And now for what I think are the five weakest attractions at Walt Disney World. Though Imagination, Nemo, and Spaceship Earth are all pretty poor, none match up to these attractions. Surpisingly, none come from Epcot or Animal Kingdom.
5. Disney's Hollywood Studios Backlot Tour
The parking lot trams are more exciting. They go faster, there's anticipation for the destination, and the spieling isn't so cheesy (At least not most of the time). A long time ago the backlot tour made sense and was almost like the Safari of the Studios. Time passed by, and the Studios stopped producing things. This ruined the credibility of the park and thus the tour. We pass a bunch of props from movies, but most of them are rusted and from movies that are either box office failures or completely old. Catastrophe Canyon is fine, but since movies don't rely on physical effects much anymore, the whole point seems obsolete. It's time to finally end the tour.
4. Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor
This is the epitome of what's wrong with today's imagineers. The attraction is thematically out of place. The story behind the show is used not to complement the experience, but rather to explain why such a ridiculous concept is in existence to begin with. Remember the ending of Monsters Inc. where Mike discovered that laughter was more powerful than screams? Well now guests from Tomorrowland are being sent into Monstropolis so they can harvest our laughter at a comedy club. That's not a story. That's not even theming. That's just coming up with a reason to have the attraction make a little sense. Toy Story Mania has the same problem.
The show relies on technology, but that technology is less impressive than the AAs at Carousel of Progress since we can obviously see it's a screen. Immersion is completely non existent.
The show insults the audience, particularly one man who is deemed "That guy." Where is the fun in humiliating someone? Also, only those people who participate in the show, mainly little kids, will get anything out of it while everyone else just sits back and watches. At least with attractions like Millionaire Play It! the audience could play along. I fear the new American Idol show will be a failure like this is. For an example of how the character interaction can be used well, there's Turtle Talk with Crush. There is no ridiculous back story or explanation. We are just having a personal conversation with one of Pixar's beloved characters. Disney, there is a time and a place for your "technology." A nook of the Living Seas is a good place, not an entire building in Tomorrowland. A kiosk would be a perfect place to install an elf yourself activity, not an omnimover.
3. Sounds Dangerous
I only did this once and I honestly can't remember much other than it smelled bad and almost the entire attraction took place in darkness. The only reason we went in to begin with was because it was New Year's Eve and everything else had a line. You know something is wrong with an attraction when it takes me six plus years to visit. Others apparently share the same thoughts. Again, another attraction that thinks it's advanced (binaural sound), but falls flat in every category. The next attraction shares many similarities.
2. Stitch's Great Escape
Alien Encounter was never one of my favorites. It wasn't really scary to me, though some will think otherwise. I will admit in retrospect that the storyline of the attraction was ingenious and the use of the old Mission to Mars building for something completely different was creative. Today, Stitch makes his escape here. Like Laugh Floor, this attraction's "storyline" is used more to explain how the hell the attraction makes any sense in comparison to the movie it's based off of. A pet peeve of mine is how Disney portrays Stitch at their parks. Stitch in the film Lilo and Stitch was actually a lovable character after he became good. Disney decides to portray Stitch in his naughty mode, particularly here. This, along with the "Welcome to Stitch Kingdom" on the monorail actually made me start hating the blue alien unfairly.
Back to the attraction, we are apparently prison guards, a far cry from a convention center demonstration as in Alien Encounter. The Stitch AA is impressive, but we only see it for a minute before the lights go out. Except the lights don't go out because kids would get scared. Stitch burps in our face, bounces on our head, and spits on us. How this is supposed to be entertaining is beyond me. Even worse, Disney tried to "fix" the attraction since it was still too scary for kids by adding in fake audience members saying great lines like, "Look Mom. It's Stitch!" to "This is fun!" While the original ending had Stitch stealing an Astro Orbiter rocket, which tied it into Tomorrowland, Stitch now climbs Cinderella Castle and harasses Cinderella, thus destroying all illusion that the lands of the Magic Kingdom are self contained worlds. I believe this attraction was the beginning of the current cartoonization/ decline of the parks currently going on. All the problems that exist now can be traced back to this, or maybe even further......
1. The Enchanted Tiki Room Under New Management
Some believe that this attraction is a perfect metaphor for Michael Eisner and Paul Pressler's takeover of Disney. The tiki birds are supposed to be vintage Disney and Iago and Zazu are the new owners that see the birds as lame and pathetic. Their goal is to make money, and introduce such atrocities as hip hop into the show. Personally, I kind of disagree with this. While Eisner cared about money, he also saw potential in Disney. It's the current Disney regime that sees Disney as lame and adds characters to everything to maximize profits. They are the ones that use the Disney brand name as a means to make money while bastardizing the attractions in the meantime.
Only Disney fans who already knew what the Tiki Room was will get the point of the show, but they'll be offended. Everyone else won't even know what the hell is going on. The AAs of Iago, Zazu, and the Tiki Goddess are cartoonish and on a different scale than the tiki birds. The show is ridiculously short, which leaves the audience thinking "is that it?", even if the show is pathetic. This attraction has no entertainment value whatsoever. It isn't funny, it isn't relaxing, it isn't fun. It is the worst attraction in the resort, and the root of the Magic Kingdom's mediocrity.
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