The Great Movie Ride what would have you changed?

The Grand Inquisitor

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I hear a lot on the forums about how Disney had the option to keep the Great Movie Ride instead of building Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway. With a proper budget what would have you guys done to fix up or change to the Great Movie Ride?
 

Pepper's Ghost

Well-Known Member
I hear a lot on the forums about how Disney had the option to keep the Great Movie Ride instead of building Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway. With a proper budget what would have you guys done to fix up or change to the Great Movie Ride?

Not sure if this is an unpopular opinion, but I loved the Great Movie Ride, as was. I hate that they replaced it. I've not seen M&MRR yet, but I'm sure it will be loaded with tons projected images rather than animatronics. I appreciate animatronics because they're so real, but you know they're not. I do projection stuff myself for holidays. Oh well. Sorry for not answer the OP's question, but I guess my response would be, no changes other than maybe some maintenance to keep things in good working order.
 

The Grand Inquisitor

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Not sure if this is an unpopular opinion, but I loved the Great Movie Ride, as was. I hate that they replaced it. I've not seen M&MRR yet, but I'm sure it will be loaded with tons projected images rather than animatronics. I appreciate animatronics because they're so real, but you know they're not. I do projection stuff myself for holidays. Oh well. Sorry for not answer the OP's question, but I guess my response would be, no changes other than maybe some maintenance to keep things in good working order.
I absolutely agree. Personally I have no problem with Runaway Railway replacing Great Movie Ride. I loved both rides, but Runaway Railway is a very worthy successor. Personally I would have rather seen Great Movie Ride stay and have new scenes featuring Star Wars, Avengers and other newer famous movies. And have Runaway Railway replace Launch Bay and fix up Animation Courtyard.
 

The Grand Inquisitor

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I loved the Great Movie Ride, and the Mickey/Minnie Runaway Train is really neat; however, I think an update using Disney movies would have been popular with adults, teens, and kids. The interactive portion found in the GMR could have included a Star Wars reality portion.
I agree! There was rumor of a ride idea called the Great Disney Movie Ride where it would take you throughout all of the Disney movies from Snow White to Frozen.
 

Pepper's Ghost

Well-Known Member
Personally I would have rather seen Great Movie Ride stay and have new scenes featuring Star Wars, Avengers and other newer famous movies. And have Runaway Railway replace Launch Bay and fix up Animation Courtyard.

Excluding Avengers, I completely agree. 😁 The GMR was really about classics. To me superhero movies don't qualify. I know they break the bank at the box office, but they're not classics IMO.

Now you've got my creative juices flowing. Here are some ideas:
  • I love adding a scene for Star Wars, like Luke and Yoda with an X-wing in the swamp scene or something
  • Or better yet Luke and Darth Vader lightsabering in the Death Star battle
  • Or Darth Vader telling Luke, "No, I am your father"
  • A classic scene from The Godfather... like Don Corleone saying "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse"
  • E.T. and Elliot
  • Jack on the front of the Titanic being "king of the world... woooo, hoooooo... ooooo"
  • Beauty and the Beast dancing in the ballroom
Now granted, some of these are obviously Disney owned, but I have no idea if any of them are owned by other studios that maybe couldn't be done, or perhaps they'd need to purchase rights to reproduce them.
 

Pepper's Ghost

Well-Known Member
Was just thinking, the M&MRR seems to be a CM-light ride. GMR was a very CM-heavy due to needing to narrate, switch with someone else, and figure they had to do this with every ride car. Although they probably wouldn't completely change a ride due to this, it may have been a factor. Haven't ridden M&MRR yet, but it looks a lot like Tokyo Disneyland's Pooh's Hunny Hunt.
 

TrainsOfDisney

Well-Known Member
with a realistic but legit budget -

Keep the musicals, gangsters and westerns as is but eliminate the robbery sequence and “perform” both gangster hold up and Wild West hold up with pyro etc.

Change alien to Star Wars New Hope.

Keep Indian Jones but with a new “temple is cursed” sfx show that doesn’t involve the switch of cm’s. It’s all on its own.

Switch out Tarzan for another classic movie... keep Casablanca but take Mickey out and put in another scene from a classic movie that compliments Casablanca opposite.... keep Wizard of Oz with a shorter “show” and then ........ replace the movie at the end with a huge special effects overkill live action version of Sorcerers Apprentice. Water effects, AA’s, projection mapping.... go all out.

The version I just described doesn’t need any cm’s if you redo the ride vehicles to operate on their own.

IF you were going to keep the movie montage at the end... do a proper AA scene of Mickey Mouse where he was.
 
I actually love MMRR, but I ADORED GMR and miss it terribly. Would've loved if there was a way to keep both, but that being said, had GMR stuck around, I would want to see:
-All animatronics reskinned and reprogrammed/updated to modern standards
-Footlight Parade removed entirely and replaced with another more enduring movie musical (perhaps West Side Story, Grease, Hairspray? Something classic that would still be recognizable to most). As much as I appreciated the tribute to 30's era movie musicals, the sequence in its final, diminished form never really worked for me.
-Possibly The Godfather incorporated into the gangster scene? It's the most iconic movie of the genre
- The half baked horror scene removed and converted into transition space from Indy to what's next, I don't think there was enough space there to add any meaningful replacement
-Tarzan removed and replaced with something else??
 

JIMINYCR

Well-Known Member
I'd open the area up for Disney films only. After all we are at a Disney park where guests are wanting Disney theming. A ride through featuring a mixture of the best Disney animated films and movies. ( One of my favorite scenes of the GMR was the Sorcerers Apprentice scene ) After the ride an area showcasing props, awards, memorabilia, behind the scenes stories and actor bios. This would include actors who not only appeared in films but also provided voice roles. There would be brief clips playing from films like Old Yeller, Davey Crockett, Zorro and other lesser known films.
 

TrainsOfDisney

Well-Known Member
I'd open the area up for Disney films only. After all we are at a Disney park where guests are wanting Disney theming. A ride through featuring a mixture of the best Disney animated films and movies. ( One of my favorite scenes of the GMR was the Sorcerers Apprentice scene ) After the ride an area showcasing props, awards, memorabilia, behind the scenes stories and actor bios. This would include actors who not only appeared in films but also provided voice roles. There would be brief clips playing from films like Old Yeller, Davey Crockett, Zorro and other lesser known films.

Years ago I was a total geek and made a “dream version” of the park. It was actually really close to what we *almost* got. In my version, there was, essentially, another great movie Ride in animation courtyard. It would be a boat ride through the classics of Disney animation.

Other than Mary Poppins and Sorcerers Apprentice... there wasn’t any other classic Disney movies in the GMR... so I wouldn’t want to change it up that much. You could add Roger Rabbit to the underworld area pretty easy though...
 

FettFan

Well-Known Member
I hear a lot on the forums about how Disney had the option to keep the Great Movie Ride instead of building Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway. With a proper budget what would have you guys done to fix up or change to the Great Movie Ride?

I floated an idea roundabouts a few years ago that included something akin to Runaway Railway. Only instead of watching a new Mickey short and then the theater explodes, you would be there to watch a premiere of Fantasia, and while Mickey conducts the Sorcerer's Apprentice, just as the brooms came alive in the segment, now the movies come alive and you go through them in a manic style reminiscent of HKDL's Mystic Manor.

This was back when the rumor appeared that a Guardians ride would replace the GMR. I myself didn't care for the entire GMR being renovated to only feature just one franchise.
 

Robbiem

Well-Known Member
I‘d have loved for the GMR to stay and love some of the suggestions above. I’d have kept the basic ride with a few changes btw sorry if the order is wrong i last rode the ride 20 years ago!

musicals - keep Mary Poppins and singing in the rain if you can but add some classic fox movies - sound of music or king and I

swap out the gangster scenes for marvel scene with a suitable villain hijacking your car. Replace the western scene with a star wars stormtrooper or maybe Boba Fett taking the car. Leave alien (fox ip). Keep indy but shorten the scene after the guide comes back replace the rest of the temple with cut down western (Clint eastwood and john wayne only). Take out tarzan and put in titanic goes well with casablanca, if there’s space maybe avatar. Keep mickey butSwap out oz for classic disney fairy tale maybe beauty and the beast and sleeping beauty (both golden ages) with malefecent replacing the witch. Keep the end montage but update with new movies
 

TrainsOfDisney

Well-Known Member
I‘d have loved for the GMR to stay and love some of the suggestions above. I’d have kept the basic ride with a few changes btw sorry if the order is wrong i last rode the ride 20 years ago!

musicals - keep Mary Poppins and singing in the rain if you can but add some classic fox movies - sound of music or king and I

swap out the gangster scenes for marvel scene with a suitable villain hijacking your car. Replace the western scene with a star wars stormtrooper or maybe Boba Fett taking the car. Leave alien (fox ip). Keep indy but shorten the scene after the guide comes back replace the rest of the temple with cut down western (Clint eastwood and john wayne only). Take out tarzan and put in titanic goes well with casablanca, if there’s space maybe avatar. Keep mickey butSwap out oz for classic disney fairy tale maybe beauty and the beast and sleeping beauty (both golden ages) with malefecent replacing the witch. Keep the end montage but update with new movies

Replacing Tarzan with Titanic is a great idea... I was trying to think of a “true classic” that could go there. You could maybe do titanic, Casablanca and gone with the wind all together there.
 

MickeyLuv'r

Well-Known Member
1. I always thought the Sigourney Weaver animatronic was terrible. Trying to make animatronics that actually look like specific people has long been a mixed thing for WDW. Some are okay, some are terrible.


2. While Westerns were once a big staple of movies, they are somewhat rare these days. I just watched one of the old classic Westerns a few days ago and well, it was very dated on a number of fronts.

While it is possible to make a modern Western that isn't dated, well, social norms have changed a good deal since John Wayne's glory days.

So updating GMR would have been a bit tricky. Some folks would say most of the classic westerns were dated or offensive. Others would recall the best parts of westerns and be mad at WDW if they'd removed that part of the ride...
 

The Grand Inquisitor

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Excluding Avengers, I completely agree. 😁 The GMR was really about classics. To me superhero movies don't qualify. I know they break the bank at the box office, but they're not classics IMO.

Now you've got my creative juices flowing. Here are some ideas:
  • I love adding a scene for Star Wars, like Luke and Yoda with an X-wing in the swamp scene or something
  • Or better yet Luke and Darth Vader lightsabering in the Death Star battle
  • Or Darth Vader telling Luke, "No, I am your father"
  • A classic scene from The Godfather... like Don Corleone saying "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse"
  • E.T. and Elliot
  • Jack on the front of the Titanic being "king of the world... woooo, hoooooo... ooooo"
  • Beauty and the Beast dancing in the ballroom
Now granted, some of these are obviously Disney owned, but I have no idea if any of them are owned by other studios that maybe couldn't be done, or perhaps they'd need to purchase rights to reproduce them.
Having Luke saying No I am you father would be amazing! Disney had a lot of potential to fix or add new scenes to the ride.
 

The Grand Inquisitor

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I floated an idea roundabouts a few years ago that included something akin to Runaway Railway. Only instead of watching a new Mickey short and then the theater explodes, you would be there to watch a premiere of Fantasia, and while Mickey conducts the Sorcerer's Apprentice, just as the brooms came alive in the segment, now the movies come alive and you go through them in a manic style reminiscent of HKDL's Mystic Manor.

This was back when the rumor appeared that a Guardians ride would replace the GMR. I myself didn't care for the entire GMR being renovated to only feature just one franchise.
That sounds amazing!
 

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