I personally enjoy the preshows in their current form, but I was a little disappointed my first time going through them. It almost feels like there's missing elements. I think what really kills the immersion for me is the whole Eson story element because the way it's set up makes it feel completely detached from the rest of the experience. Almost like the ride and the queue were designed separately from eachother and they needed to come up with something last minute to tie it altogether. It leaves me wondering what this experience was supposed to be if we really were visiting a Xandarian pavilion in EPCOT and Eson never showed up. Were we supposed to just be teleported to this ship, told to stare at a generator and then get teleported back? I mean the ride vehicles themselves feel extremely reminiscent of the parks original omnimovers so I was surprised to learn that they were merely "escape pods" and not intended to be part of the tour. In retrospect, a classic omnimover ride gone wrong parody would have been a huge cliche but it's still odd to me that being able to go back to witness the Big Bang in person wouldn't be a major selling point of a pavilion advertising alien technology. It's like the only reason we're boarding a starjumper is because of a last minute change of plans and not because we're visiting a pavilion (inspired by original EPCOT Center pavilions) where it's strongly implied we'd be boarding some kind of attraction. I think it would've made more sense to introduce Eson once you were on the actual ride but I can understand why they didn't do that.
I love the idea of the Guardians highjacking a classic Omnimover ride. The first ride scene is a homage/ gentle parody of classic EPCOT attractions, and then Rocket takes control and launches you through a portal to the REAL Big Bang. The spinning gets a witty narrative purpose!
Basically, whenever possible this attraction makes the more boring choice. Focus on the Guardians? Nah, they show up really late. Instead, focus on the culture the film intentionally made boring, uptight, and bland to contrast with the fun, freewheeling Guardians. Use beloved comedy star John C Reilly? Nah, let’s go with Glenn Close. Introduce the Guardians in person? Nah, put them on TV screens.
I love the MCU. I love it so much I will overlook a lot of faults. But this is a bad representation of the MCU. One thing the MCU does is almost always payoff the plots it sets up, even if the set up is just an unmentioned character in the background of a shot. Viewers know that plot will be picked up sometime, somewhere. This ride doesn’t payoff ANY of the plot threads it sets up.
And the rides conclusion - we’re all Guardians now - is that good? In the overlong pre-show, the Guardians are introduced, with no fanfare or explanation, about 2/3 of the way through. They seem to be some part of the official Xandar defense force? It makes even less sense if you’ve seen the films!
