EpcotServo
Well-Known Member
If I might quote directly from the Great Movie Ride cast member script,
Hello everyone and welcome to the Great Movie Ride. Once again, my name is *CMs Name* and I'll be taking you from this Hollywood soundstage right into the middle of the action of the greatest films ever made, all on one tour. But between you and me, this is no ordinary tour because the Great Movie Ride brings these movies to life, and puts you right in the middle of the action.
The purpose of the ride is to represent and re-create scenes from the greatest that film history has to offer.
Not just the films that are "family-friendly"
Not just the films that are making The Walt Disney Company money from DVD sales.
"The Greatest Films Ever Made."
Alien may not be to everyone's liking and it certainly isn't congruent with Disney's current pre-teen focus or indeed much of the rest of the ride, but it is recognized as "great film" I think it deserves as much acclaim as something like Singing in the Rain and film critics in general bear that out. If anything, it deserves a spot in the ride because it represents a genre and a sensibility that is lacking in most of the rest of the movies.
Also, if we start picking out all the movies that are inappropriate for children we're going to start loosing important parts of the ride very quickly. The Public Enemy is certainly not something I'd show to kids, nor are any of the movies in Clint Eastwood's Dollars trilogy. Casablanca, for that matter might not be objectionable per se, but if you think you could sit anyone under the age of 14 in front of that film and expect them to pay attention you're crazy. I should know; I've tried.
Basically what I'm saying is that when they were planning the Movie Ride the imagineers tried to pick out the films they thought were of particular artistic merit, have lasting appeal, and were generally representative of film history at large. To that effect I think they did a fantastic job and there isn't much that could be done to approve upon their selection.
In closing, I would remind everyone that the motto of Metro Goldwyn Mayer is ars gratia artis, "Art for art's sake." When you try to put together an attraction like this and ignore art, instead going for whatever is popular or whatever serves the "Disney cause" best, whatever that is, you end up with Superstar Limo, and I don't think any of us want that.
^
I can't stress how much WIN this post is.