Just rode it!
I just rode SSE today; they had the construction wall open with a CM guiding people in. I'm not sure whether it was open all day or just part of the day, since that was the only time I was in that area.
I was riding with my family, who are not WDW freaks like me. They're more the "average guests"; they've been to WDW before, but not for a number of years, and they had only vague recollections of SSE as a slow-moving, "boring" ride. I kept my mouth shut during the preview to listen to their reactions, particularly my 20-something sister, who was sitting next to me.
As has been said numerous times before, the ascent portion of the ride was awesome. My sister, who was only riding to humor me until I would take her on something faster, marveled a number of times at how much "better" this version was than the one she remembered. (Some of the changes were real; others were only in her mind, but the point is, she enjoyed it.)
I had a weird experience with the narration. I've always enjoyed the grandeur of the old style (Irons et al.) and when I heard some of the new version online, I hated how dumbed-down it sounded. But in person, maybe just because I was expecting it, I found that it didn't bother me. It seemed to connect better with my sister, and although it's not the choice I would have made, I still found it enjoyable. (I know, I know. Don't shoot me.) The new focus on technology works, and I like the plussing of the ascent. So, excellent work there. Yes, I prefer the Irons narration by quite a bit, but the Dench version will grow on me. The ascent is still awesome.
Now, the descent... Well, it starts off great. The grid of blue dots is really, really cool. And then come the video screens.
Now... I like the idea of the touch screens. It reminds me of Horizons. And I get why a lot of the cool lights and things didn't stick around, since they might be a distraction from the touch screens. It was really hard not to miss them, but I was trying not to fault the ride for being different from a previous version, and focus instead on what was there.
But the real problem was the whole questionnaire/cartoon thing. Like seriously. I let my sister answer all the questions, and without my saying anything, she found the resulting cartoon both frustrating and silly. Silly because it lacked the tone of the rest of the ride, and frustrating because (in her view) her input didn't seem to impact the cartoon very much. "We got the same one he did!" she said with disdain, comparing our video in the back seat to the one in front of us. Truthfully, our video was different in subtle ways based on the questions we answered (I was paying careful attention) but this was lost on her as the average guest. The differences just weren't enough to make her feel that her choices meaningfully impacted the story. Too many choices, too little difference. Horizons' approach (one choice, three vastly different scenarios) was far superior.
I'm thinking that the rumor about your faces appearing in the cartoon
has to be the goal. The stand-in faces in the cartoon are all facing the camera, making for an easy JibJab-like substitution, and when your picture is taken, the voice tells you to be sure you can see your face on the screen. (Unfortunately, you don't always have time and I don't think it will work consistently. My brother took the opportunity to pose wildly, and my sister's head was blocked because she didn't have time to get into position.)
Having your face in the toon would definitely add a "cool" factor for the average guest, but the cartoon is so poor and the questionnaire so complicated, that you're basically depending on that one little aspect to make the entire descent worth it, and that's too much of a gamble.
My advice for fixing it? Create a better cartoon with ideas about tomorrow that don't feel so silly, give it a tone that fits with the rest of the ride, and limit the rider's choices to one or two questions, with vastly different outcomes so that the rider can see how their choice made a difference. With fewer choices, you can add more effects to the descent instead of making the touchscreens the total focus. Then you can still have the superimposed faces, but the theme would be more cohesive and ride wouldn't be so dependent on one little trick (the faces) to make or break the entire last portion of the attraction.
-p.b.
