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A Niche Post About A Star Wars Ride

I was going to write something political this week, but honestly, who the hell wants to read that?

So instead, I was like--

I'm going to write exactly what I want to write and to hell with all of you who aren't going to read it.

(The last time I posted something that wasn't about a theater sociopath who eats his actors at the cast party I think it logged exactly two views, but there's something freeing about irrelevance and I'm leaning in.  I. Am. Leaning. In.)

Buckle up, folks, because we are talking about amusement park rides.

Go grab some coffee or you're going to be asleep before I hit the next line break.

There are two really big rides in Disney World at the moment.

Avatar: Flight of Passage and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.

Let's get the conclusion out of the way first--

Rise of the Resistance is the better ride.

This is not up for debate.
Nobody is questioning this.
I don't care if you like Star Wars.
Go sit on a flying aqua-turkey or whatever they have in Avatar.

Rise of the Resistance is better.

But it's still worth comparing the two rides, and here's why--

The Avatar ride exists in its own land in Animal Kingdom, where it's paired with another ride, Na'vi River Journey--a dark ride where you float down a river and experience a calm journey complete with animatronics versus Flight of Passage where after what feels like twenty-seven pre-shows, you hop on what feels like one of those little rides outside of a supermarket that you used to ride as a kid, and (with the help of 3D glasses) you fly through the world of Avatar.

Except you don't.

You face a giant movie screen and the mechanical bull you're riding vibrates and throbs (in ways that sometimes feel...inappropriate) and then the ride is over and you're back in this little mechanical room and the woman next to you who hates rides that go too fast or turn upside down exclaims that "it's the best ride ever."

For this experience, people wait hours.

HOURS.

To...essentially watch a 3D film while humping a pulsating ottoman.

Don't get me wrong; it's not the worst time I've ever had, but it doesn't even crack my Top Ten of Best Rides Ever.

Then we get to Rise of the Resistance, which also exists in its own land and is also paired with another ride--Smuggler's Run--where you ride in a mini-version of the Millennium Falcon in front of a...movie screen (no glasses this time) and you pretty much play the most intense video game of all time with five other people, and if those people happen to be bad at video games, the ride might or might not be awesome.

Funnily enough, even though I would argue that Smuggler's Run has a LOT in common with Flight of Passage, it's much less popular, especially when compared to Rise of the Resistance, a ride where you experience nearly everything with only a handful of "you're really just watching a movie now" tricks.

Is this my way of saying that the Avatar river ride should be more popular than Flight of Passage?

No.

Na'vi River Journey isn't nearly as ambitious as Rise of the Resistance, and there's barely a story so I can see why Flight of Passage gets all the glory.

But on my last trip to Disney World, it occurred to me that the difference between the people who enjoy a ride like Flight of Passage and those who like Rise of the Resistance is a worthwhile thing to explore if you're me and you have a blog and you like to hear yourself talk.

(Yes, I read everything I write out loud to myself before I fall asleep at night whole holding my evening cheese plate.)

And yes, I know a lot of people enjoy both rides, but...

What about the people who don't?

For me, the "Let's just have them sit in a mechanical something that moves in front of a giant screen" approach to rides has always been disappointing.

I remember when they used to have those grey minivan shaped rides in shopping malls that would simulate you flying through the Grand Canyon or the Alps, and I'd think--

This isn't as good as actually doing it.

Which, like--Duh, right?

Nobody's disputing that, Baby Kevin, but can't you just enjoy the simulation?

Turns out I couldn't.

I just didn't have that good of an imagination as a kid and I probably also had a taste for the finer things, which is why karma swooped in and doomed me to run a small theater company where I often point to a folding chair and say to an audience "This is an elephant."

Nevertheless, it was hard for me to truly enjoy anything that wasn't trying its hardest to be as real as possible.

That was why my first trip to Disney World was so eye-opening, because finally, here was a company that understood what kids want--hardcore family-friendly animated reality.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I knew that the bear wearing overalls on Splash Mountain wasn't a real bear, but I appreciated the lengths Disney went to in order to avoid me having to pretend.

I feel like most of my childhood involved a purple dinosaur trying to convince me that make believe was fun while I secretly wished that PBS would just get a bigger budget.

Finally, a place where I didn't have to fill in any of the gaps with my non-existence imagination.  Disney was going to do it all for me.

Then came...Back to the Future, which, I know, was not a Disney ride.  It was at Universal Studios.  But it introduced the gyrating minivan approach to theme park entertainment into my sacred sphere.

Oh no, I thought, as the second most-famous theme park in Orlando asked me to BELIEVE I was flying through Hill Valley in a Delorean instead of just building a miniature Hill Valley and a roller coaster Delorean that could coast along while--

Never mind.  I'll get too depressed if I think about what could have been.

That wasn't the only ride at the park that made me feel gypped.  There was also a Hannah Barbera ride that, in the brochure (THE BROCHURE!) featured two kids stepping INTO THE WORLD of Scooby-Doo and Fred Flintstone, and when I finally got on the ride, all we did was sit in these little rocket cars and go side-to-side in front of, you guessed it, a movie screen.

I wanted blood.

Now, folks, I'm not stupid.

I know that the movie screen approach is cheaper and ultimately more efficient than the dark ride approach, but look at the difference in enthusiasm as well.

Flight of Passage may have had a moment, but Rise of the Resistance, a ride that celebrates the "You are there" experience, is so popular you can't even ride it unless you line up outside the park two hours before it opens.

Now, you can attribute that to the popularity of the franchise, but again, Smuggler's Run, where, according to the marketing, you actually get to ride in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon, has a meager ninety minute queue on some days, because people are savvier than ever, and we, the people, want reality.

If we're paying hard-earned money and giving up hours of our life to stand in the Floridian heat, you damn well better give me real ewoks and not just shove a pair of 3D glasses on my face and tell me it's raining on Endor.

That might have flown back when there were three channels on tv and Sega was as complex as a video game got, but those days are long gone, and I'm beseeching the theme park overlords to retire the movie screen rides to the ash heap with them.

I'm sure some people prefer to have their rides be a little more on the docile side, but that's why we have merry-go-rounds and It's a Small World.

Give me nothing but Rise of the Resistance style rides from here on out, or just let me sit at home staring at a screen reserved only for me, where I can bounce up and down on my couch if and when I feel like it.

There's actually a video on YouTube of two guys who recreate the Avatar ride using a television, a portable fan, and some spray bottles, and hahahaha but, like, no you really could do that if you wanted to, and you truly wouldn't be missing that much--plus you wouldn't wait SIX HOURS IN LINE to do it.

So to summarize--

I have no imagination and theater is my passion and if you tell me I'm going to drive alongside Deputy Dog on a madcap adventure, dammit, you better figure out a way stick my very-real self into an animated film like I'm Bob Hoskins at the end of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Will it bankrupt the entire industry if that's the new standard?

Probably.

But hey--

What a ride it'll be.

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