MrPromey
Well-Known Member
The heck with your six year old wife, I thought the animatronic was awesome.
So did my then seven year old son.
Unfortunately, the animatronic itself was the only thing either of us liked.
After the initial "that thing is so cool" he just sat there entirely unenthused through the whole show.
My memory is a little fuzzy because it's been a while but it seems like he (the car) was facing away from the crowd to look at the screens for a big chunk, of it, too, which I remember being really puzzled about - why would they take the focus off the only thing good about this attraction?
The problems encountered due to the "hacked" system having no logical reason to be an actual problem, aside, it seems like the whole thing with the virtual racing system ran counter to the message from the third movie.
In that sense, it felt like they did the bare minimum of thought needed to put something around that animatronic to give it a reason to be there.
Its existence doesn't offend me or anything but it also isn't doing nearly as much as it could to help absorb crowds in the park when it comes to repeat visitors like me and what was my still in the sweet-zone target age son, IMHO.*
I think a live Lightning just up there talking to the crowd the way Crush or the the monsters in Laugh Floor do would have been way better and turned this into a must-do for a lot of families.
It could have been the coolest "living character" experience in the parks.
Just imagine the load your six year old wife would have dropped in her trousers if Lightning McQueen had actually spoken directly to her.
They'd have needed at least one of these guys:
I guess having to staff the voice actor and the extra cast with shovels would have made it too expensive to operate, though.
*not a problem with me at this point since we've been doing our part to reduce crowding since pre-pandemic times (save for an Epcot visit) with no immediate plans to return to the resort as a whole until/unless other things improve.
Last edited:
