Longtime lurker here! I just came across a clip that is kind of blowing my mind, and I need to know if it's really what I think it is!
I am absolutely fascinated with lost and long-forgotten attraction effects. My personal holy grail has been images of the original, short-lived Countdown to Extinction finale. As I'm sure many of you know, the Carnotaurus head that the time rover dips under before returning to the Institute was the second version of the finale. Numerous sources have reported that, during attraction previews, there was some kind of meteor effect instead of the head. Few seem to agree on what exactly the meteor effect was, however. I have seen people refer to it as a physical prop, fiber optics, a white flash at the end of the orange trail of light in the trees, etc. Whatever it was, it did not perform to satisfaction and the oversized Carnotaurus head was commissioned and slapped together in a couple of weeks.
I was combing through ancient posts on this forum today for leads on the lost finale, and I came across references to an old Good Morning America special. According to these posters, the WDW 25th Anniversary special shows test footage of the original meteor finale. A quick google later, and... there it is!!! Go to 8:55 in the video:
Remember the smoke ring effect from the Heffalumps and Woozles scene in Pooh? Apparently they had MUCH bigger plans for it!
Could this really be test footage of the lost CTX finale? I am aware that there was another lost meteor effect in the ride: one of the test audio tracks for CTX references a small meteor striking the rover and knocking it off course. This scene, which occurred between the raptor and Carnotaurus #1, also apparently used the vortex generator to simulate a meteor. Reports have led me to believe that this smoke puff was smaller than the one shown in the video, though.
I am absolutely fascinated with lost and long-forgotten attraction effects. My personal holy grail has been images of the original, short-lived Countdown to Extinction finale. As I'm sure many of you know, the Carnotaurus head that the time rover dips under before returning to the Institute was the second version of the finale. Numerous sources have reported that, during attraction previews, there was some kind of meteor effect instead of the head. Few seem to agree on what exactly the meteor effect was, however. I have seen people refer to it as a physical prop, fiber optics, a white flash at the end of the orange trail of light in the trees, etc. Whatever it was, it did not perform to satisfaction and the oversized Carnotaurus head was commissioned and slapped together in a couple of weeks.
I was combing through ancient posts on this forum today for leads on the lost finale, and I came across references to an old Good Morning America special. According to these posters, the WDW 25th Anniversary special shows test footage of the original meteor finale. A quick google later, and... there it is!!! Go to 8:55 in the video:
Remember the smoke ring effect from the Heffalumps and Woozles scene in Pooh? Apparently they had MUCH bigger plans for it!
Could this really be test footage of the lost CTX finale? I am aware that there was another lost meteor effect in the ride: one of the test audio tracks for CTX references a small meteor striking the rover and knocking it off course. This scene, which occurred between the raptor and Carnotaurus #1, also apparently used the vortex generator to simulate a meteor. Reports have led me to believe that this smoke puff was smaller than the one shown in the video, though.
