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The Worst Rides Based on Movies
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For28 years, the signature attraction at Disney-MGM Studios (and later Disneys Hollywood Studios) was The Great Movie Ride, which took guests on a tour through Hollywood history. Animatronics and human actors brought riders inside the scenes from classic films likeCasablanca,The Wizard of Oz,Singin in the Rain, and many more.While crude by modern standards, The Great Movie Ride had a folksy charm all its own. It was agreat movie ride.You might call the ten attractions belowthe Not-Great Movie Rides.They are all inspired by motion pictures, but they took entertaining source material and turned them into underwhelming or downright boring theme park attractions at Disneyland, Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, and more. Most have long since closed to make way for better and more thrilling experiences, but a few of them are still in operation, disappointing tourists day after day after day.Buzz LightyearsSpace Ranger SpinAlmost every Disneyland around the globe has a version of this ride, a moving shooting gallery where guests try to rack up points by zapping targets inside a blacklight-heavy environment. Most of the variations of the ride are okay, but the original one at Walt Disney Worlds Magic Kingdom, which is nowover a quarter centuryold, has some issues. Most centrally: The blasters are bolted to the cars and cant be picked up or moved around. (Youre supposed to instead spin your ride vehicle left and right to assist in the aiming.)Add in some 25 years of wear and tear, and you have a frustrating experience moreToy Story 4thanToy Story 2.READ MORE: 10 Fictional Amusement Parks We Wish We Could VisitDragon ChallengeWhen Universal first added a Harry Potter area to its Islands of Adventure theme park, they saved money by re-theming a roller coaster that already existed in the park to the Wizarding World. What was previously known as the Dueling Dragons coasters became Dragon Challenge within the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. The two coasters were fine, if unexceptional but apart from the rethemed queue,the attraction had nothing to do with Harry Potter. (The idea of dueling coasters, with the rides launching simultaneously and passing near each other on their respective tracks, wasalso abandoned within a few years, reportedly after two guest injuries.) Universalapparently recognizedthe ride wasnt on par with the rest of the impressively themed land, and by 2017 they closed Dragon Challenge and replaced it with theexplicitlyHarry Potter-inspired Hagrids Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure.E.T. AdventureAlargely debunkedInternet legend had it that Steven Spielberg, who is a paid consultant to the Universal Studios parks, has exercised some sort of contractual control that keeps the last remaining E.T. Adventure ride open in Orlando, purportedly because he was so upset about the closure ofUniversalsJaws rides a few years ago. Again,while this rumor doesnotseem to be accurate, the fact that people perpetuate it speaks to the fact that guestswant to knowwhy this opening day attraction from Universal Studios Florida remains open even though it looks very dated and was never allthat great to begin with.The ride itself is something of a knockoff of Disneys superior Peter Pan attraction, with guests mounting flying bicycles to aid E.T.s return to his home planet. Then an animatronic E.T. awkwardlypronounceseveryones namesbefore sending them on their way.Given that E.T. Adventure is based on a propertythathasnt gotten a new installment in 40 years, itisfair to wonder just what is keeping this adventure going.Fast & Furious: SuperchargedWith its outlandish, high-speed action,Fast & Furiousseems tailor-madefor a thrilling theme-park attraction. Instead its the subject of the abysmalFast & Furious: Supercharged, which is both a standalone ride at Universal Studios Florida (using a lot of the existing infrastructure from Universals old Earthquake ride), and an element in the long-running Studio Tour ride at Universal Studios Hollywood. In both versions guests enter a long screened tunnel, whichis then filled with extremely unrealistic images of various cars, trucks, bikes, helicopters, and tanks engaging in a cartoonish chase. None of it looks convincing, and never for one second do you believe your are in the middle of an actual battle. How bad is this thing? One longtime Universal theme park designer said publicly that not stopping the company from bringing Supercharged from Hollywood to Florida was the biggest mistake in his career.Haunted Mansion HolidayThe Haunted Mansion is among Disneys best attractions. After decades of service, its still terrific; spooky, funny, atmospheric, and filled with terrific special effects. But every fall, the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland is given an overhaul to turn it into Haunted Mansion Holiday, inspired by TheNightmare Before Christmas, which isnt as spooky or funny or atmospheric. Even worse, DIsney seems to keep Haunted Mansion Holiday up longer and and longer every single year, meaning the O.G. Mansion is openless and less often. Its an update but not an upgrade.Luigis Flying TiresDisney California AdventuresRadiator Springs Racers, combining impressive animatronics and an exciting high-speed race, is one of the very best theme park attractions based on a movie. At the opposite end of the spectrum, but just a few feet down the road, once stood something called Luigis Flying Tires, a twist on bumpercarsthat combinedtheFlying Saucer technology from a Disneyland ride that had been closed for more than 30 years with ... beach balls for some reason? Good or bad, Disneys attractions almost never look this cheap. Disney closed the ride after just three years, and replaced it with a more sophisticated trackless spinning ride, Luigis Rollicking Roadsters.Navi River JourneySimilarly, theAvatar-themed area at Disneys Animal Kingdom park features one truly impressive attraction,AvatarFlight of Passage, andan underwhelming one, Navi River Journey, a placid and uneventful dark ride through a neon-lit Pandora. After a couple minutes floating downa lazy river, you encounter an impressive NaviShaman animatronic figure, and then the experience is over.It feels like the sleepy prelude to an exciting ride you never actually get to experience.Stitchs Great Escape!Like Dragon Challenge, like Fast & Furious: Supercharged, like Haunted Mansion Holiday, Stitchs Great Escape! was an attempt to update an old ride with characters from a popular new property. (Sensing a pattern?) In this case, Disney replaced Tomorrowlands Extraterrorestrial Alien Encounter, which was deemed too scary for the family-friendly confines of the Magic Kingdom, with a similar experience where instead of a slobbering alien like the xenomorph from theAlien series they encountered the adorably chaotic alien from theLilo & Stitchfranchise. On the plus side, the Stitch version inspired fewerhorrific nightmares in children. On the downside, it wasboring and gross. (Stitch belchedin guests faces, with the attraction piping in a chili dog aroma to sell the effect.) While Stitchs Great Escape lasted inits Tomorrowland building almost twice as long as Extraterrorestrial Alien Encounter did, it closed for good in 2018.The Right Stuff: Mach 1 AdventureWith simulator rides all the rage at Disney theme parks in the late 1980s, Six Flags made oneof their own.The Right Stuff: Mach 1 Adventure at Six Flags Great Adventurewasloosely (and I meanveryloosely) based on the famous biopic about pioneering American aviators and astronauts. But instead of enteringyourown space ship (like in Disneys Star Tours) or a DeLorean car (as in Back to the Future: The Ride), The Right Stuff was projected in a movie theater, with guests seated in rows of moving two-seaters themed to look like they sort of belonged in a jet fighter cockpit. The illusion was not nearly as convincing as in other simulator rides, and within a few years Six Flags had begun playing other ride films in The Right Stuff theater, including one starring Elvira and another featuring SpongeBob SquarePants. These films did not have the right stuff either; and the attraction closed for good in 2010.Twister ... Ride It OutAfter the originalTwisterbecame one of Universals biggest blockbusters of the 1990s, the company was understandably eager to create aTwister attraction in their theme parks. Using a space previously occupied by a Ghostbusters stage show, they created a special effects showcase that simulated one of the films natural disaster set pieces in a confined space. The problem? Most ofTwisters twisters were made with computers, meaning the practical version would inevitable pale in comparison with the film. The disappointing nature of the ride was written all over the late, great Bill Paxtons face in the introduction he filmed forTwister ... Ride It Out. An analog dinosaur in an increasingly digital world, the attraction closed in 2015 and was replaced by a motion simulator starring Jimmy Fallon.Get our free mobile appAmazing Theme Park Rides Based on Movies That Were Never Built
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