3. Tangled (2010)
There should be a live-action stage show at Walt Disney World that is inspired by this Disney adaptation of the story of Rapunzel. But it wouldn’t be merely a re-enactment of the film. Rather, the stage show would be inspired by the scene with all the brutes in the Snuggly Duckling pub. It’s a funny scene in the movie and would be well-received by kids of all ages. I can see it now—big, burly dudes singing about their pirouettes, paintings and patchwork quilts. It doesn’t have to be clever, but it does need to be funny, and not too many things are as funny as watching this “I wish I were” scene and seeing the old man hovering about dressed as Cupid.
2. Wreck-It Ralph (2012)
Would you enjoy an attraction in which you could become a character in an arcade game? We’d have to get some help from the Imagineers on this one, but it would be fun to have a virtual type of attraction in which Guests assume the roles of the characters in the Fix-It Felix, Jr. arcade game. If that’s a bit far-fetched, maybe we re-create the massive race track in the Sugar Rush game from the film. It would be the pinkest part of the park—pink and candy everywhere you look! But we’ll want to keep this (race) ride very different from the aforementioned Cars-inspired attraction.
1. Inside Out (2015)
Inside Out is by far one of the smartest, most clever productions ever created by the minds at PIXAR. No one but the geniuses at PIXAR could take things like feelings, emotions, memories and dreams and create a movie aimed at explaining them all and how different things can affect emotions and our consciousness. It’s so clever that I’d like to show PIXAR my appreciation for this brilliant film by honoring the writers and animators with an Inside Out-inspired attraction. There are a few ways to go about this attraction. Perhaps this attraction is a really thrilling, super-fast coaster, and the ride vehicles are the glowing orbs used in the movie that symbolize Riley’s memories. (I wouldn’t want to get the red orb—I’m not a big fan of anger; it’s an emotion I don’t feel too often.) The track is just like the “track” depicted in the movie that carry memories into storage. A less thrilling but equally as exciting attraction could be one that makes use of a vehicle created in the film—the Train of Thought. In the film, the Train of Thought connects headquarters to other parts of Riley’s mind. A family train ride inspired by Inside Out could consist of wild wide turns, soft switchbacks and slight drops through Riley’s mind (hold the corkscrews please). Would you look forward to an experience like that? Again, we’ll have to get with Imagineering on this one.
Clearly these thoughts about attractions inspired by some of our favorite Disney films are loose-fitting ideas that aren’t encumbered by budgets, physics, gravity and the like. These rides and attractions were conjured up in the make-believe world of perfect scenarios in which there are no limits to creativity, no limits in realizing that creativity, no limits to the magic in everyday experiences and no limits in dreaming. Perhaps that world isn’t make-believe. Maybe it already exists—as the World of Walt Disney that was built in central Florida—the place where fantasy and imagination are commodities in unlimited supply, the place that just keeps getting better with age and the place where the passage of time only morphs the current into the classic.
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