Dubai: wait, they're doing what now?

There were many interesting developments that took place in 2016 in the theme and amusement park industry. Shanghai Disneyland opened in China, Universal Hollywood got a Hogsmeade expansion, and SeaWorld announced that they would stop breeding killer whales, among other stories.

It'd be better if people visiting didn't poop in the bushes, but that's another story.

But one of the most interesting developments took place in the Dubai, which saw the opening of not one, not two, not even three, but four different theme parks. IMG Worlds of Adventure usurped nearby Ferrari World as the world's biggest indoor theme park, covering over 1.5 million square feet, with lands based off of Marvel, Cartoon Network, and Random Dinosaurs, look, we ran out of licenses, okay?.

Man, did every park get a Marvel ride before Disney?

Meanwhile Dubai Parks and Resorts opened with three major theme parks: Legoland Dubai, Bollywood Park Dubai, and Motiongate Dubai. The latter park includes attractions based on films by studios such as Lionsgate, Sony Pictures, and Dreamworks.

Now, you can finally live out your dream of getting murdered by teenagers who look like they're in their twenties!

These parks are proclaiming themselves to be the biggest, newest entertainment destinations in the Middle East, anticipating large crowds both local and international.

Big problem: they're not that great. Already, there are some pretty empty parking lots.

There aren't too may 'innovative' rides, and some look like they had barely any effort put into them whatsoever. They barely even use any animatronics; most of their dark rides use either screens or unmoving statues and models of characters. Apparently, they didn't have it in the budget for mouths that move.

But these aren't even the last parks coming to this country, oh no. Not only are a Six Flags, a 20th Century Fox park, and a Warner Brothers park under construction, but IMG is slated to get a major expansion already, with areas and attractions based off of Power Rangers, Nickelodeon, Ubisoft, Mattel, and way more than they can probably afford.

My God, so many franchises! It's like a terrible fanfiction!

But there's something really important to note throughout all of this: History repeats.

Now, odds are you only know what I mean if you know a lot about theme and amusement parks. As in, you knew what Six Flags Power Plant was before I mentioned it.

The Dubailand project was, and technically still is, an ambitious plan that spanned all kinds of parks, resorts, and attractions, and a lot of it straight up tanked. The Marvel and Dreamworks lands at IMG and Motiongate?  They were going to get their own parks, which ended up cancelled, along with a Formula 1 theme park and a Universal Studios. The bubble burst. They flew too close to the sun. Some other third metaphor regarding failure. And when the most finished of these new parks is Legoland, then you know it's a bad sign.

I mean, Legoland is never bad, but it's never really the reason you go someplace.

Has Dubai finally gotten the park formula right? Or is tourism in the Middle East just not strong enough to support this many parks? Stay tuned for the next several years!