Getting Meta - Mission Space

Getting Meta - Mission Space

I've stopped playing a few video games at the point that I have my character enter some kind of virtual reality simulation.  My instant reaction is that what's going on isn't real and there are no consequences.  This is, of course, a completely accurate statement towards playing video games in the first place, but I don't like to be reminded of it.

So, Mission Space.  It replaced Horizons at Epcot, but it's also more of an update to the classic Mission to Mars, it self updated from Rocket to the Moon and Flight to the Moon.  Take a look at the original and see how it's done properly:

The only effect you can't see in the video is that the seats sunk down to simulate the g-forces of acceleration.  Not the most thrilling attractions, and by the 80s it was outdated to the point of needing to be either revamped or replaced.  But it did have one neat thing, or at least neat to a little kid:

You got to pretend to go to Mars.

So, Mission Space.  So close to Mission to Mars that people still mix the names up more than twenty years after the original closed.  Instead of a theater, guests sit in an actual spinning centrifuge, or a stationary centrifuge for the tamer, less likely to kill you version.

Here is the script.

So, we're not actually going to Mars, of course.

Nor are we pretending to go to Mars.

We might be pretending to go on a training mission in a futuristic spaceship, the X-2, but we're not.

We're pretending we're in the future (2036 to be exact) and pretending that we're entering a simulation of travelling through space.  Meanwhile, in real life, we actually are going into a simulation of traveling through space.

The scripts are a bit hazy in parts, but they're very clear that nobody is going to Mars, pretend or otherwise.  Some issues:

• The pre-show implies that we're going to board an actual (or at least pretend) X-2 Deep Space Shuttle.
• The pre-boarding spiel refers to it as the X-2 flight trainers.  The green team spiel is even clearer - "X-2 Flight Trainer that produces the sensation of a flight through space".  So we're not even pretending to take the X-2 on a training run.
• The script constantly mentions how you're training for the first mission to Mars, and how elite this mission is.  But to be clear, you are not going on (or pretending to go on) the first mission to mars, only training for it.  And the elite mission is not the one you're going on, its one that you're training for.
• If we're only on a simulator for a future trip to Mars, why do we need to do this from the imaginary future?  Why send us halfway to imagining we're going on a trip to Mars, only to pop our bubble and stress that it's a simulated training mission.  We could have a modern day Gary Sinise just say "Spin around like an astronaut in training, maybe one day we'll go to Mars" 

I'm struggling to come up with any reason why "a futuristic simulation of a training mission" was picked over a straight out "you're going to Mars".  Some possible stupid reasons might be:

• to explain why a regular tourist is piloting a ship to Mars.  First off, I don't think any guest is so insecure that they're thinking "I'm not qualified to pretend to fly to Mars.  I can only handle pretending to be on a training simulator".  Also, this would be a brilliant time to pull out the patented Disney "something goes wrong" bit, like Space Camp or Far Out Space Nuts.

• to explain why there's no return trip, like the original Mission to Mars.  But they could have had a return trip, or theme the post-show area to be a base on Mars.
• to explain why the in-ride video looks so horrible.  This one is a titch more plausible, as the video doesn't cut it for a realistic view of a space flight.  For that matter, it doesn't cut it for a ride that cost $100,000,000.

As an aside, to make the pre-show narrative even clunkier, they had to have lines to spackle over a plot hole which doesn't even matter.  This is the first mission...sorry...this is a simulation of a training mission for the first landing on Mars, so why does it appear that there is already a base there?  Sinise has a line about robotic teams setting up the landing zone, but since it's only a simulation why does it even - 

- deep breaths, crystal blue persuasion - 

If anyone can fill me in on why they didn't just go with "You're flying to Mars, please don't die", please let me know.

Getting Meta - Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater

Getting Meta - Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater

While not best food by a long shot, probably the best themed restaurants in Disney are at Hollywood Studios.  Some are themed to the concept of classic Hollywood, like the Hollywood Brown Derby, while others stay in the studio concept, like the ABC Commissary.

"Mommy, I want to pretend I'm a soap opera extra while I eat chicken nuggets"
                                         - No Child Ever

A favorite is the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater, themed to a 1950s drive-in movie theater.  Or rather, a soundstage of a 1950s drive-in movie theater.  Described by The Imagineering Field Guide to Disney's Hollywood Studios as a "faux outdoor setting clearly mounted on a soundstage".  Clearly.  Clearly, people.

http://www.disneyfoodblog.com

So you're not pretending to eat at a drive-in movie, you're pretending to eat at a movie set of a drive-in movie, as if that was ever a thing.  It would be less confusing, and fit the park concept better, to just have it be a pretend drive-in movie, as the drive-in is just a much a part of classic Hollywood as the Brown Derby.  People also eat at drive-ins, as opposed to soundstages.  The bare wooden frames and a few props in that awkward walkway just leaves guests thinking they just didn't bother to theme this part.

More pics at Disneyfoodblog.com

Getting Meta - Original Star Tours at Disney's Hollywood Studios

Getting Meta - Original Star Tours at Disney's Hollywood Studios

Formerly Disney MGM Studios, Disney's Hollywood Studios has gone through several incarnations and focuses.  It began as an alleged tour of a working studio, much like the original Universal Studios Hollywood.  Actual stuff was filmed there, from Newsies to Thunder in Paradise, but the implication that you could watch an actual production in the works and see real movie stars was largely unrealized.





As the park expanded and the focus turned towards individual attractions rather than one ginormous tour, the concept went from "pretending to be a real movie studio" to "being a pretend movie studio".  Stay with me here, it gets worse.

Star Tours was the first E ticket thrill attraction in the park, and Disney wasn't about to just attach a space ride in the middle of a studio themed park.  From The Imagineering Field Guide to Disney's Hollywood Studios -

"Sometimes a particular show makes sense in two or more different park concepts, but a change is usually required to alter the "wrapper" that places the attraction into each setting.  At the Studios, we're not trying to imply that Star Tours is part of a fantastic future.  This is about the movies!  So here we placed the attraction into a soundstage like others on the lot.  We dressed the front of the soundstage with a standing set of of the Ewok village.  And we allow Guests to see the backs of the set walls when they enter the building"

There's a couple of ways this can go.  Guests can pretend that they're on the set of a Star Wars movie production the entire time.  Or they can start by pretending they're at the Ewok Village, but wait, it's just a movie set.  Now we're heading into the Imperial bunker, but wait, also a set, and now we're in a loading bay, etc.  One transitional scene in the queue from movie studio to spaceport would suffice to keep the concept, but the guests don't need constant reminders that this isn't real.

Or, like ALMOST EVERYONE, they either don't notice/care, or they think "Hmm, they didn't finish this part for some reason.  Hey, they didn't even do the other side of that AT-AT.  A little lazy."

http://www.studioscentral.com/

Happily they changed the concept during the update, as well as that of most of the park, to be "Attractions that might have something to do with movies".

More at Studioscentral.com

Getting Meta - Layered Narrative in Walt Disney World Attractions

Getting Meta - Layered Narrative in Walt Disney World Attractions

Having a story within a story is nothing new, and can sometimes provide a good narrative structure to transition between tales. Sometimes it goes too far, and sometimes the narrative conceits draw the audience out of the story, reminding them that it's just a story and they're just an onlooker. Take for example the timeless classic Santa Claus and the Ice Cream Bunny.



Santa Claus tells a group of children about a girl visiting Pirates World.  She visits a diorama display of the story of Thumbelina, which is narrated by a tinny PA, and we begin story number three, occasionally cutting back to the girl listening. In this case, the narrative structure is for padding the running time and maybe patching up some gaps between scenes.

There was a similar structure for The Princess Bride, except there the interruptions were more for comedy (and as a strange sideways apology for having an otherwise unapologetic fairy tale fantasy movie in 1987).  It worked better there, but it still reminded the audience "None of this really happened, or even pretended to happen, it's a story a pretend grandfather told".

And if anybody does storytelling, and does things too far, it's Disney parks.  While Walt himself was big on everything having a story, things got silly by the 90s or so.  Every resort restaurant or bus terminal got its own elaborate backstory.

A lot of this was obsessive, but innocuous.  99.9% of guests aren't going to know the in-jokes behind the window displays in Main Street, or that a trolley car's license plate number is an imagineers' wife's birthday backwards.  Most don't know, fewer care, but not knowing doesn't diminish the experience.  Usually.

The problem of an attraction being too wrapped up in its narrative structure (or guests being too stupid, if you're less charitable) began day one at Disneyland with Snow White and Her Adventures.  Guests complained that the ride didn't have Snow White, not realizing that the concept was that they were Snow White.  Snow White was later added in (1983 for Disneyland, 1994 for Disney World), and somehow I doubt that guests panicked as they were suddenly able to bilocate.  "I thought I was Snow White!  Why am I over there?!"



Over the next few weeks we'll look at other times that the narrative structure of an attraction got too complex for its own good.