that pretty quickly after it opened, Body Wars gained a reputation for a rough ride, leaving riders sick and queasy and causing a few too many “protein spills.”
We suspect there are three reasons why:
1) A ride program of “lub-dub” pulses. Like Star Tours, the motion program of Body Wars was set by an Imagineer sitting on board with a joystick, manually creating what would be the ride’s motion profile. The designers responsible for the ride’s motion added an extra bit to detail to Body Wars… throughout the ride, the vehicle rhythmically bucks and thrusts to match the pulse of the human bloodstream. Even when the vehicle is meant to be “floating” in place, the ebb and flow of the heartbeat jostles the cabin. Things get even worse in the lungs where the patients inhale and exhale lift and drop the pod over and over. This continual throbbing was a thoughtful and clever detail… but a debilitating programming choice.
Image: Disney
2) “Discombobulation.” Your brain uses a lot of sensory information to make sense of the world around it. In a moving car, for example, your eyes tell you that you’re moving while your sense of proprioception (your understanding of your own place in space) controlled by your inner ear says you’re sitting, stationary. For some, this contradiction leads to motion sickness (The very opposite effect is what unsettles stomachs on Mission: SPACE, as your eyes tell you you’re hovering in place while your inner ears sense extreme motion.)
While this disconnect is inherent in many thrill rides anyway, motion simulators make it even worse. It’s for that reason that programmers have to be very, very careful that each motion syncs up perfectly to its corresponding film frame. And some allege that Body Wars’ more aggressive ride cycle also made it prone to glitching the ride video, skipping a few frames and throwing off the careful choreography that, subconsciously, would cause major motion sickness in riders as their eyes and ears battled to make sense of their location.
3) Humans are gross. Perhaps the simplest excuse is the most true. Blood, splinters, pulsating organs, flapping valves, and networks of veins can simply be… well… sickening.
Be it one or all three of those reasons, Body Wars left riders pale and quesy. Cast Members in control booths would be charged with carefully watching each pod during its cycle to look for signs of motion sickness so that the ride could be E-stopped with the touch of a button. Slamming, swaying, thrusting, richocheting, and pulsing through the grossest inner workings of the human body simply proved a recipe too poisonous to overcome.
The problems were so severe that, shortly after opening, 20-seconds of the ride were edited out with an on-screen fade between frames. The push and pull of the lungs were simply too intense. Maybe it helped a little. Maybe the jump cut only exascerbated number 2, above.
Body Wars was simply too intense, especially for those who witnessed the same technology in action on the much smoother new ride that opened down the road just a few months later… Which brings us to…
Lost Legend or Disaster File?
Image: Disneyana by Max
Two months after the grand debut of Wonders of Life and its starring Body Wars, Star Tours opened at the brand-new Disney-MGM Studios, bringing the runaway wild success of Disneyland’s E-Ticket to Disney World. We make the case in Lost Legends: STAR TOURS that the Disney / Lucasfilm collaboration changed everything at Disney Parks. And frankly, Body Wars didn’t stand a chance.
It was inevitable that visitors would quickly discern that Body Wars and Star Tours were sisters, and given that realization, it was also inevitable that they’d compare them and that, by-and-large, they’d prefer the latter. Star Tours was the brand-new ride at the brand-new park. It was thrilling yet smooth, powered by a Disney-quality plot and story, and packed with beloved characters and settings from one of the most popular film franchises of all time. Even if Body Wars weren’t nauseating in its motion and content, it couldn’t compete with that.
It wasn’t long before Body Wars was all but obsolete. As multi-hour queues built for Star Tours, Body Wars was a walk-on. It certainly didn’t help that it was tucked away inside of a tucked-away pavilion. The often overlooked ride was a would-be E-Ticket whose popularity had crashed.
Maybe that’s why it’s tough to decide if Body Wars fits in with our other Lost Legends, or if it would be more at home among the very opposite, with our in-depth Disaster Files: The Enchanted Tiki Room: Under New Management, Stitch’s Great Escape, Tomorrowland’s Rocket Rods, or Epcot’s own Journey into YOUR Imagination. In any case, things did not bode well for Body Wars. But what would Disney do to make the ride the star it deserved to be? You won’t believe the answer. Read on…
Life support
Image: Disney
So what killed Wonders of Life? The same thing that’s taken other Lost Legends: Maelstrom, Journey into Imagination, Horizons, and most every revered-and-removed EPCOT Center original: sponsorship.
The would-be model for EPCOT Center called for wealthy corporations to finance pavilions tied to their areas of expertise in exchange for advertising and the chance to peddle their products. The plan’s initial success was short-lived. As the new millennium neared, contract negotiations mounted. Disney had counted on sponsor companies to finance the construction of Epcot’s future world (which they had). But now it was time for those sponsors to hold up the other end of the bargain, updating their pavilions and refreshing their contents.
And much to Disney’s dismay, instead of re-upping their investment, many companies began to bail. MetLife was one of them. The insurance company dropped its stake in 2001. Insiders say that MetLife’s refusal to continue financial support for Wonders of Life might have been tied to an internal dispute over Cast Members’ insurance policies. We can’t be sure. But in any case, Disney did what we’d expect: they set out to find a new sponsor.
Problem is, they never found one.
Image: Disney
From the time MetLife dropped out, the pavilion was more or less frozen in time. Even routine maintenance like painting simply stopped. So to answer our earlier question – what did Disney do to make Body Wars the guest favorite it could’ve been? – nothing. With poor word of mouth having spread and the remote attraction’s pavilion aging, the proverbial writing seemed to be on the wall.
The entire Wonders of Life pavilion was switched to seasonal operation in 2004 – three years after MetLife’s exit. That meant that the pavilion would only open during forecasted heavy-attendance times, like spring break, summer, and the weeks around Christmas. For Disney Parks fans, it was a death knell. While they waited for the pavilion’s unavoidable demise, the attractions within deteriorated, essentially frozen in whatever form they existed in when MetLife cut their support. Especially at the start of the New Millennium, the contents of Wonders of Life – from Cranium Command to The Making of Me and Body Wars – looked, felt, and sounded like something from the 1980s. Because, of course, they were.
End of Life
Image: Disney
Disney pulled the plug forever on January 1, 2007. After a (pretty long) lifetime of sixteen years, Wonders of Life was shuttered. The pavilion’s signage and the towering DNA sculpture were removed.
That same year, the pavilion re-opened. But now, it was the Festival Center for Epcot’s International Food & Wine Festival, offering culinary demos, wine tasting, guest speakers, and more. At first, evidence of the pavilion’s former life was very, very evident. For a few years, marquees for Life’s attractions were even prominent – very ’90s-stylized reminders of the space’s former life.
The bad news is, every year less and less of Wonders of Life was visible as the golden pavilion’s identity shifted inextricably to a flex space. On the flip side is the good news: every year, the space looked less like an old, forgotten, closed attraction and more like a purpose-built events pavilion, as documented splendidly in Yesterland’s incredible Then & Now: Erasing Wonders of Life pictoral that’s a must-view.
Image: Jennifer Lynn, Flickr (license)
While fans bemoaned the loss of the Wonders of Life pavilion for something as static and seemingly underutilized as a Festival Center, the truth is a little more complex. After all, between Epcot’s three annual festivals (the International Food and Wine Festival, Flower and Garden Festival, and the new Festival of the Arts), the Festival Center housed in the former pavilion was occupied far more than half of the year – which means the pavilion was populated more often than the seasonal Wonders of Life was.
Rebirth
In any case, Disney surprised everyone when, on February 21, 2019, the Disney Parks Blog officially announced that the former Wonders of Life pavilion would be reborn as part of the ongoing overhaul of Epcot’s former Future World. Now subdivided into World Nature (west), World Celebration (central), and World Discovery (east), the golden dome of Wonders of Life would come alive once more.
Image: Disney
Epcot already showcases pavilions based on engineering, space, oceans, agriculture, communication, and imagination… And now, the reborn Wonders of Life space would play host to an entirely unique area of science and learning: Play!
In what looks to be a seismic reimagining of the building’s interior, the new pavilion appears like a neon cityscape born of the Oh My Disney era. “Built on the power of play, it introduces an immersive and interactive ‘city’ where you can explore, create, and interact with some of your favorite Disney characters. This is an experience worthy of our bold vision for Epcot – and another signature element of our transformation,” said Zach Riddley, portfolio executive, Walt Disney Imagineering.
Image: Disney
Though there’s still no word on whether this unnamed pavilion will feature any rides, we can feel pretty confident that an ATLAS simulator won’t be among its lineup. Backstage photos have emerged showing the Body Wars pod bays empty – likely because they were scrapped to use as spare parts for Star Tours’ Starspeeders long ago.
Instead, the Play pavilion is expected to infuse 21st century multi-media interactives into one family-friendly, character-filled space in the park… a central hub for meet-and-greets that also offers experiences like the Animation Academy, the interactive Zootopia-themed “Hotel Heist,” and digital fashion-show interactives “hosted” by Edna Mode from The Incredibles.
Image: Disney
By the way, Epcot won’t go without a pavilion to act as the anchor for its rotating seasonal cultural celebrations! A part of the park’s parenthesis-shaped Innoventions structures disappeared to make way for another pavilion: Celebration. This beautiful pavilion will evoke the timeless architecture of the ’60s with a sleek modern finish, likely serving as the central point for Epcot’s many festivals (and a premium vantage point for dining package fireworks shows).
Resting in Peace
Image: Disney
At the end of the day, Body Wars never earned the acclaim that its interstellar sister did, and it never stood amongst the revered rides that Epcot hosted in its earliest years – rides like World of Motion, Spaceship Earth, Journey into Imagination, Universe of Energy, or Listen to the Land.
But like every loved-and-lost attraction at Disney Parks, it touched a generation of fans who, as children, might’ve believed they’d truly shrunk down to the size of a cell to explore the wonders of the human body in an unthinkable way. In Body Wars, Imagineers crafted a new way to stay true to Epcot’s origins – an educational and entertaining adventure, just infused with modern thrills. For that reason, it was groundbreaking and ought to be remembered as a landmark in the park’s story.
We started our Lost Legend series to chronicle the in-depth stories and experiences of these forgotten rides, but what we really need is you. Share your thoughts and memories about Body Wars in the comments below to preserve this ride experience for a new generation. Is Epcot missing something by not having a pavilion dedicated to the body? Was Body Wars a turning point in Epcot’s development? What other rides and attractions would you like to see in our Lost Legends series? We look forward to your memories!
Then, hop over to our Legend Library to set course for your next Lost Legend.
