@marni1971 @Castastone and others...
(Long read, but please finish it, and ponder how we can understand more around us)
Personal opinions/enjoyment are NOT equal to objective quality. Toy Story Mania! is one of my favorite rides in the world and I recommend it to everyone as a 'must-do,' but it is not on the same scale as rides like Everest, FoP, Tot, Rise, JttCotE, RSR, Indy, KS, TRON, etc. When people talk about the 'best' rides, they don't say 'personal favorite'. Those are two entirely unrelated topics, and it depends on the context. Best rides to not miss? Best rides that you like? Best rides in general usually mean the most impressive scale and well-execution. As humans, we use universal shortcuts for simpler communication because that's simply how our brains are made. In the same vein, we use WDI's ticket rating to discuss scale and not demand any longer.
@Castastone How can you seriously equate enjoyment with quality? There is typically a crossover, and enjoyment is primarily the aim, but it is usually derived from quality.
Most impressive usually means objectively (what people are usually talking about when they say 'best'), while when you personally enjoy something,
it cannot be assumed that the person will find similar enjoyment due to a host of factors. They may not like heights, thrill rides, water rides, the story, slow rides, artsy rides, simulators, etc. There are too many variables to assume people will consider a ride to say
opinions are the best measure.
Rides should be compared to rides in their scale, and then judged by how well they achieve it. The Ariel ride has a solid ride length and has much better sets, but it is Mr. Toad's Wild Ride that is superior due to its execution, yet they both share the same scale. You can't say Mr. Toad's is the best ride ever made, but you can say that it is one of the best C-tickets ever made and that it is one of your favorites. Alice is obviously superior to Toad, but I like Toad better, but it doesn't matter because they are both so well executed, but I'd have a hard time comparing them to
Some of my underappreciated (critically) personal favorites
- Country Bear Jamboree
- Mission: Breakout
- PeopleMover
- Toy Story Mania!
- Impressions de France
- Mission: Space
- Living with the Land
- The Great Movie Ride (RIP)
- Mr. Toad's Wild Ride
- Alice in Wonderland
- Roger Rabbit's Cartoon Spin
- Snow White's Scary Adventures
- The Nemo Subs
- Walt Disney World Railroad
What I consider overrated favorites of others (I still like some of them a lot)
- Rock n' Rollercoaster
- Test Track
- Soarin'
- Horizons
- World of Motion
- Body Wars
- Space Mountain
- Ratatouille
- 20K Leagues Under the Sea (TDS)
- Peter Pan's Flight
- The Enchanted Tiki Room
- The Iron Man Experience
Yet, who am I to say that you can't enjoy these more? YOU CAN! But I'd hesitate to rely on varying opinions for this reason. If you want a fun ride? TSM and M:B. If you want a suspenseful ride? HM, and Tot. If you want the best rides? Rise and Shanghai's Pirates. Ride placement is a different can of worms into overall themed design, but it can extend its effectiveness.
It's very hard to say a specific 'best,' but you can put them in tiers rather easily based on scale and execution in today's world: mind-blowing.
- Rise of the Resistance
- Shanghai's Pirates
Then (pardon if I forget something or if something is on the fence)... These are a mix of large scale, and well-executed E-tickets.
- Flight of Passage
- Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure
- Mystic Manor
- Radiator Springs Racers
- Journey to the Center of the Earth
- The Tower of Terror
- Indiana Jones Adventure
- Kilimanjaro Safaris
- Forbidden Journey
- Splash Mountain (MK/TDL)
- Pirates of the Caribbean (DL/DLP)
- The Haunted Mansion(s)
- Spiderman (IOA)
- TRON
- Pooh's Hunny Hunt
- Expedition Everest
Most E-tickets don't make the list, simply because they aren't as perfectly executed when we're talking this scale of attraction. There is still quite a lot of variation between them, and their scale can wildly very.
The best (meaning most ambitious and well-executed), is Shanghai's POTC and Rise. That's not up for debate because we've already been able to analyze them both, and no other rides are as mind-blowing and graceful as those. One or the other may be better and you may like others more (I'm partial to Mystic Manor), but on a scale and execution level, they are categorically in their own league. Journey to the Center of the Earth is awesome, and I've had the chance to ride it and let me tell you it lives up to the hype and definitely one of the best rides on Earth. However, while Rise and Shanghai's POTC don't detract from it, you can safely say that Journey is not as impressive as its execution reaches the others but not its scale. They are going for different things entirely, and they all achieve them very well, but to tell someone an opinion of what people consider 'best' when they ask it, would be very misleading.
Pirates in Disneyland is passive, and effectively does the best of all similarly executed, slow-moving rides (it even manages great pacing!). In contrast, Shanghai's combines controlled movement in the action for an even tighter grip on pacing, lighting, and the music as well, with doing things you could not do in real life, and Rise blurs realism even further. Shanghai's Pirates and Disneyland's are so unrelated, they need to stop being compared so similarly. There are more effective comparisons in the same way that Rise compares more with Shanghai's Pirates and Indy than other trackless rides unless we are comparing the ride system specifically.
I'd consider Rise to be the best ride because it transcends realism in a way that is unbelievable, but Shanghai Pirates is on that playing field in ambition/scale/execution plane, so it's highly difficult to truly judge them in a first and second kind of way. Other rides frankly just cannot through no fault of their own compete in this metric.
While a masterpiece, it's like saying Citizen Kane is the best film today when many of the films since are superior due to the gains we have made in filmmaking and through its revolution. Only a problem too is that the original Pirates has been ironically downgraded over time, taking away some of the wit and charm that made it so special. When today's animatronic technology, lighting, ride system, sets, and budgets combine to make a superior technical demo if you execute it right, older rides have a hard time competing.
The focus is also on different areas, it doesn't matter that there is only a handful of animatronics in Shanghai's Pirates because the ride's focus is entirely different. The ones that are there are however realistic, and an effective narrative device. In Disneyland, you are observing a town comedically go in flames pillaged by pirates, which is still highly effective. In Shanghai, however, that ride finds itself in a far better condition to tie its scale and execution in a bow to claim victory in a 'best today' category. Victory over its predecessor (in name only) makes sense when you've been on them both. Neither hurt each other and they most certainly are not comparable other than A. Pirates theme. B. Water ride. C. Easter Eggs and D. Large scaled E-tickets. In today's environment, theme park rides keep pushing the limit when they have the budget and artistic metric. To wow someone (not through thrill) takes an incredibly ambitious scale and near-perfect execution to do so, and today's environment lends it to two attractions on Earth. Disneyland's Pirates is executed very well on a large scale, but the format of the ride frankly just isn't as Wowing and realistically convincing as the aforementioned 'F-tickets'. If we step back and put our biases aside, it's damn near impossible to logically argue that they aren't the most mind-blowing rides on Earth.
However, films and rides like that can still be appreciated as revolutionary and equally enjoyable/well crafted TO THIS DAY. It's very hard to see a logical argument where the PeopleMover tops Flight of Passage unless we're talking about the purpose, ride variation in the park, and personal enjoyment.
For clarity's sake, you're best off precursing opinions or objectives when you can. We are human, 100% objective is, in theory, impossible, but 99% gets the job done, and is how everything around us works, from business moves to creative and legal ones.
There is an abundance of elements that go into a ride's story and effectiveness, and some great rides don't need it at all (KS). Pacing, sets, lighting, musical score, ride vehicle (cinematography), thrill (as a story element), scale, writing, etc. all band together. Some people won't even care about pacing a story or those things at all, but like in cinema,
theme park attractions are an art form, and while there are many different genres of rides and films, the most effective
can be measured to the best of our ability on a technical level.
Whether you enjoy The Dark Knight or Pulp Fiction, or even a musical like Hamilton is completely up to you, but as an art, it's obvious how incredible the cinematography, directing, editing, writing, acting, production design, score, choreography, and much more can be. Rides
can be measured in the exact same way.
I'm not attempting to sound braggadocious or to offer a finite solution, but I am challenging to apply self-awareness and understand the world around you. What I am saying isn't an opinion, I am trying my best to effectively gauge art. Everyone on this website and who experiences art does so. Some can do it better with varying knowledge on a subject, and sometimes you just may never get something, but all things considered, objectivity DOES exist, and all of us will be wrong from time to time, in theory.
Dumbo is not a better ride than The Haunted Mansion because
someone may like it more.
It's just, oh wait, a different type of ride serving its purpose, and someone
can like it more,
and they would be correct: they like it more.
Nobody can tell you not too, but you still can see why other rides are superior. They serve DIFFERENT purposes and can coexist, but to consider personal opinions the 'best' is very flawed for near-universal agreement on the phrase.
If we lose sight of the ability to objectively conclude things (with only slight variation) and adapt to new knowledge, then it's a slippery slope that we can never grasp reality around us.
Maybe the term 'the best' is an impossible term to properly use. Perhaps 'most impressive' is far better for this metric. Yet, when compared to the alternatives, it seems to be a difficult feat in ignoring that the alternatives offer far too much variation and a sporadic understanding of the artform of theme parks. Martin Scorcese doesn't even get it!
It's difficult to suspend disbelief on an otherworldly scale with effectively no gaps in the execution.
In retrospect, saying that Rise and Shanghai's Pirates are 'the best' two as a fact is misleading because I didn't clarify what 'best' means. They are the
largest-scaled and well-executed, disbelief suspending rides ever built, and typically when we talk about good rides those are the qualities prescribed to 'the best'. Not just a random favorite. What's clear, however, is we must actually discuss logically instead of emotionally to get answers. Part of logic can be emotional--a feeling of fun--I caution excessive dependence on it akin to a drug that denies understanding of not only theme parks but our reality. When politics turns into emotions, authoritarians are more likely to arise. When film critics praise Transformers 5 while attacking Ratatouille, it shows that they have a lack of understanding of what cinema as an art form is.
When Mickey opens, people need to keep their opinions in a separate category from how 'good' it actually is. We need to be able to gauge it, and it's impossible if you say it's your favorite. In regards to what exactly, then?
You can dissect this and slash it in whatever way you want, but anyone with a head on their shoulders knows what I am talking about.
Anyway, I'm intrigued to see where Mickey will sit. It's definitely an E, but hopefully, it's one of the best on Earth and a favorite to many!
EDIT:
I was wrong about objectivity. I misused the word.
The inherent human subjectivity makes objectivity impossible. The factor that allows us
subjectively to understand not firm aspects of the world is reason and
logic, which also allows us to gauge the quality of a product.
I do not want to cloud my entire argument with X. I think there is a really good conversation that needs to be had, and I excessively have placed too much focus on using the word objective, like you can be a god or something, which is not true. I was wrong about that and the criticisms are correct!
I'm still quite certain, that what makes Rise (and Shanghai Pirates) so good is
the sum of the objective parts of a ride to form a coherent experience. That's the word I've been looking for. Logic is still an argument which is why it can be countered. On a logical basis, I do think that Rise and Shanghai Pirates are the most Wowing attractions, which would typically be a reason cited for calling it the 'best' as it executes many objectives. Longest ride, most of X, doesn't matter, but it's the combination of varying aspects that does. Thank you!
Just like you can tell when a movie is well-made, you understand it subconsciously (or consciously) based on an understanding of what makes a good film. It's logical but still subjective. Logic is what takes us the extra mile. I really appreciate all the interesting viewpoints because it has completely made me question an entire aspect of my worldview. Perhaps a combination of the two will be beautiful!
Logic can take us there with the subjective, while objective isn't the right word. My apologies, but reading back the rest of my argument stands which is what I wanted to place my focus on anyway. I got clouded in the wrong wording, but hopefully, we are mature enough to understand it all.
