Tonight, we celebrate the incredible history of the icon attraction from Disney’s Hollywood Studios, The Great Movie Ride, just days before it closes forever on August 13th, 2017.
Back to the Future LIVE!: The Great Movie Ride – Monday, July 31st at 8PM ET
Tonight at 8PM, streaming live on YouTube and at Listen.WDWNT.com, catch the next edition of WDWNT’s beloved history show “Back to the Future”, as we delve into the history of the Great Movie Ride. The Great Movie Ride wasn’t always planned for the center of a park, so how did this come to be? Well, we’ll show you during this multimedia program.
With Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway set to replace it, The Great Movie Ride at Disney’s Hollywood Studios will close forever on August 13th, 2017. As a farewell, the Disney Parks Blog hosted a special event this week where guests were able to walk the track of the ride, take in some special entertainment, and even enjoy desserts in the picturesque Wizard of Oz scene.
We spent a majority of the party walking the attraction and filming some parts that may either be hard to see or where the ride vehicle simply doesn’t stop in order to preserve the ride for future enjoyment long after it is gone. While we recorded over an hour of footage (most of which will be featured in a later video project), we do have a half-an-hour video from the walkthrough of the attraction to share with you today. Enjoy, and we’ll see you at the movies!
To mark the closing of The Great Movie Ride at Disney’s Hollywood Studios (as it will be replaced by Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway), Disney is producing some special commemorative merchandise before the attraction fades to black on August 13th.
The merchandise will be released at Walt Disney World late next week, while some of it will be available online through the Disney Parks online store starting August 10th, 2017.
D23: The Official Disney Fan Club is hosting an amazing free event for Gold Members on August 12th to say goodbye to The Great Movie Ride.
OVERVIEW
D23: The Official Disney Fan Club and TCM Backlot: The Ultimate Turner Classic Movies Fan Club are joining together to invite members of both fan clubs to celebrate the farewell of The Great Movie Ride!
DETAILS
Experience begins promptly at 7:15 a.m. at the entrance of Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Check-in will begin at 7 a.m. Please do not arrive before 7 a.m. Due to the nature of this unique experience, late arrivals will not be accommodated. Event is available to Gold and Gold Family Members.
D23: The Official Disney Fan Club and TCM Backlot: The Ultimate Turner Classic Movies Fan Club are joining together to invite members of both fan clubs to celebrate the farewell of The Great Movie Ride!
Attendees will have the opportunity to experience the star-studded cinema attraction one last time during a behind-the-scenes experience before Disney’s Hollywood Studios opens to the public on Saturday, August 12.
This complimentary event will include a private attraction experience with special guests, a delicious breakfast at The Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant and a one-of-a-kind gift created just for attendees!
NOTE
D23 Gold and Gold Family Members may register a ticket for themselves and one (1) guest.
Due to the nature of this experience, all attendees must be at least 21 years of age or older to partake in this D23 experience.
This experience does not require admission to Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Guests will need to have or purchase admission to Disney’s Hollywood Studios if planning to return to the theme park once the experience concludes.
Food allergy and restrictions must be communicated to our Guest Services team prior to the event.
There is a limited number of reservations available. D23 Members will be required to provide their membership number when reserving tickets. Tickets may be picked up only with a valid photo ID AND D23 MEMBERSHIP CARD. D23 Members who do not bring their membership card may not be admitted to the event. Ticketed Members who do not attend the event forfeit their place as well as all experiences, benefits, and gifts associated with the event.
All D23 Special Events are subject to change without notice. There are no cancellations or refunds, and tickets are not transferable.
While details are scarce at this point, rumors indicate the ride would be trackless and is also being developed to go somewhere at the Disneyland Resort simultaneously.
The latest trend in the parks seems to be Disney removing any connections to franchises that Disney does not own (Twilight Zone for example), and the Great Movie Ride is packed with a lot of films that Disney has absolutely no ownership over. The line of thinking here would be to feature the first ride ever devoted to Mickey Mouse (clearly the property of the Walt Disney Company), something that has been attempted many times over the last 60 years but never built in any Disney theme park.
Sources are claiming that the Great Movie Ride would close in 2018 so that “The Great Mickey Ride” could open by the 50th anniversary of Walt Disney World in 2021.
With little-to-no-warning, the new version of “The Great Movie Ride presented by TCM” finally debuted at Disney’s Hollywood Studios earlier today. In 26 years, this marks the largest changes to the ride (other than some minor additions to the finale montage on two occasions, the last being a decade ago).
The Great Movie Ride marquee has been updated to include “Presented by TCM”, it was Coca-Cola many years ago
Outside, all signage was changed overnight to include Turner Classic Movies.
The strange empty space under the attraction posters was finally filled by the TCM logo
Here’s an up-close photo of the new Turned Classic Movies emblem
The 2 displays on the exterior have received new signs for a TCM “Salute” to The Jungle Book and Mary Poppins
New banners in the Chinese Theater courtyard
The new TCM banners blend in well in the existing courtyard
Upon entering the queue, the interactive movie posters and displays we showed you a few weeks back are now running. The posters switch between a logo for the Great Movie Ride and movie posters that come to life with some animated element.
The new interactive movie posters inside the queue switch between The Great Movie Ride attraction poster and movie posters from TCM. Each movie poster has a subtle moving element.
New interactive displays accompany the props inside The Great Movie Ride queue
The pre-show is no longer a 20-minute loop of trailers, but now a 45-minute documentary that spans all of the movies and genres covered in the ride. What’s great here is that some of the trailers even remain in the pre-show, including The Searchers (“No you don’t Ethan. Ethan, no you don’t!”). As time rolls on, many of the older films in the attraction have been forgotten to time and the pre-show does a nice job filling guests in on lesser-known classics such as Footlight Parade or The Public Enemy. The new film does a nice job providing background information that may spark more of an interest in seeing these films, which for TCM is probably the purpose of sponsoring the ride. If you want to find many of these films, Turner Classic Movies is often the easiest place to go.
See the entire pre-show loop for yourself:
The inside marquee on the ride was changed after 26 years to reflect the new sponsor and tagline
The only physical change to the ride that guests can see is the marquee in the loading area. No longer a “Journey into the Movies”, the Great Movie Ride is now “The Ultimate Celebration of Classic Movies”. There’s also now movie posters just under the marquee that feature the new ads for the ride.
Robert Osborne of TCM and the cast-member physically driving the vehicle are now both your hosts. Osborne provides about 60% of the spiel for the ride (pre-recorded of course), while the live cast member still becomes a part of the show and throws in some remarks here-or-there.
The finale montage of the ride is now in gorgeous high definition, and luckily almost every memorable clip and soundbite has returned, repackaged in a rather nice manner.
See the attraction with new audio spiels and the new finale film montage:
The photo-op at the exit of the attraction (which bloggers tried to convince everyone was a new stroller parking area) was also installed overnight. Guests can pretend that their handprints are being placed in front of the Chinese Theater, which really is a photo opportunity that someone should have come up with many years ago.
The photo-op at the exit was unveiled as well
You can take a photo as if your handprints are being placed outside of the theater!
Overall, the changes are long overdue. While it is sad to lose the original pre-show, the clips do live on as the actual trailers for those films anyway. The finale montage was clearly handled with the utmost care as most every clip, line of dialogue, and musical note was brought back refreshed and in a seemingly more organized fashion grouped by genre (provided Disney or TCM had the rights to it). Yes, there is less live-spieling and more pre-recorded narration, but honestly, Great Movie Ride cast members have been forced to stick to the script word-for-word for at least 15 years now and the spiel was about as tired as could be. With the exception of losing the fantastic pre-recorded spiel about Alien and the spaceship Nostromo, this has to be seen as an improvement over the tired lines such as “the horror movie is my all-time favorite genre”, “no, it’s not George of the Jungle”, and “Can anyone tell me what movie this is?”. This long-overdue refreshing of the ride breathes new life and hopefully is just a taste of larger changes to come to the attraction at the expansion of Disney’s Hollywood Studios moves forward.
WDWNT reader John Gibson sent us the following photos from Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The walls have come down around the former site of the Sorcerer’s Hat:
The walls are down and planters have rolled in
It appears the foundation from The Sorcerer’s Hat was kept to be the new “Center Stage” area
The new area isn’t finished yet, but should be soon
WDWNT Reporter Dirk Wallen traveled far and wide this week, visiting Disney Springs, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, the Polynesian Village Resort, and the Magic Kingdom, taking plenty of newsworthy photos to share with us today:
Starting at Disney Springs, work continues on the area outside of the AMC
The Wonderground Gallery opened inside the Marketplace Co-Op recently
Also new at the Co-Op is The Sign Shop, selling soem brand new Disney-inspired signage
The finishing touches being placed on the rear facade of Raglan Road
The Boathouse is nearing completion
The facade of the Hangar restaurant is now being worked on
The new pier area and margarita bar in the Marketplace should be open soon
Moving over to Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort, the new volcano pool area is nearing completion
Cinderella merchandise has invaded the Emporium at the Magic Kingdom
Even with Cinderella’s Royal Table re-opened, work continues on the castle via the infamous crane
The Sorcerer’s Hat may be gone, but the foundation and such from it will still take a bit to remove
The tarps are down at what we expect to be the TCM sponsored photo-op at the end of the Great Movie Ride
Work has begun on the Toy Story Mania expansion we told you about last year
St. Patrick’s Day snacks have started appearing around the resort
The reason for the removal of the Sorcerer’s Hat at Disney’s Hollywood Studios is apparently related to a major update of the Great Movie Ride attraction, thanks to a partnership with Turner Classic Movies.
TCM will help Disney make changes to Great Movie Ride in early 2015, in return Turner Classic Movies will essentially be credited as a sponsor, or presenter of the Great Movie Ride which has operated at the park since it opened in 1989. According to reports, a majority of changes will be made in the pre-show area and in the attraction’s finale.
Among the additions will be a video featuring Robert Osborne , a host from TCM.
The New York Times is confirming these rumors that have been swirling for a few months, but also reports that the deal includes a programming block on the TCM channel that will include classic Disney programming such as the Wonderful world of Color and the Disneyland TV series.
Disney will make an official announcement about the deal on Wednesday.
Disney has released some official details on the changes coming to the Great Movie Ride at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in 2015 as part of the leaked deal with TCM:
TCM branding will be integrated into the attraction’s marquee, as well, new exhibits curated by Turner Classic Movies will be placed in the display windows outside of the attraction.
Also outside, guests will find a new attraction poster and banners hanging from the facade.
In the queue, guests will find find new digital movie posters and a new pre-show video hosted by TCM’s Robert Osborne. Robert will give fascinating insight to movies guests will experience while on the ride.
The finale of the attraction will indeed feature an all-new montage of classic movie moments.
After exiting, guests will have a photo opportunity with a classic movie theme.
All of these new elements will be in place by Spring 2015.
