-
Welcome to the WDWMAGIC.COM Forums!
Please take a look around, and feel free to sign up and join the community.
EPCOT Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind attraction confirmed for Epcot
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
No Name
Well-Known Member
The original Test Track pre-show is a good example of one that sets up the ride well. You see them pick the 6th test, the crash test, and then you pull up to it during the actual ride, which amplifies that part of the attraction really effectively.
The Cosmic Rewind pre-shows set up a whole laborious plot that largely gets resolved off-screen and miles away in the first few seconds after the launch. It’s arguably a confusion and a disservice to guests, but it’s a huge missed opportunity at the very least.
Casper Gutman
Well-Known Member
It cannot be overemphasized how remarkable it is that the time travel story element doesn’t effect the ride in any meaningful way. It’s set up with laborious exposition in the pre-show. It’s highlighted by THE NAME OF THE ATTRACTION. And it could all be removed without effecting the ride at all. The pre-show might as well be Glen Close announcing, “The time-travel stuff was cut for budget reasons” - that’s largely the current subtext.
There are tons of ways to improve the pre-show. The most obvious is much better, tighter writing. Get an actor more adept at verbal buffoonery, like, oh, John C Reilly. I like Crews, but the part doesn’t fit him. Include something of strong visual interest rather then a series of TV screens - a giant, 3 dimensional Milano with AA Groot and Rocket, for instance.
On the most basic level, cut all the Xandar nonsense. EPCOT has a new Big Bang pavilion. As you walk through, you find it has been amusingly defaced by the Guardians. Now the queue serves a clearer story purpose - the mischievous Guardians are here and are dissatisfied with the new ride. In the one pre-show theater, the Milano has crashed into the room. Star Lord explains he loves EPCOT, but he can do it better - Rocket has rigged up a way to take guests back to the real Big Bang, although he hasn’t worked out all the bugs. Then make sure the ride has some cool sfx invoking the Bang, which are lacking now. Shorter, clearer, and the Guardians are both more central and more like thier film versions.
There are tons of ways to improve the pre-show. The most obvious is much better, tighter writing. Get an actor more adept at verbal buffoonery, like, oh, John C Reilly. I like Crews, but the part doesn’t fit him. Include something of strong visual interest rather then a series of TV screens - a giant, 3 dimensional Milano with AA Groot and Rocket, for instance.
On the most basic level, cut all the Xandar nonsense. EPCOT has a new Big Bang pavilion. As you walk through, you find it has been amusingly defaced by the Guardians. Now the queue serves a clearer story purpose - the mischievous Guardians are here and are dissatisfied with the new ride. In the one pre-show theater, the Milano has crashed into the room. Star Lord explains he loves EPCOT, but he can do it better - Rocket has rigged up a way to take guests back to the real Big Bang, although he hasn’t worked out all the bugs. Then make sure the ride has some cool sfx invoking the Bang, which are lacking now. Shorter, clearer, and the Guardians are both more central and more like thier film versions.
Huh? ROTR is not just a roller coaster, so the pre-shows lend itself better as its more of an experience. That's my point. It works better. Guardians is just a roller coaster.
My opinion is that the pre-shows are just fine. Things keep happening in story beats, nothing's belabored. I like all the performances.
More entertaining than spending that time in a queue. Seems to explain what's happening just fine.
Anyhoo... rode it 5 times this trip. Lots of fun. Great 'family coaster.'
Everyone Wants to Rule the World is a lot of fun to ride to. Also got One Way or Another, Conga x2, and I Ran.
More entertaining than spending that time in a queue. Seems to explain what's happening just fine.
Anyhoo... rode it 5 times this trip. Lots of fun. Great 'family coaster.'
Everyone Wants to Rule the World is a lot of fun to ride to. Also got One Way or Another, Conga x2, and I Ran.
retr0gate
Well-Known Member
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.
retr0gate
Well-Known Member
This is what bugs me so much. So much of what we knew leading up to the opening of this attraction was spent hyping up this idea of time travel and the formation of the galaxy only for them to just.. not use it. If we were to immerse ourselves into this story, we're visiting this fictional pavilion with all this advanced alien technology, but the main attraction that we're lined up to see (pre-Eson) is a generator? If we're learning about Xandarian culture, why is this technology not being used to teleport us to Xandar? If we're learning about space, why are we just staring at it from a window instead of being shuffled onto starjumpers to explore the galaxy? It feels very anti-climactic up until the point Eson shows up and then the story just derails. Ok so we're boarding an omnimover and going back to the big bang... but we weren't originally supposed to. That's where things get confusing. The pieces are all there, but the way they're laid out feels wrong.
Casper Gutman
Well-Known Member
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!
Casper Gutman
Well-Known Member
And that generator makes no sense. It’s the key to creating jump points (to the point that a nigh-omnipotent space deity needs to steal one) and it’s rare enough Rocket wishes he had stolen one… but every ship in the swarm-like Xandarian fleet seems to have one, based on their arrival through jump points. And the Guardians have one too, because they jump in from somewhere else! So why did Rocket want to steal it????
doctornick
Well-Known Member
Huh? You mean you expected it to be dropped or you’ve heard something?
I won't speak for him, but I think he meant that the VQ for this has been around longer than Rat and possibly even Rise, and many have been expecting it to be dropped soon. Gotta get that sweet, sweet ILL money.
Rise's virtual queue lasted from when it opened in December 2019 thru the Covid closure (March 2020), and then lasted from the reopening (July 2020) to September 2021.
I did forget it was still around after the reopening, thanks for the reminder.
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
Rise was also still running out of VQ spots within a few seconds seemingly every single day, which is not the case for Guardians.
Plus they didn't have ILL spots to sell.
Yeah, we won the lottery twice in March 2021. Even got lower-numbered groups, which annoyed several of the kids.
Disstevefan1
Well-Known Member
I am wondering if this has to do with the fact EVERYONE is willing to ride Rise, where we have many folks unwilling to even try Guardians.
The ride capacity of each is a factor also
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
I think that's a big part of it. Disney has a significant customer base that either can't ride intense coasters or just aren't interested in them. The height requirement on GotG is only 2" more than Rise, so I don't think the small kids factor is a major one in this particular comparison, though.
Guardians does have higher capacity than Rise too, although the difference in availability has been so huge (at least on some days) that I don't think that's nearly enough to explain it.
SplashJacket
Well-Known Member
Factors that can explain better availability for Guardians than Rise
- More supply
- Higher overall capacity
- Higher reliability
- More demand for Rise
- Rise opened in December 2019, a peak travel time before the reservation system, so people saw the craziness and felt compelled to see what it was about
- Rise opened months after Galaxy's Edge, effectively acting as a hype train
- Rise has more "Instagramable moments" whereas Guardians lacks the "Wow" moments that draws attention to Rise. I've heard many reviews saying the best part is the feeling of the ride. That doesn't translate to a social media world.
- Starcruiser guests needing to ride
- Less supply for Rise
- Low capacity, reliability issues,
- Covid restrictions limiting capacity
- Greater barriers to riding
- Warnings of motion sickness. On my trip in a couple of weeks, my dad opted out of riding due to motion-sickness fears.
- Rollercoaster (HUGE) in January 2020, I got my 78 year-old-grandma to wake up at the crack of dawn to ride rise. She loved it so much that she did it on a subsequent day. In my current party, only two of us will ride Guardians. For Rise, our whole party of 9 rode it, even though half of it consisted of people who would never ride a rollercoaster
- Higher height requirement
- Lower total number of Annual Passholders (greatly affects Epcot). Passholders master the system and ride dozens of times in a short period
- In the age of Park Pass Reservations, it's harder to book a trip as soon as you want. With the current demand for the parks, getting a reservation isn't as simple as seeing a cool ride, booking tickets, and enjoying. You have to book farther in advance.