Look, it makes total sense that “screens” get a bad rap.
Particularly in the early 2000s, there’s no doubt that across Disney and Universal theme parks, the Venn diagram of “rides” and “movies” became pretty much a fully-overlapped circle. The result is a period when fans – often justifiably! – criticize Disney and Universal parks for offering far, far too many rides that begin with picking up a pair of 3D glasses. Sometimes, it can feel that a day in the parks mostly involves being sat in a box and jostled in front of a screen.
But hear us out. At the end of the day, it’s not if screens are used, but how they are. After all, though we may just be getting out of an era defined by an overreliance on screens, screens are not the enemy! To prove it, here are three absolutely incredible, show-stopping, E-Ticket headlining attractions that simply wouldn’t exist – or at least, wouldn’t be anywhere near as sensational – if they were required to stick to physical sets alone.
1. STAR TOURS
In one of our in-depth Legend Library features, we launched into unbelievable story of Disney’s first Star Wars attraction – 1987’s blockbuster collaboration with George Lucas, the Lost Legends: STAR TOURS. Literally positioned at the cutting edge of then-available technology, STAR TOURS did the unthinkable: it brought Disney Parks back to life after a very long period of slumber. In fact, then-CEO Michael Eisner’s bold assertion that Disney Parks needed to keep up with the times and feature the hottest stories of the day – even if they weren’t Disney characters! – was the kind of risk that could’ve crashed and burned.
But STAR TOURS is remembered today as the ride that changed everything, simulataneously kicking off the “Age of the Simulator” and the “Ride the Movies” era in one go. Basically every motion simulator owes its existence to Disney’s STAR TOURS. Of course, like all great innovations, copycats spread quickly. By the ’90s, cabin-based simulators could be found not just at amusement parks across the globe, but at fairs, festivals, and even malls. Still, we shouldn’t take for granted that STAR TOURS was the start of something big – and something that couldn’t have been done at all without the coordinated efforts of Walt Disney Imagineering and Lucasfilm working in the medium of screens.
The other part of STAR TOURS’ story is that – by being “upgraded” to its own 4K, HD, 3D prequel with randomized destinations and encounters – the ride also lives up to a massive (and often underutilized) benefit of screens: they can be updated. Though some fans brush off screens’ flexibility as part of their inherent lack of permanence and depth (“just swap out whatever’s on the screen for the next hot IP”), fresh animation and new scenes bring STAR TOURS full circle, allowing it to adapt to the times and keep Disney Parks fresh and exciting.
Star Tours is “just” a screen, in a box that shakes. Yet it’s so much more. And that’s precisely what we mean when we say that it’s not whether a ride uses screens, but how it does. Take for example…
2. The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man
When the Modern Marvel: The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man opened alongside Universal’s Islands of Adventure in 1999, nothing like it had ever been seen before. The true first when it comes to 21st century “multi-media” rides, without Spider-Man, the entire industry would look a whole lot different, and it’s unlikely that any of our post-Millennium Modern Marvels would look quite the same as they do today.
By now, you know the trick: The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man places guests into roving, motion-based dark ride vehicles that pass through physical sets interspersed with massive screens. Those screens act like windows, extending physical sets where animated moments trigger real, physical effects around riders. Spider-Man represents a perfect synchronization of “real” and “projected,” surrounding guests in the comic book streets of New York.
More to the point, everything Spider-Man does would be a whole lot harder to pull off in another medium. Scenes populated exclusively by even the best Audio-Animatronics couldn’t capture the same energy as the action-packed, vibrant, explosive, and thrilling ride. It’s screens done right. And even if a few too many Universal rides in the last twenty years read like permutations of Spider-Man (yes, we’re talking to you, Transformers, Reign of Kong, Escape from Gringotts, and Fast & Furious: Supercharged), there’s no doubt that Spider-Man is still the G.O.A.T… and still a perfect application of screens even a generation later.
And…
To review, STAR TOURS was the birth of the simulator, offering ride designers the incredible ability to launch “across the galaxy” in a small space and in a quick turnaround. It was a landmark ride that moved “screens” to the forefront in 1987, then showed their incredible adaptability in 2017.
Then, The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man used every trick developed in the decade since, integrating scenes into physical sets and using them – along with new animation techniques and ride technologies – to bring the comic books to life. Only “screens” could’ve made those Amazing Adventures as bold, bright, kinetic, thrilling, and electric as they were.
So let’s leap forward again for our third legend, made possible only by those screens…
3. AVATAR Flight of Passage
Though lots and lots of screen-based rides dot the timeline between STAR TOURS and today, it’s pretty inarguable that few have landed quite like AVATAR Flight of Passage. Opened in 2017 as the headlining ride of Pandora – The World of AVATAR at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Flight of Passage is nearly indescribable.
Narratively, the ride connects to the larger story of Pandora, where we – as guests – become eco-tourists of the distant future, traveling to Pandora by way of the Alpha Centauri Expeditions Company to partake in the bounties of the distant moon. Like an Earth-bound family trip to a National Park, we arrive in the Valley of Mo’ara to gaze in awe at its natural wonders; to study its bioluminscent plants and animals; and to learn from the culture of the indigeonous Na’vi, whose food and traditions have been passed down for centuries.
Through a partnership with the Pandora Conservation Initiative, we have the rare opportunity to participate in one of the Na’vi’s most sacred traditions – a rite of passage shared by all Na’vi as they grow: to connect with one of the planet’s fiercest predators, the Banshee or Ikran, and take a harrowing flight through the natural world. The physical climb to the PCI’s mountainside laboratories builds suspense and importance, as we step through the same rocky cliffs, caverns, forests, and trails that the Na’vi have blazed. It’s one of the resort’s most incredible – and weirdly, emotional – queues. It all leads to a lab where riders are “linked” with lab-made Na’vi Avatar bodies ready to take flight…
Technically, the ride itself builds on the bones of the Lost Legend: Soarin’, fusing its grace, elegance, and aerial flight with a thrilling new ride system. Guests are positioned straddling “Link Chairs,” capable of their own leaning, tilting, and rocking while also rising and falling vertically, all while immersed in a fully-surrounding domed screen. Wind, smells, and real physics add to the sensation of soaring through the floating mountains of Pandora.
Flight of Passage is an adrenaline-rushing thrill ride, sure, but it’s something else, too; it’s deeply, unexpectedly thoughtful. Across the biomes of Pandora, guests experience moments of free flight, and aerial clashes, and stomach-dropping plummets… but there are also moments of silence. Stillness. Contemplation. Ease. When the score kicks on halfway through (a deliberate choice by designers), it’s understandable that even the most stoic riders might have to blink back a few tears. As any rite of passage should be, the ride is intense both physically and emotionally; just a perfectly crafted Disney E-Ticket from start to finish.
And while a modern “Peter Pan’s Flight” over Pandora’s mountains and valleys might’ve been a nice ride in its own right, there’s no question at all that once more, screens made it possible.
Screen Legends
Across Disney and Universal parks, there are dozens of “screen-based” rides. Sometimes, projection fills in the experience, as in Rise of the Resistance or Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey or STAR TOURS or Spider-Man or Jurassic World: The Ride. Sometimes, screens are the experience, like in Soarin’ or Race Through New York or Runaway Railway or Flight of Passage.
That just goes to show that it’s not whether or not screens are used; it’s how they are. Screens aren’t the enemy. And if you ever begin to think they are, consider what these three rides would be like without them. Could designers have developed a Spider-Man, Star Wars, or Avatar ride without screens? Sure. But chances are, they wouldn’t match these screen-based Modern Marvels we know and love.
