Imagination doesn't need that much work actually... :lookaroun it looks fine. it's fun, theme is spectacular, it's a peppy ride and my little cousins love it. what about it exactly makes it such a bad ride?
I'll list a number of things i personally hate about it. Not trying to make anyone angry, these are my honest to god views about how i personally feel about it-
- Inspires no Imagination of any sort for me, the theme of the pavilion isn't expressed in the current laboratory theme, the only parts i find tolerable are the upside-down room and the ending scene. The original had gorgeous scenes from Fantasy, Literature, Stage, and Science that all inspired imagination. Nothing about the new one does, it just feels like a ride built to quite literally torture all of the senses of your body.
- The music doesn't complement the ride. The original had a wonderful Sherman Brothers score with the One Little Spark song, it changed with every room and felt dynamic with lots of different and imaginative lyrics. While they took the same tune, it's redone to accentuate Figment's obnoxious new nature.
- Loud and annoying. A ride can be loud and fun, but this one is just loud and obnoxious. This goes back to torturing the senses.
- I've nothing against Eric Idle as i've seen him do good roles, but he's absolutely boring and uncalled for to have here. Just your basic stuck up science dork. And they transformed Figment into an obnoxious and rude brat who comes off like he should be locked up in a crazy ward for everyone's protection. He's nothing like he was originally. Neither have any of the character or amazing chemistry that Dreamfinder and old Figment had. Dreamfinder was a brilliant original Disney character, being the wise sort of mentor with the vivid imagination (a kind of mix of Walt Disney and Merlin from Sword in the Stone). Figment complemented him with the youthful naive innocence of a child.
- Skunk spray, enough said but i felt insulted when they did this as if they were saying "You want a good attraction? Too bad, we're going to spray some foul smelling gas on you instead".
- Dialog is badly written and badly read by the characters. Especially compared to the brilliantly crafted and flowing poetic narration from the original, but it's still bad based on its own merits.
- The ride feels empty and cold overall, like a hollowed out dark warehouse with track and vehicles. Little to no show scenes. The original was an amazingly detailed ride with tons of scenery and animatronics. Versions 2 and 3 look like they gutted the place and only got 10% finished building it before running out of time or money. It's like they took an empty dark warehouse, a track, and slapped a couple of signs on the walls and called it a ride. Even on its own merits and disregarding the original the newer one is STILL abysmal.
I could probably go on and on, it's sometimes hard to put why it feels bad into words. I guess the key words are that it feels "empty, cold, unimaginative, boring, etc". I honestly hate it just based on its own merits, you could delete all my comparisons to the original in that list and i'd still think the same about it. The first time i rode it in 2010, i hadn't been to WDW since i believe 1997 before they changed it. I also wasn't aware that they had closed the original and replaced it with this version. It was quite a shock, and i was absolutely furious. I kept expecting the ride to get better, but it never did. Rode twice more after that, those times trying to divorce myself from comparisons to the original and give it a chance to exist on its own merits. Even as a standalone ride not compared to the original it's still atrocious and unbearable to me.
I won't even ride Imagination anymore even to get out of the heat. I go to the Land pavilion to do that, and enjoy a ride that is actually still great- Living with the Land. It could use some TLC and plussing perhaps, but i think i'd literally vomit if they ever did anything to it like what Imagination suffered.:hurl: