When talking about the great mistakes in Disney Park history, a group of attraction replacements inevitably comes up. For many the wounds created by the demolition of Horizons, Winnie the Pooh replacing Mr. Toad, the 20,000 Leagues Lagoon being filled in, or Figment and Dreamfinder being cast aside for Eric Idle, have left a sense of confusion and cynicism when it comes the decision making at Disney. Other, perhaps less beloved, attractions, such as the the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter or Snow White’s Scary Adventure, were replaced by attractions that were clearly inferior. While many of these downgrades have been seared into our collective memory, I am here today to make the case that the biggest mistake in Walt Disney World history didn’t happen until 2017, when the Great Movie Ride was permanently closed to make way for Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway.
Now before we get too far, let me start with this- this article is not a criticism of Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway. The attraction is enjoyable, and if it’s your favorite ride at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, that’s great. What I am saying, however, is that by replacing the Great Movie Ride with Mickey’s first starring attraction, Disney made an irreparable mistake, that damaged the Studios both at the time and in the future.
To be clear, the mistake that Disney made in 2017 was twofold. The creation of Runaway Railway could, and should, have been an addition to a park that sorely needs more things to do. A new family-friendly dark ride, in addition to the high-capacity Great Movie Ride, would have helped to alleviate the stress on many of the park’s attractions, and helped push Disney’s Hollywood Studios to become a full-day park. Perhaps more importantly, however, by demolishing the Great Movie Ride, Disney eliminated any sense of cohesion that the park had left. The last band holding Disney’s Hollywood Studios together was snapped, and that is not something that the park can come back from. But let’s get into it.
Unlike almost any attraction in Walt Disney World, the Great Movie Ride was foundational to the park that housed it. Originally pitched as an idea for an EPCOT Center pavilion, the idea of exploring the great movies in cinematic history would eventually evolve into the creation of the Disney-MGM Studios themselves. Expanding on this original concept, and perhaps trying to stick it to new neighbor, Universal Studios, Disney created their third gate with the intent to let guests visit the Golden Age of Hollywood. More than simply a working studio, Disney’s MGM Studios was a celebration of the movie-making process and culture. Iconic Hollywood locales such as the Brown Derby, the Crossroads of the World, and Grauman’s Chinese Theatre were faithfully re-created to bring guests back to a time when the studio system reigned supreme, and Hollywood stars shone brightest.
At the center of this new park, housed in the spectacular aforementioned Chinese Theatre, was the Great Movie Ride- a twenty-minute journey through the movies, where guests could see Gene Kelly singing in the rain, Humphrey Bogart sacrificing his happiness for Ingrid Bergman and Judy Garland continuing on her journey down the yellow brick road. Here, inside perhaps the most iconic theater in the world, the movies came to life and reminded guests of the joy that Hollywood has brought us.
In addition to the grandiose story of the Great Movie Ride, the attraction also served as the pinnacle of the Audio-Animatronic dark ride attraction. With its epic scope, substantial runtime, and unique ride system, the attraction took the basic structure of the original EPCOT Center pavilions (the ride system borrowed heavily from the Universe of Energy), to the next level. In this sense, the ride was a culmination of everything that had come before it, the final step in a journey that began in Disneyland in 1955.
By the time the attraction closed in 2017, the park that housed the Great Movie Ride had drastically changed. Now called Disney’s Hollywood Studios, the park had ceased to be a working studio, and had largely given up on showing guests the ins and outs of movie-making. By this point, it had more or less become a dumping ground for attractions that didn’t fit anywhere else, or attractions based on Disney’s acquired intellectual properties. Despite this thematic decay, however, the original intent of the park is still shown through. Walking down Hollywood Boulevard, with its art deco facades and early 20th century references still brought back an acute sense of nostalgia for Hollywood’s golden age. Nearby Sunset Boulevard, anchored by the extremely well-themed Tower of Terror, continued this cohesion, as did the park’s restaurants- the Brown Derby, Sci-Fi Dine-In, and 50s Prime Time Cafe, which still transported guests back to a bygone era. Even the sparsely populated Echo Lake retained its kitschy charm and references to Wally Berry and Marie Dressler.
At this point in the park’s history, it was the backside of Disney’s Hollywood Studios that was going through an identity crisis. Without the Studio Backlot Tour and Magic of Animation, the rest of the park became a hodgepodge of Hollywood adjacent attractions at best. Pixar Place, Frozen Singalongs, and the Star Wars Launch Bay now sat alongside attractions such as Star Tours, the Indiana Jones EPIC Stunt Spectacular, and Muppet Vision 3D that had only marginally fit the park’s theme, to begin with. Despite all of this, the Great Movie Ride managed to hold the park together. Inside that ornate theater, guests would not only see the great stars of Hollywood’s bygone era, but they would see references to Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and even Disney’s modern animated classics. Against all odds, the Great Movie Ride managed to incorporate the seemingly disparate parts of a park in the middle of an identity crisis and hold them together. Then, inexplicably, Disney made the decision to cut the park’s last remaining band of unity.
On July 15, 2017, Disney announced that the Great Movie Ride would be permanently closed to make way for a new attraction- Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway. The park’s original, and signature attraction, was then replaced by an homage to the 2010 Mickey Mouse cartoon series. The new attraction featured numerous new technologies, including a trackless ride system and a new 2 1/2D style of animation. Allowing guests to “enter a Mickey Mouse cartoon”, where they encountered zany situations and classic Disney characters, the new attraction finally gave Mickey Mouse an opportunity to star. As opposed to relying on Audio-Animatronics as its predecessor did, the new attraction surrounded guests with high-tech screens and utilized projection mapping to rapidly change the attraction’s scenes, creating a sense of pace and excitement that escapes the typical dark ride.
As a stand-alone attraction, Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway works. The ride’s designers perfectly recreated the aesthetics of the modern Mickey Mouse cartoon and used the new technology to take guests on a zany, breakneck, adventure. Giving guests the chance to take a (predictably troubled) train ride with Goofy, adventure with Mickey and Minnie, and even waltz with Daisy was an inspired idea and one that filled a niche that the parks of Walt Disney World had been missing. While some guests complain about the heavy use of screens, the lack of physical sets, or the “warehouse” feel of some of the scenes (in many of the scenes the projections only appear on the walls on the outside of the scenes), Disney managed to create a fresh take on the dark ride attraction and gave Disney’s Hollywood Studios a much need “D-Ticket” attraction.
The problem with replacing the Great Movie Ride with Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway however was bigger than the merit of the new attraction. On one hand, the value of Runaway Railway when compared to its predecessor is not the issue, the problem is that both attractions could, and should, have existed simultaneously. Disney’s Hollywood Studios desperately needs more C and D Ticket attractions. It needs more rides for families to go while waiting for their Tower of Terror, Rise of the Resistance, or Rock ’n’ Roller Coaster appointment. As the park is currently constructed, it is too top-heavy and is missing the kind of smaller, tamer rides that fill out the Magic Kingdom and Epcot. In a park that has all kinds of room, an abandoned Pixar Place, a Star Wars Launch Bay, and a lightly used Animation Courtyard, its unconscionable that Disney would choose to replace an existing, high-capacity attraction, as opposed to simply adding Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway to the park’s roster.
The second problem with destroying the great movie ride is that Disney finally destroyed any sense of cohesion that park had remaining. Although still called Disney’s Hollywood Studios, the removal of the Great Movie Ride essentially ensured that the Hollywood theme will be going away. While the company contemplates new names for the park, the original Disney-MGM icons still stand out as highlights of a park that they no longer fit in. Hollywood Boulevard is still awe-inspiring, the Brown Derby gorgeous, and experiences like the Sci-Fi Dine-In continue to amaze. The shame of it is, that these vestiges of the Disney MGM Studios now remain as relics of a bygone park as opposed to assets to a park with a cohesive future. This is what the removal of the Great Movie Ride begot, and it’s something that Disney’s Hollywood Studios cannot come back from. When Disney removed the Great Movie Ride, they destroyed Disney’s Hollywood Studio’s thesis. And the worst part of it all is, it didn’t have to be this way.
Disney could have had the best of both worlds. Today the park should house an updated Great Movie Ride, utilizing the advances in projection mapping, and Audio-Animatronics to tell guests the timeless stories of the cinema. With Disney’s acquisition of Fox, the opportunities to update and enhance the ride would have been endless. Nearby, in the Animation Courtyard (which has plenty of room for a show building), guests could experience the thrill of entering into a Mickey Mouse cartoon and seeing the classic characters come to life. The combination of the two attractions would have enhanced the theme of Disney’s Hollywood Studios while adding much need rides to the park. But alas….
The Mickey Wiki is a columnist for the Boardwalk Times
