My Last Flight to Endor was in 2007

My Last Tour to Endor was in 2007, and I am a Disney fan in a place where the things I like are always looked over or ignored.

So the closing of an attraction doesn’t means too much to me. I was happy as a Disney fan that HISTA closed (don’t get me started on that) and EO came back (since I am a retro EPCOT fan). But I’ll have to admit: I pretty much got interested in Disney Parks after I visited Disney, and that was, and still is, the worst part of my trip. But the fact that I am now seeing the closure of an attraction that I had the chance to ride really makes me wonder a bit about my trip.

I remember entering the big Star Tours building back at Disney’s MGM Studios. And as soon as I saw the big robot (I think his name is AT&AT, I never really watched the Star Wars original trilogy), I knew I had to do one thing: record a video to my Star Wars loving cousin back at Brazil. In the video, I pointed at the AT&AT and said “are you envying me right now?” Well guess what, I am. I am envying that little boy in the camera enjoying his time at Disney World.

As I made my way into the building, I immediately spotted C3PO and R2-D2. They were like, icons for me back in Brazil. I had a little C3PO doll that I got once Revenge of the Sith came out, and I used to listen to a podcast that would talk about Star Wars here and then. But seeing these two in real life made me realise that I wasn’t in Disney World anymore. I was in the Star Wars world. The aliens, the droids, and everything seemed so amazing to me, and back then I really thought that there was someone under that C3PO suit. I never really thought about the word “Audio Animatronic”.

When I got to the holding area, I thought to myself: “well, this is a simulator!” And now I think: “Why did I think of that?” Even if the experience of the ride itself was incredible, that ruined at least one half of the ride for me. When the original Star Tours opened at Disneyland, the most asked question from the guests was “How did they fit so much track in that building?” But I didn’t want to fully enter this world and had to remind myself that this was only a simulator. I did the same for when I went to “It’s Though to Be a Bug” and “Stitch’s Great Escape”- I constantly found myself lifting my legs so I wouldn’t feel any of the effects.

So I entered the simulator, and when I saw REX for the first time, it was like a kid seeing Cinderella Castle being lit for the first time. It was like: “its a robot, a real robot, and it’s on my FACE!” I wasn’t seeing this from an Doom Buggy or a boat, it was on my face! He was looking at me, talking to me, and every topsy turn and steep brake I was screaming and saying “woaaaaaaaah!” And I didn’t know what was going on! When I stepped out of the ride, it looked like my experience was ten times better just because of the “woaaaah!”

I really didn’t understand how things worked back then, but now, I notice that I didn’t need to be a Disney fan to really enjoy Star Tours. It really didn’t matter if my Last Tour to Endor was in 2010 or 2007. It doesn’t matters if you are a Disney fan or a Star Wars fan, or none. Star Tours is an attraction you can enjoy anytime. Doesn’t matters who you are, what you know and when you ride it.

My Last Tour to Endor was in 2007. And I’m proud of it.

INSIDE DISNEY: Great Movie Ride

And I’m back ladies and gentlemen.

Last post ended the 2009 season of Stratoblog (cause I love ending seasons of the past year in the new year, totally). Since last post was a Top 10, I figured: hell, why not start the 2010 season with an Inside Disney? And this one is about another favorite attraction! Yaaaaaaaaaaaay.

So let’s start this movie, as we enter the Studios singing the most addicting song of all Disney Parks- What? Yes, more addicting than It’s a Small World but you would call that “addiction by annoyance”. Lights! Cameras! Action! It’s the Inside Disney for the GREAT MOVIE RIDE!

Concept:

The history of the Great Movie Ride starts at… the mind of one of the Imagineers? Correct, but, you know what, the Great Movie Ride wasn’t even supposed to be on Hollywood Studios. It wasn’t going to be called the Great Movie Ride too. It wasn’t going to be on Hollywood Studios for one reason: the idea didn’t even exist! The Great Movie Ride started as the concept for a new pavillion at EPCOT. This idea started back at 1985-6 when the Living Seas was just ready to open. Both sides of Future World had 3 pavillions now, and the idea for a 7th pavillion began to appear. It was the Movies pavillion, that was going to take guests through a ride in famous movies and have them interact with those movies (some of the ideas were that they could choose their ending and that they could change what would happen to the hero of the movie). The new Disney CEO, Michael Eisner, liked the idea and wanted WDI to adapt it for a 3rd gate (that means a 3rd theme park). Ideas of a 7th pavillion were later brought back in 1988 when Wonders of Life gained… well… life.

Movies pavillion becomes MGM Studios:

And so WDI began adapting the idea of the Movies pavillion to a new theme park. It was to be a theme park based on movies, but someone had a better idea: how about we make it a theme park thats actually a movie studio?! So guests can see films being made! And so the idea of a live Studio was born. There was going to be a live action section and an animation section. Thats when MGM popped in. They liked the idea of using that theme park-studio to film their movies and so have more publicity to them. MGM became the sponsor of the park, a feat that no other company ever did before. The park went under construction and an icon was needed. There was the Earful Tower, a replica of the tower that standed next to the Disney Animation Studios at Burbank, but that wasn’t enough. They wanted something big, something that screamed Hollywood. And what screamed Hollywood most than the Chinese Theater, where big blockbuster movies premiered? And so it was decided that the Chinese Theater would be the new park’s icon. Right? Right? Wrong. The park’s icon is indeed the Earful Tower but the guests thought it was the Chinese Theater since it was so centrally located. And one of the rules for creating that replica was that the replica wasn’t supposed to be the park’s icon. And they needed something to go inside that theater, too. So lets put the whole Chinese Theater story aside and lets get back to the star of this article: the Great Movie Ride!

The Great Movie Ride:

So there was the Chinese Theater. And there was the Great Movie Ride. Guests boarded boats and were guided by… well… guides… from the Hollywood Studios backlot to a magical journey through the movies. Passing through scenes of the most famous movies of all time: Singing in the Rain, Mary Poppins and others, they entered the Underworld, where they would stop since the guide wouldn’t want to pass a red light. Then things went really bad. A gangster appears and starts to talk with the guide. The guide reacts, knowing that he’s a famous movie character. The fight starts and bullets go from one side of the room to the other. The gangster enters the boat and takes the passengers away, leaving the guide to his doom. Did you know that there is actually two “movie character controls boat” scenes? One of them is the gangster scene and the other is the Western, where a robber escapes the Bank, blows it up and then takes control of the boat. They pass some more scenes until they get to the Indiana Jones scene, where the movie character leaves the boat and goes get a jewel, but is warned by a strange man, who tells him that the jewel is cursed. The movie character ignores him and touches the jewel. Smoke goes off and the old man is revealed to be… the guide! And when the smoke disappears, we find a skeleton of the character where he once stood. He then tells us that everything can happen on the movies. More movie scenes, a movie finale and then, BAM, its over. Liked that quick resume? I love quick resumes. I love them.

The Fantasia Hat:

Well, back at 2001, a new structure appeared at the park.  To commemorate the 100th birthday of Walt Disney (if he was alive of course), a replica of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice hat was placed in front of the Chinese Theater. But why? Some say its because guests thought the Theater was the park’s icon, and according to the rules that Disney should follow if they wanted to make a replica of the Chinese Theater, one of them was that the Theater couldn’t be the park’s icon. Or maybe that they would have to pay royalties every time someone took a picture of it. Who knows. What we know is that the hat stands there until this day.

I hope you enjoyed this edition of INSIDE DISNEY. Its a short but enjoyable history. A history of the greatest movie ride that ever existed. The Great Movie Ride.