Sure, it's thrilling, but where's the story?
With all of the dark rides, simulators, and enclosed coasters I've watched, however, I've begun to notice a pattern in their stories. Allow me to show you what I mean:
Location: I dunno, some park.
You've come to this park to experience the thrilling new attraction, A RIDE! Before you board though, there's a preshow by the delightful Professor Such-and-Such and his animal sidekick, Jerkwad.
"Oh, I see you guests are all here to experience the whatever-invention that I made!", the Professor says, in his hilarious mannerisms. "It's sure to be a blast, where absolutely nothing will go wrong!"
"I'm funny!" says Jerkwad. You laugh like everybody else in line, but deep down, you know he sucks.
Visual approximation of Jerkwad.
So, you get on board your vehicle and it seems all fine and dandy, but OH NO SOMETHING'S GONE WRONG! We're being attacked by an earthquake/dragon/evil prince/alien/asteroid/robots/insert other here! We gotta get outta here! OH NO, NOW THERE'S A helicopter/giant fish/gremlins/Reaper from Mass Effect/Borg/Broly/insert other here! Oh, thank goodness! Professor Such-and-Such and Jerkwad have saved us!
"Y'all come back now, ya hear?" they say, as you laugh along with everybody else once again, because you desperately want to be accepted by society! And you leave the ride into the gift shop so you can buy Jerkwad merchandise.
I have, admittedly loosely, described the plot of many rides that have stories. You're a guest and/or visitor, here to experience something that definitely won't go to shit, only for it to go to shit.
I got receipts!
Look, I love this too, but even good stuff has its flaws.
Now then, here are attractions, past and present, that use this kind of plot:
- Star Tours (Various Disney Parks, Incompetent Pilot)
- Expedition Everest (Animal Kingdom, Yeti)
- Dinosaur (Animal Kingdom, Take a wild guess)
- Body Wars (EPCOT, White Blood Cells)
- ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter (Magic Kingdom, An alien)
- The Great Movie Ride (Hollywood Studios, Gangster/Outlaw)
- Star Tours: The Adventure Continues (Various Disney Parks, Depends on the films)
- Muppet*Vision 3D (Hollywood Studios, Waldo)
- Jaws: The Ride (Universal Orlando/Japan, Shark)
"SHARK! SHARK! SHARK! SHARK!"
- Jurassic Park: The Ride (Various Universal Parks, Dinosaurs)
- Kongfrontation (Universal Orlando, King Kong)
- Skull Island: Reign of Kong (Islands of Adventure, King Kong again)
- Back to the Future: The Ride (This and the next 6 are Various Universal Parks, Biff Tannen)
- The Simpsons Ride (Sideshow Bob)
- Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem (Turbine)
- Revenge of the Mummy (Imhotep)
And, to an extent, Brendan Fraser.
- Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey (Dragon, Spiders, Whomping Willow, Dementors...)
- The Amazing Adventures of Spider Man (Various Villains)
- Terminator 2 3-D: Battle Across Time (Terminators)
- The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera (Universal Orlando and Various Cedar Fair Parks, Dick Dastardly and Muttley)
- Jimmy Neutron's Nicktoon Blast (Universal Orlando, Yolkians)
- Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts (Universal Orlando, Death Eaters)
- Popeye and Bluto's Bilge Rat Barges (Islands of Adventure, Bluto)
- Wild Arctic (SeaWorld San Diego and Orlando, the Weather)
- Questor (Busch Gardens Tampa and Williamsburg, loss of power, I think)
- Akbar's Adventure Tours (Busch Garden's Tampa, Monsters, I think; No ride film remains)
Get on this, Lost Media people!
- Monster Mansion (Six Flags Over Georgia, THE MARSH)
- Bermuda Triangle (Movie Park Germany and Sea World, It's in a volcano, Dumbass)
- Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye (Disneyland, who the hell looked at Mara?)
- Honey, I Shrunk the Audience! (Various Disney Parks, GEE I WONDER)
- It's Tough to be a Bug! (Various Disney Parks, Hopper, who's voiced by Stanton instead of Spacey)
- Mass Effect: New Earth (California's Great America, Reapers)
- The Curse of DarKastle (Busch Gardens Williamsburg, Evil Ghost-Wolf-Prince)
- Verbolten (Busch Gardens Williamsburg, Vines, Evil Spirit, Storm, Big Bad Wolf)
The scariest part is the lack of a conclusion to the narrative told in the queue!
- Italian Job Stunt Track/ Turbo Coaster (Various Cedar Fair Parks, Helicopter)
- Space Shuttle America (Six Flags Great America, Postponing the apocalypse)
- Tomb Raider: The Ride (Kings Island, the Hindu goddess Durga)
- Mystery Mine (Dollywood, Haunted mine)
- Firechaser Express (Dollywood, Fireworks)
- Blazing Fury (Dollywood, Fire)
- Fire in the Hole (Silver Dollar City, Fire and Baldknobbers)
- Iron Man Experience (Hong Kong Disneyland, Hydra)
- Mystic Manor (Hong Kong Disneyland, Magic music box)
Friggin' monkey...
- Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars (Hong Kong Disneyland, Poorly run mine)
- Ratatouille: The Adventure (Walt Disney Studios Park and, soon, EPCOT, SkinnER!)
- Mickey's PhilharMagic (Various Disney Parks, Donald Duck)
- The Amazing Ride of Gumball (IMG Worlds of Adventure, Science Project)
- Star Trek: The Experience (Las Vegas, Klingons in one part, Borg in the other)
- Stormrider (Tokyo DisneySea, Storm)
- Journey to the Center of the Earth (Tokyo DisneySea, Badass lava monster)
In awe at the size of this lad. Absolute unit.
And I'm sure there's others, but I wanted to stop the list before it got redundant.
But Colin, you handsome devil, how do we fix this?
Well, there ain't much you or I could do, unless we get jobs as Imagineers, but I feel we'd need some design degrees if we want to get hired. Otherwise, we can't really control much of the way attractions are designed. I'm sure that if we get entry level jobs at Disney, or Universal, we can work our way up. We'll meet up at the Walker Bros. on Roselle Road to discuss it on Saturday Morning. No- come by my house, the public musn't know. You find cheap airfare, I'll look at apartments.
Feel free to message me on Twitter at @Colonel_Colin if you have questions or thoughts. Until next time, don't look at Mara, stay out of the marsh, and don't rent from sketchy motor tour companies located near the Black Forest!
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