'The Great Movie Ride' Is Closing Forever – We Pay Tribute To Disney's Theme Park Masterpiece

The Great Movie Ride, the beloved Walt Disney World attraction that opened with the Hollywood Studios (then Disney-MGM Studios) theme park back in 1989, is closing its doors forever this weekend. On August 13, to be specific. Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway, the first Disney theme park attraction built around Mickey Mouse, will take its place.

Like many iconic Disney attractions, The Great Movie Ride holds a special place place in the heart of countless visitors, but it was always a favorite amongst film buffs. The /Film crew has gathered to pour one out for this legendary attraction in its final days. Join Jacob Hall, Josh Spiegel, Peter Sciretta, Dalin Rowell, and Joshua Meyer as they discuss why this attraction won them over, how it broke their hearts, and what this means for the future of Disney theme parks in general.

Joshua Meyer: Trying to remember the very first time I rode The Great Movie Ride is sort of like trying to remember the first time I watched Star Wars on VHS. Both of them were staples of my childhood. They were always just there, part of the natural environment. I grew up in Florida, and my family almost never traveled anywhere farther than Walt Disney World for vacation. We took multiple car rides there every year, so the first time I rode The Great Movie Ride would have probably been in 1989, the year Disney's Hollywood Studios (then called Disney-MGM Studios) opened. At the time, I was 8 years old, and I had just started getting into movies. My earliest memories of being in a movie theater are all from that year. 1989 was the year of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Batman, and Back to the Future Part II. As a budding movie fan, the movie theme at Disney-MGM Studios struck a particular chord with me. I quickly adopted the park as my own personal playground. And The Great Movie Ride was always its flagship attraction.Dalin Rowell: In 1996, I went to Walt Disney World for the first time. My grandfather had won the lottery (using my birthdate as the winning numbers) and was able to take a group of four (including my grandmother and mother) to Orlando's Happiest Place on Earth. There I learned of the epic worlds of Epcot, along with the sparkle that resided inside the Magic Kingdom. But I knew I had discovered my favorite theme park once I stepped inside the recreation of Hollywood's famous Chinese Theatre. I passed the costumes and props and the big movie screen playing trailers on a loop and I found what I would dub as my personal church: The Great Movie Ride.Jacob Hall: My first visit to The Great Movie Ride came when I was 12 years old and didn't know that I loved movies yet. I knew I liked movies (I was at a Disney park, after all), but I can say without hesitation that this ride literally changed my life. I got in that queue as a kid who watched movies and got off the ride as a kid who knew his life would revolve around movies.Josh Spiegel: The first experience I have with The Great Movie Ride that I remember was from my second trip to Walt Disney World, when I traveled there with my high school jazz band in 2000. I have two primary memories of that trip: the first was the sense of immersion into so many different film genres in just a half-hour. What The Great Movie Ride has always done so well is what Disney theme-park attractions offer at their finest: a sense of removing yourself from the real world and being sent on a journey somewhere else, foreign to your experience. Jumping from splashy Broadway musicals to gangster movies to Westerns to science-fiction and adventure was captivating. Here was one of the best examples of why the Disney theme parks were ever created: to let guests feel like they were inside of the movies.Peter Sciretta: I remember first experiencing MGM Studios and Universal Studios as a kid and visiting theme parks based on movies and moviemaking was mind-blowing to the young film geek that I was. But the thing about The Great Movie Ride is that it transported you through movie history, and was unlike any of the other offerings at the two movie-based theme parks. I remember returning home from the vacation, now suddenly interested in being exposed to the older classics, films I had not been interested in before the experience. I think that's quite an impact.Jacob Hall: During that same Orlando trip, I also toured the now-defunct Alfred Hitchcock experience at Universal Studios, which also broke my brain in the right ways. In retrospect, they were complementary experiences: Disney cracked open my imagination, expanded it, and pumped me full of wonder. And then Universal filled in those cracks with an interest in technical know-how – how'd they do that?Dalin Rowell: During the ride, I felt as if I stepped into my grandparents' personal film collection. This is where I would learn from the masters of film and come to discover even more classics I would soon love. Between the animatronics, use of music, and silly interactive humor, The Great Movie Ride became a staple of every Disney vacation for the last 20-something years. It also led me to want to create my own movie magic, and get a film-related degree. If a ride can do all that, it deserves to have the word "great" in front of it.Josh Spiegel: The other memory I have (and I share it as embarrassed now as I was back then) was of being a jerky teenager (so, you know...a teenager). In an early section of the ride, Singin' In The Rain is highlighted, with an Audio-Animatronic version of Gene Kelly holding an umbrella and dancing. The tour guide pointed out – correctly – that the film was released in 1952. I, in the front row, felt the urge to point out – incorrectly – that it was released in 1951. She tried to correct me, and I wouldn't have it. (Moral of the story: 15-year old me was a real dunce.)Joshua Meyer: To say that it impacted me in a significant way would be an understatement. When I heard that The Great Movie Ride was closing (coincidentally, on the 7-year anniversary of the date I left America for Japan), I booked a $1,500 round trip from Tokyo to Florida so I could be there to ride the attraction with my family one last time during its closing week. That is how important it was to me as a piece of my childhood.

Jacob Hall: When I was younger, the journey down the darkened corridor of the Nostromo was my favorite part of the ride. I knew Alien was a great movie (even though it would take me years to understand why) and the sense of danger and suspense was palpable. It may feel a little cheesy years later, but it was the scene I dug the most, the sequence that really felt like you were plunged into a movie.Dalin Rowell: Still some 20 years later, the Alien scene still spooks me to my core. Of course, I know when the xenomorph is supposed to come out, and yeah, I know it is only water, but there's something about the "unpredictable" nature of when I first visit went past this section of the ride that still makes me duck my head until we reach the Indiana Jones room. Judge me all you want, but fake acid spit is no joke!Jacob Hall: In retrospect, I think I understand why this scene of all scenes had such an impact on me. It's not that we were in Alien, although that was certainly cool, it's that it's the part of the ride where it feels like we've gone off the rails. By this point, our live host has been kicked out of the vehicle, hijacked by a gangster or an outlaw (for whatever reason, I only got the outlaw experience once out of the dozens of times I rode the ride) and there was a sense of unease in the story of the ride, a sense that we have gone off course and can't trust the person at the front of the vehicle. Sure, it's all a little hammy, but you need to meet theme park rides halfway. We weren't just in the ship from Alien, we were in the ship from Alien with a tour guide who literally had no idea what he was doing. How cinematic is that?Joshua Meyer: My favorite moment was always the part when the ride vehicle made it through the Western shootout to the other side of the barn doors. Suddenly, you'd be going from this cowboy scene to a room with chains hanging from the ceiling and the pixels of stars showing through the windows. That was always the moment when shit got real (or as Jacob put it, went off the rails). Because you knew you were boarding the spaceship Nostromo, where the xenomorph from Alien lurked. This, coupled with the color commentary of the vehicle hijacker, really did a good job of setting the scene for the alien attack.Josh Spiegel: I think my favorite moment will always be when the ride stops so that the regular tour guide can switch out with either the gangster or the cowboy, depending on which version you're on. If anything else, what I love is that sense of being in the movie getting reinforced. It's no longer enough for us to simply see what it's like to walk through a set a la The Public Enemy; the movie is coming to us. And, of course, the way it reverses in the Raiders of the Lost Ark sequence, with the cowboy/gangster getting too greedy for their own good and our tour guide returning, is a wonderful way to pay off the gag.Peter Sciretta: I loved the idea of there being a live host and that the script and experience changes from ride-to-ride, even if the execution was not always so great. But my favorite part of the movie ride as a kid was probably the Wizard of Oz room, just because it was so elaborate, filled with audio animatronic munchkins and that Wicked Witch.Joshua Meyer: In the early days of the ride, the Alien and Indiana Jones rooms always held a stronger adventure component for me, perhaps because the movies aligned more with my tastes, but also because the movies seemed more modern and exciting than some of the other old classics that were before my time. There's a whole generation now that probably feels the same way about all of the movies in The Great Movie Ride. By not updating the movie scenes, Disney let the ride become a rolling museum piece (literally, with TCM taking the fun of the guided tour, turning it into an educational thing). And that ultimately proved to be the ride's undoing. Because while we grew up, the ride never did.

Josh Spiegel: I don't know that I would say there's a specific source of the magic that The Great Movie Ride captures, but a collection of elements. The choice that the Imagineers made to design the show building as if it was the iconic Grauman's Chinese Theatre – and the fact that the building was the primary "weenie" to draw in guests from the day the theme park opened – is the first of those elements. That building, and the small Walk of Fame outside, feed right into the wonderful, old-fashioned image of Hollywood as being the Magic Store. These are classic Hollywood touches, and it extends to the architecture inside the queue to the ride, leading up to the final section of the queue where guests could watch trailers to all of the films highlighted inside the ride, from The Searchers to Alien.Dalin Rowell: For me, "the one little spark" that made this attraction standout from the rest was its grandeur. Originally, when this ride was going to be built in Epcot, the concept was more about the hooky nature of Hollywood rather than the sparkle and spectacle of the Tinseltown and movies in general. My grandparents had already encouraged me to watch the classics, but this was a fantastic Grade-A example as to why I needed to look into them further. From the stars that made Hollywood shine, to the moments that gave me goosebumps, it was a fantastic tribute to everything that movies eventually stood for me – magic, imagination, and the ability to let you escape. And when the finale occurs, with the reel of movie scenes, it was true exclamation point to my excitement building to go home and see more movies.Josh Spiegel: When I rode it in 2000, I may have been the only kid from my high school who even knew the name Busby Berkeley, or had seen Casablanca, or most of the films highlighted. What I always loved about The Great Movie Ride is that it felt respectful of its past, as opposed to just being flashy. (I think about a trip I took last month to Universal Studios Hollywood, and how their studio tour is exciting, but mostly fixates on the new instead of the old.)Jacob Hall: I think the rise of they internet has demystified the filmmaking process, which is why Universal's shift toward more immersive experiences and away from moviemaking has sat well with me for the most part. But the pure romance of The Great Movie Ride has yet to be replicated. It said to an audience of 2,000 or so people an hour "Hey, movies can be anything and everything." Like the best Epcot pavilions across Walt Disney World, it made you want to leave the park to learn more.Joshua Meyer: For me, part of what made The Great Movie Ride so great (in its heyday, at least) was that it brought you into the movies and made you a character in a way that 3D, HFR, VR, etc. can only dream about replicating. When you rode this attraction, you would be immersed in the sounds and texture of a true three-dimensional story. And it just so happened that the story ran through all these other great cinematic stories. The Great Movie Ride was something to be lived and felt, not something to be watched through a pair of 3D glasses.Jacob Hall: The constant genre-shifting, the way the ride would literally turn a corner and transport you from a musical to a crime movie, remains, to me, a powerful representation of the versatility of cinema. It's one thing to know that there are dozens of genres of movies out there, but it's another thing to be sucked into a whirlwind and experiencing horror and action and adventure and singing and dancing in about 20 minutes. It was exhilarating, even as your vehicle trudged along at only a few miles per hour.Dalin Rowell: The Great Movie Ride was clearly created by people that loved movies, which is likely why it touched so many people (including myself). It understood both the cheese, the glamour, and the fantastical nature of the world of movies that my grandparents and parents loved so much, and later shared with me.Josh Siegel: Some parts of the attraction, and the general experience, are corny, such as the patter the tour guide would have to deliver. (Though that depends on the ebullience of the tour guide.) But I think the magic of the attraction is the magic of any great Disney attraction: a combination of elements that create a transportive, immersive sense that sucks guests away from the vagaries of reality, if only for a short while.Peter Sciretta: I think the smartest and most magical thing about The Great Movie Ride may have also been it's biggest downfall – that it wasn't just a ride into the movies, but a journey through film history. That set-up is so great, and I've mentioned how it impacted me personally, but the set-up doesn't allow for updates. And without updates and upgrades, the attraction has definitely lost some of its magic, especially to younger guests who may not even know the most recent movies in the attraction.Joshua Meyer: Has anyone, by chance, ever read the short story "Zeroville" by Steve Erickson? Not the novel. If I remember correctly, in the novel, Erickson dropped a key concept from from the short story: namely, the idea of every movie ever made having a single frame of film edited into it, showing a mysterious door. For a long time, I was fascinated by that notion. It seemed like such a profound metaphor, to have a door that could open into any movie. And The Great Movie Ride is the closest I have ever come, outside my own mind's eye, to experiencing something like that in real life. With this attraction, you could board a tram and be whisked away, passing through one door after another, into some of the greatest movies of all time.

Josh Spiegel: I was as excited as anyone else when Disney announced its partnership with Turner Classic Movies a couple years ago. Many of the changes to current attractions at the Disney parks can frustrate me, but this one made so much sense. Who better to work with Disney on a ride about classic movies than a network that works exclusively with classic movies? And having Robert Osborne involved was like icing on the cake. The change itself was also encouraging because it suggested that Disney had interest in keeping the attraction around for a lengthy period beyond the next couple years.Dalin Rowell: Though the giant Robert Osborne fangirl in me loved TCM's inclusion, The Great Movie Ride could never be fixed by a tiny sponsorship and a spruce to the lobby and narration. It required Disney getting rid of the classic films of not their catalog and reenergizing the attraction with new technology and a different vision.Josh Spiegel: The problem isn't that the Disney/TCM sponsorship didn't work. It's that Disney should have been making these kinds of changes 20 years ago. I think that if this had been a truly living attraction, getting updated every few years as opposed to having a single elaborate refurbishment, it could have lived up to the initial promise. Instead, we got that band-aid on a wound, and far too late. It was a good idea in practice, but it should have been executed a long, long time ago.Joshua Meyer: To me, The Great Movie Ride was at its best when it was telling a living story while taking you on a trip through film history along the way. We have touched on the ride's educational value, but I feel that the ride in its original incarnation taught us about movies in a more elegant way, simply because it taught us without us noticing. For me, when TCM took over, the ride turned into this depressing, didactic thing, where Robert Osborne's commentary was constantly interrupting the story, relegating the tour guide and vehicle hijacker to half-hearted co-pilots. Who could blame the Cast Members for becoming bored? Who could blame them for phoning it in sometimes?Jacob Hall: The fact that The Great Movie Ride has remained mostly static since its opening day is what killed it. While the ride touches on a number of classics, it continuously failed to represent one of the most powerful things about the movies: they are always, constantly and continuously, changing. A new scene every few years would have made a world of difference. Disney also started to sidestep some maintenance issues in the homestretch. Even with the new sponsorship, the ride was in desperate need of some TLC, but because the ride was no longer popular because it was so static, it didn't seem to warrant the time and money.Peter Sciretta:  I have felt that some of the show scenes felt cheaper made than the others. They don't move, or provide any good effects. It seems like a lot of the budget was put into the showstoppers and the Imagineers had to make due with the rest of the attraction.Josh Spiegel: The one thing that probably could have been done earlier is one of the last changes Disney's Imagineers ever made: updating the attraction, even on a cosmetic level. Cinema changes and shifts on a daily basis, almost, but The Great Movie Ride rarely ever did. Most of the Audio-Animatronic sections highlight films that remain classics of their respective genres, utterly timeless films. But the final portion of the attraction, where the massive ride vehicle stops in front of a big movie screen to watch a montage of movie moments, probably could have been revised at some point during the last 25 years  before TCM stepped on board. I understand why those updates never happened – the original deal with MGM Studios made it so Disney could utilize clips of films they didn't own over a lengthy period, but that didn't extend to other studios except in rare instances (like using Alien in the attraction). But I think it made it so The Great Movie Ride eventually felt a bit musty and untouched, especially compared to the more cutting-edge technology on display in newer attractions like Toy Story Midway Mania and The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.Joshua Meyer: I'm not opposed to edutainment in principle, but when you do it in a didactic way, it can suck out all the fun. And so, over time, the ride did become sort of a dead attraction. To look at the animatronics, you would think cinema ceased after 1981.Jacob Hall: It's been a few years since I made a pilgrimage to Walt Disney World, but watching recent YouTube footage of the attraction was heartbreaking. The ride was starting to show its age in a big way. The Great Movie Ride will always be important to me, and deep down, it's probably my favorite Disney attraction of all time, but this is a case where it needed a new coat of paint, if not a total overhaul. But if that happened, Disney purists would have been up in arms!Josh Spiegel: Frankly, my fear of a more elaborate refurbishment would have been that The Great Movie Ride would've turned into the Great IP Ride, highlighting only big-name franchises that Disney has a stake in, as opposed to a wider swath of classics.Dalin Rowell: We also live in a world where most people know how movies are made. We have an idea of how motion capture works and the way that digital sets are built and we know every project that our favorite actors and directors have on their plate. That fantastical interest in discovery isn't there as much anymore. The Great Movie Ride either needed to change with the times or fall into the history books, as it is now.

Dalin Rowell: I recently visited The Great Movie Ride this past March. This will always remain an important visit for me, as I had no idea this would be my final ride on what is the most important Disney attraction to me. As mentioned, the TCM sponsorship added new signage, along with wonderful improvements to the lobby and a new reel in the queue narrated by TCM's Robert Osborne. New costumes had been included, along with some new props.Joshua Meyer: At Hollywood Studios on Thursday, I was surprised by how little fanfare there was, three days out from the ride's closure. There were no signs posted about it; it seemed like business as usual. If I were a casual parkgoer, I might not have even known The Great Movie Ride was closing. I asked one Cast Member how he felt about the ride closing and he said, "It's sad. This was my favorite ride that I've ever worked on." He said he had only been on it for a year, and I asked him if he had ridden the attraction before that. Did the TCM sponsorship change anything? "Not really," he said. "This is The Great Movie Ride that I know and love."Dalin Rowell: But when it came to the attraction itself, it wasn't looking as glamorous as nostalgia had made it for me. Some of the animatronics (especially Gene Kelly and Sigourney Weaver) seemed so plastic and dated. They had lost their sparkle and fluid movement (poor Ripley.) The land of Oz, though still beautiful from afar, was missing the pastel glow it once had and really needed a new coat of paint. Worst of all though were the Cast Members, who make or break the experience. Though some seemed happy to be there, others seemed bored by their lines and seemed to wish the day was over. And as much as I adore the live elements of the attraction, these are the moments you sometimes wish the ride would have axed this in favor of something new.Joshua Meyer: I'm sure it might be different on the very last day, but even as I rode the attraction and watched the Cast Members, I felt like some of them were just going through the motions. Everyone seemed so sedate; they weren't really hamming it up much. I wouldn't want to accuse anyone of phoning in their performance, as I really can't imagine what it must be like to repeat the same script over and over. But again, I was struck by how they have to cede control over to the voice of Robert Osborne, saying, "Here's your host," then just sitting there quietly at the front of the tram much of the time. In the Alien room, whereas before we would have been "in-scene" during that moment, now Osborne was busy talking about other science fiction movies like those of Georges Méliès and Star Wars. In the Casablanca room, he actually started talking over the voice of Humphrey Bogart, so you couldn't hear what Bogie was saying.Dalin Rowell: But what always brings a tear to my childhood eye still did on this final ride – seeing Casablanca's famous plane and Dorothy with her Oz crew at the end. Both still put a giant smile on my face. And that finale reminded me why I adored this attraction in the first place: it is a love letter to cinema's magic, which may not always be perfect, but will always be there for you. To take you to new worlds, experience new adventures, and teach you new lessons. Hopefully, a new Disney attraction can produce this feeling for a little kid like The Great Movie Ride did for me, because we all need that spark of pixie dust in our lives.Joshua Meyer: Throughout the day, the ride ran a wait of 25 to 45 minutes. I managed to ride it three times (got to experience both the gangster and cowboy), and the last time I rode it, the guy behind me in line kept talking about how he had never seen The Great Movie Ride with a line this long before. It was a true 45 minutes that go-round, which did feel like a long wait for a high-capacity ride at a Florida park. I managed to pick up a souvenir shirt on Hollywood Boulevard with a design that reads, "The Great Movie Ride. That's a Wrap! August 2017." And when my mom came in late on the tram, she said that particular driver did tell them, "Be sure to ride The Great Movie Ride before it closes." But other than that, it felt like the ride was making a somewhat unceremonious exit. Here today, gone tomorrow.

Josh Spiegel: The earliest iteration of Disney's Hollywood Studios (formerly Disney-MGM Studios) didn't have a ton of iconic attractions. When you look at what the park offered in its opening year of 1989, there's a lot that just seems like it wasn't meant to stand the test of time in the way of the great attractions of other Disney parks. The Great Movie Ride was really the only true E-ticket attraction at the start, which compounds how sad it is to see it go the way of the dodo. I'm certainly intrigued by a Mickey Mouse-themed attraction in the park, but the general concern I have for what this means for the park, and Disney parks in general, is that it leans them further and further towards their intellectual property.Joshua Meyer: For me and a whole generation of other parkgoers, this ride's closure marks the end of an era. With regards to the future, much of what Josh said rings true. If it were just The Great Movie Ride going away, that would be one thing. But I find it slightly worrisome that they are replacing the ride with one based on a new version of Mickey that is currently popular. The danger for Disney is that it will abandon its legacy and indeed start catering more to "hot new IPs."Dalin Rowell: It's quite obvious that Disney knows that the magic of movies (in their behind-the-scenes form) can't entertain audiences as it did 30 years prior. Instead, they are focusing on letting you interact in the movies themselves and be one with the story rather than looking at it from the director's chair. We can gather this is where the film industry itself is headed, as we can now going to the movies in moving seats while wearing 3D glasses, like we were experiencing Star Tours or It's Tough to be a Bug. And with the rumor of the park getting a name change, the MGM Studios/Hollywood Studios we used to know will now be a thing of a forgotten past.Joshua Meyer: I would have preferred an elaborate refurbishment. Part of me still clings (foolishly, no doubt) to the hope that they will bring back an updated version of the ride at some point, a la Journey Into Imagination with Figment (only better).Jacob Hall: I sometimes feel like I'm from the last line of original Epcot kids – I fell in love with that  park when it was still an "educational" playground, with attractions built around informing and enlightening visitors as much as it entertained them. The new Epcot, the one that will feature Frozen and Guardians of the Galaxy, will be neat. It'll be cool. I'll love going to it and will surely dig the new rides. But it will be a park with a new soul. This is how I feel about The Great Movie Ride and Hollywood Studios. And this isn't a flimsy comparison – The Great Movie Ride was originally pitched as an Epcot pavilion before headlining the new Hollywood Studios park and that park's fascination with history and evolution and education carried over. This has always been a little splash of Epcot in a park otherwise built around thrills and that has always appealed to me since day one.Dalin Rowell: My biggest concern with all of this though is the lose of history and education. As a child of the Epcot era, I loved getting taught something while also rolling past some cool animatronics. But now, kids are more about the thrills than the lessons, which saddens me. And if The Great Movie Ride taught me anything, it's that we need to learn from our past to appreciate the future – something that a Mickey-themed train ride isn't going to accomplish.Jacob Hall: I'm torn about the new Mickey Mouse attraction replacing The Great Movie Ride. On one hand, it's another example of Disney replacing an original concept with a popular brand, another step away from rides that were born out of pure imagination like Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion. On the other, I like that Disney is ready to remind everyone that Mickey Mouse is a proper character with a personality, not just a mascot. If anything offers salve for my wounds, it's knowing that a true cinematic icon is being allowed to live in a building constructed as an ode to cinema.Josh Spiegel: I know that Disney has said they won't close the Tower of Terror attraction in Orlando to make way for a Guardians of the Galaxy-themed attraction, as happened in Disney California Adventure earlier this year. I know they've said this. I know many fans believe this. I dread the day when they turn face and announce that Tower of Terror is going away for good. I like most of the movies that Disney releases, and I enjoy a good chunk of the franchise-related attractions they inspire. But not every movie should get a theme-park attraction, and not every theme park should give away its land to the hot new IP. My fear is that this is what will continue happening, with the advent of Toy Story Land and Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge. I want to be wrong, but I'm not sure there's a lot of evidence against my fears.Dalin Rowell: I just wish that Disney would have kept the movie history theme, so that the park could at least keep a shred of its fundamental concepts. Even having Mickey's film history mirroring the legacy of cinema would have been just as impactful. Sadly, I don't think that kind of movie magic will ever come back to the park. And as much as I like Star Wars and want to visit that galaxy far, far away, it won't be the same.