Cars Land After a Decade: How Are We Feeling?

[DrAlice]

I love CarsLand! I'll echo what others have highlighted: the vista at the PP entrance, the joy of eating at Flo's on the patio while watching the race cars go by, the neon, the kinetic energy, etc. And the flat rides aren't ground-breaking, but they are themed well and good family fun. (The Rollickin' Roadsters make me a little nauseous, but still make me laugh. Every time.)

Someone above mentioned the drive-in restaurant that was announced with the original concept art and then got demoted to "Phase 2". Yes, I remember this vividly. It is why I have ZERO CONFIDENCE that the "Phase 2" Avengers ride y'all are so excited about is going to actually get built. I would love to be wrong about that, but fool me once..... :/

 

[lazyboy97o]

Someone above mentioned the drive-in restaurant that was announced with the original concept art and then got demoted to "Phase 2". Yes, I remember this vividly. It is why I have ZERO CONFIDENCE that the "Phase 2" Avengers ride y'all are so excited about is going to actually get built. I would love to be wrong about that, but fool me once..... :/

Any day now they’re going to kick off Walt Disney World Phase 2 and we’ll finally get Thunder Mesa!

 

[mickEblu]

In scope and scale or in personal preference? Rise of the Resistance and even Millennium Falcon I feel are better attractions in the scope and scale category. Both are far more ambitious than Racers. Personally my must-do list at DCA would include Soarin and even Mission Breakout before I considered waiting in line for Racers. It's not necessarily a bad ride, but I don't think it's worth the 100+ minute waits it usually has (or had). But again, I don't like the Cars movie so much.

I also think it's a little weird that you wait so long for the ride, to go inside and see a recreation of the town outside of the ride. Seems so strangely redundant.

Smugglers Run is greater in scope and scale than RSR?

 

[el_super]

Smugglers Run is greater in scope and scale than RSR?

Absolutely. I can't see Racers as anything other than a Test Track clone, and a rather uninspired one at that. Building Test Track and putting CARS characters into it, just doesn't seem all that imaginative and anyone who suffered through 10+ years of "Just build Test Track in the Timon Lot to FIX DCA" could have guessed the whole plot in Act 1.

Smugglers Run is an absolute marvel of engineering and I still can't get over how they figured out how to build a combination motion simulator and game rendering engine at that scale. Some of the world building is really new to me (I had no idea who Hondo was or what Coaxium was) so the overall experience felt new and weird and different while also feeling vaguely familiar. It's a decent ride.

What's really different about the two of them is their approaches to classic Imagineering. Smugglers Run was designed with the intent of bringing a specific experience (piloting the falcon) to an audience and then engineered to get to that point. Racers already had the Test Track tech and the CARs IP and it was just a matter of combing the two of them together.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I can't see Racers as anything other than a Test Track clone

That’s quite the stretch of the word clone.

 

[el_super]

That’s quite the stretch of the word clone.

Its the same basic ride technology. Filling the show building with AA characters isn't all that genius either. The biggest appeal of the ride is the thrill element. If they had picked a different ride system, it would have the acclaim of Frozen Ever After.

 

[Californian Elitist]

Rise is a Transformers clone.

 

[DanielBB8]

Mermaid is a Haunted Mansion clone.

 

[EPCOTCenterLover]

Guardians is a Tower clone.

 

[Sharon&Susan]

Doesn't MF:SR use a toned down version of Mission Space's ride system?

 

[DrAlice]

Main Street USA is a clone of Marceline, MO.

 

[DrAlice]

The biggest appeal of the ride is the thrill element.

Wow. Nope.

The biggest appeal of the ride is that it is FUN for everyone that rides it (except you, I guess). In the spirit of all things Disneyland, it is a true family-friendly experience. It has charming dark ride elements for the kiddos, and mild thrills for everyone else. It also beautifully interprets great moments in the film (like the waterfall reveal). It's a classic Disney creation. I don't care if it has similar moving parts to another ride, it is the full experience of this ride that makes it a winner.

I haven't been on Smuggler's Run, so I can't speak first hand about the experience, and I won't disagree that there are technological advancements on the ride. However, it has a fatal flaw that is repeated over and over again by people on and offline that have experienced the attraction: if you don't win the "pilot lottery", you have a diminished experience. That's counter to everything that makes RSR a great ride. It doesn't matter how flashy the new advancements are, if a significant amount of people leave your ride disappointed, you failed. Period.

 

[DavidDL]

I like the idea of "generic" lands that can house multiple attractions (IP included) and still make sense. I won't argue that IP-lands like Carsland/Hogsmede, etc. aren't works of art in their own right but they leave little room for expansion outside of those IPs in the future without demolishing the land entirely.

I would have kept things more "California-oriented" and themed a land, like @raven24 has mentioned, to the natural valleys/mountains of California and called it Route 66. With something like this, you have room for an IP like Cars, along with the ability to think up more original ideas and still have the land work within the "California Adventure" moniker. Move Autopia from Disneyland over to Route 66 (thus freeing up expansion space in DL), have it drive through caverns and cliffs and rename it "Autopia thru Nature's Wonderland". Re-imagine and re-work the old "Museum of the Weird" walk through attraction into one of those tacky/charming road side tourist traps that ends up being actually haunted, thus giving DCA back it's own haunted house. -and finally, yeah, build Radiator Springs Racers but keep the actual Radiator Springs inside the show building 'round back. Board a car to go visit Radiator Springs and prep for the big race on Route 66 instead of being in Radiator Springs the entire time.

-and it's as simple as that. If I remember correctly, where does Route 66 end in CA? Santa Monica pier, right? Route 66 right next to Paradise Pier? It was literally all laid out for Imagineers but they boxed themselves in with solely Cars. The land is a work of art and fun but I still feel like dedicating such a large chunk of land real-estate to a single IP may be a headache for them in the long term.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Its the same basic ride technology. Filling the show building with AA characters isn't all that genius either. The biggest appeal of the ride is the thrill element. If they had picked a different ride system, it would have the acclaim of Frozen Ever After.

Using the same ride system doesn’t make something a clone. By that criteria Pirates of the Caribbean is a clone of “it’s a small world” and The Haunted Mansion is a clone of Adventure Thru Inner Space. How the sets are composed and arranged very much makes for different experiences. Changing the ride system would be a knock against because the ride is based on a movie about a race car, so people rightly expect some element of speed.

Doesn't MF:SR use a toned down version of Mission Space's ride system?

It does not. Mission: SPACE uses centrifuges with each centrifuges containing eight (?) ride cabins that all spin at the same time with the ride experience being synchronized across the cabins. The spinning is also part of the physical experience, creating the different forces experienced during the Orange Team: More Intense Training ride. Smuggler’s Run is more like a Lazy Susan. The vehicles rotate into place for loading but that movement is not actually part of the ride experience, which is different for each cabin.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

Rise is a Transformers clone.

And arguably a poor one. Transformers is much more thrilling and immersive, although a bit too chaotic imho. The original Trowbridge masterpiece, Spider-Man, is by far my favorite. Easily one of the best attractions ever built (on my personal list of course).

I feel like smugglers run is just a low capacity, gimmicky version of star tours.

 

[el_super]

Doesn't MF:SR use a toned down version of Mission Space's ride system?

LOL No not really.

The biggest appeal of the ride is that it is FUN for everyone that rides it (except you, I guess). In the spirit of all things Disneyland, it is a true family-friendly experience. It has charming dark ride elements for the kiddos, and mild thrills for everyone else. It also beautifully interprets great moments in the film (like the waterfall reveal). It's a classic Disney creation.

I can see that, and I also don't want to give the impression that I think the ride is terrible. I know that my lack of enthusiasm is based mostly on my opinion of the Cars franchise, and fully recognize that other people find the ride to be great. I just find it so ... formulaic. Which makes it an odd contrast to the usual derision caused by slapping IP onto a known ride concept.

 

[Sharon&Susan]

Using the same ride system doesn’t make something a clone. By that criteria Pirates of the Caribbean is a clone of “it’s a small world” and The Haunted Mansion is a clone of Adventure Thru Inner Space. How the sets are composed and arranged very much makes for different experiences. Changing the ride system would be a knock against because the ride is based on a movie about a race car, so people rightly expect some element of speed.

It does not. Mission: SPACE uses centrifuges with each centrifuges containing eight (?) ride cabins that all spin at the same time with the ride experience being synchronized across the cabins. The spinning is also part of the physical experience, creating the different forces experienced during the Orange Team: More Intense Training ride. Smuggler’s Run is more like a Lazy Susan. The vehicles rotate into place for loading but that movement is not actually part of the ride experience, which is different for each cabin.

Thanks for the explanation, I remembered there being a ton of Mission Space comparisons when the ride was under construction so I just assumed the two were both the same ride system. Never been on Mission Space as I don't want to get sick.

 

[J4546]

i think smugglers run is pretty terrible lol. rsr is way better imo. smugglers run is just a motion simulator ride with a really terrible inerface (if your a gunner or engineer)

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

i think smugglers run is pretty terrible lol. rsr is way better imo. smugglers run is just a motion simulator ride with a really terrible inerface (if your a gunner or engineer)

Agreed. The best thing about smugglers run is being inside the chess room. That’s the highlight.

 

[el_super]

Using the same ride system doesn’t make something a clone. By that criteria Pirates of the Caribbean is a clone of “it’s a small world” and The Haunted Mansion is a clone of Adventure Thru Inner Space. How the sets are composed and arranged very much makes for different experiences. Changing the ride system would be a knock against because the ride is based on a movie about a race car, so people rightly expect some element of speed.

Yeah but in this case, I don't really care for the ride experience of either Racers or Test Track, so they are pretty similar to me. They both seem like a build up to rather underwhelming gimmick of the vehicles going fast. Sure it's fun that the vehicles can go fast at times, but it's such a small part of the overall experience. Could you imagine if the vehicles in Indy only started moving after the rat room?