Getting Nostalgic About Disney's MGM Studios

Disney World is called "the most magical place on Earth" for a reason: it's seriously amazing. The rides are awesome, the people who work there are always friendly and helpful, the food is ridiculously good, and the entire place manages to feel like a different world. It's an escape from reality in all the best ways.

Disney has four different parks in Florida that each have their own theme: The Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios. I love all of the parks but Hollywood Studios was always my favorite. I first visited when I was twelve years old, when it was still called MGM Studios. The park was themed after the magic of movies. I was already a huge cinema-phile and this particular park played to this love of movies. The concept of “The Golden Age of Hollywood” was the central theme of the park and the main thoroughfare was made to resemble Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, California.

As you walked down Hollywood Boulevard, you saw shops and eateries that are based on locales you would have seen in the 1930s and 40s of Los Angeles. There are also period-based actors throughout the park who are a variety of townsfolk you may encounter: police officers, actors, actresses, directors, and many more characters. This adds a rich layer of depth to this land, bringing you into this golden era of Hollywood while still in central Florida. But let’s get to the good part of any trip to a theme park: the rides.

The Great Movie Ride

Much like the Magic Kingdom is built with Cinderella’s Castle as the centerpiece, Hollywood Studios had an exact replica of Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Los Angeles as their focal point and hub, even containing it’s own cement hand and foot prints of celebrities. Inside was The Great Movie Ride.

The ride takes passengers through a series of classic movies such as Singing In The Rain, Casablanca, Mary Poppins, The Wizard of Oz, Raiders of the Lost Ark and getting to see film legends like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. For anyone who loves movies, it is a fun trip through movies you’ve grown up watching. On top of that, you got to feel like you were in the movie!

from top to bottom, left to right: the loading area for Great Movie Ride, Mary Poppins, Singing in the Rain, Casablanca, John Wayne, Wicked Witch of the West, Wizard of Oz, and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

As you traverse through the movies, The Great Movie Ride has some unique and fun features. Instead of just seeing these cornerstone films, you get to become involved. Your ride starts off with a tour guide who tells you about each section you’re travelling through (you start with musicals for example). When you get to the Mob movies of the 1930s, your tour guide ends up getting into an altercation with a real life gangster (along with some animatronic cronies) who commandeer your ride vehicle.

“I’m taking over this vehicle, see?”

Now, depending on which ride vehicle you were in, Mugsy here could instead be a gunslinger who takes over “this here daggum horseless carriage!” The ride continues forward under the control of your captor and it takes you to the most exciting part of the ride: a little journey through the spaceship Nostromo where Ellen Ripley is fighting for her life against a mysterious alien presence.

Warning sirens blaring, the ship’s computer “Mother” is giving a self-destruct countdown and steam vents are releasing around you. It is a very intense set piece. Now, there’s a reason I didn’t include Alien in the collage of movies above. This particular scene was infamous among those who rode it for one moment.

An entire generation of kids crapped their pants when this handsome fellow popped out of the wall and tried to attack you. In fact, my little brother was sitting on the far end of the vehicle right next to the wall the first time we rode it and he proceeded to jump across the entire ride to hold on to my Mom. Granted, he was 5 at the time but we still give him a hard time about that.

As we proceed into the next movie diorama, we’re treated to a scene from one of my favorite movies of all time, Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The ride moves forward to another Egyptian themed tomb with a giant statue of Anubis and a massive jewel. Our cowpoke/gangster is enticed by this giant jewel, which is guarded by a cloaked temple guard.

“those who disturbed the treasure of the gods must pay with their life!”
”Yeehaw,..or something”

Of course our mobster/gunslinger ignores this warning and reaches for the jewel…

OH NO! Who’s going to drive our vehicle???? In this dramatic moment, the temple guard removes his cloak to reveal…our original ride operator!!!! He gives the riders a knowing wink and says “you never know what’s going to happen in the movies.”

Dude, I was hooked. This was the most amazing thing I had ever seen in my life. It was breaking the fourth wall, it was fun, exciting, scary, funny and best of all it was in Disney World!

As the years went on and I returned on subsequent trips, The Great Movie Ride wasn’t nearly as exciting as those first few times. The alien in the wall no longer worked so he only popped out of the ceiling…and not really popped so much as just hung there. It wasn’t nearly as frightening. The ride operators didn’t have the same level of excitement either, they seemed to be going through the motions. In 2017 they shut down The Great Movie Ride in favor of a Mickey Mouse-themed ride that will replace it soon. Those early days of The Great Movie Ride were incredible and some of my favorite Disney World memories.

Star Tours

Star Wars is one of my favorite things, pretty much ever. This park is already catering to my love of movies and that golden era of Hollywood AND there’s a dope Star Wars ride? I’m in.

Disney World is not like your standard theme parks where a ride with a “hook” is given cheap window dressings to make it fit with that name it carries. They spare no expense in making you feel like you’re actually in the world the ride is themed after. There’s a giant AT AT towering over the queue and the line snakes through an Ewok village. Once you get inside, there are some familiar friends as well.

R2!!!! Oh…and 3PO. Yeah, yeah I’m excited to see you, too I guess.

The story for the ride goes like this: you’re a “star tourist” embarking on a space flight to the forest moon of Endor. As you board your craft, your pilot droid Rex seems bumbling and distracted (voiced by Paul Reubens I found out recently). Luckily, Rex is supported by the most competent droid/individual in the Star Wars universe in R2-D2. So, at least we got that going for us. Rex can’t be that dumb, can he?

“I know you are but what am I?”

Rex manages to crash through the launch area, nearly destroying the command center. With the help of R2, the “star tour” gets back on track and heads towards Endor…only to run into the Empire! You encounter a Star Destroyer, another Death Star and have to do something about this. You get to do every Star Wars fan’s dream and fly the trench run from A New Hope and watch as a stalwart Rebel pilot nails that exhaust port with a proton torpedo blowing up the whole dang thing (you’d think the Empire would have found a way to prevent that by now). You return to the spaceport, Rex apologizes for nearly killing you but you walk off the cruiser a hero! You helped defeat the Empire once again and now, you get can go to the gift shop and find some sweet Star Wars merch.

“you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy…who are sweaty from the Florida heat”

As a young Star Wars fan, before the prequel trilogy and any other subsequent media and Disney owning the rights to EVERYTHING Star Wars, this was the only live experience one could get. It was incredible, too. You felt like you were on Endor, like you were underneath the foot of an AT-AT, and when on the ride, like you were flying through hyperspace to defeat the Empire.

What’s different about Star Tours in comparison to The Great Movie Ride is the latter is still in use. In fact, it’s going to become a centerpiece for the Star Wars Land expansion that is coming in 2019 or 2020. They’ve updated the ride with new ride videos that vary, with the possibility that you never see the same one twice. The expansion is fun, the added characters and content are exciting but it will never top that first ride where you’re running-and-gunning through that trench on the Death Star III.

The Backlot Tour

There was a time when MGM/Hollywood Studios catered to the “film buffs,” and the Disney/MGM Studios Backlot Tour fit this criteria. This was such a cool ride and fit with the “Hollywood magic” theme that The Great Movie Ride provided as well.

As you waited in line, you got to see a special effects demonstration in a water tank where there was a simulated “PT boat” and engine room. Think any World War II movie where the action was in the Pacific. I actually was chosen to be part of this show when I was twelve, known as Harbor Attack. Some other dude sat in the engine room and was drenched by a deluge of water. I got to stand on the deck of the PT boat as explosions went off underwater simulating torpedo bursts and gun fire. For a kid who loved movies, this was an incredible experience.

“Incoming!”

After Harbor Attack, you and your tour group load into trams and begin the actual “backlot” portion of the tour. They took you through a section called “the boneyard” which is not nearly as spooky as it sounds. In the boneyard, there is a collection of vehicles and houses used in movies and TV shows. Take a look at the collage below for some highlights!

Left to right, top to bottom: the steamroller from “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”, the tank from “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”, Walt Disney’s private plane, space ship from “Flight of the Navigator”, skiff from “Return of the Jedi”, that cool dog-shaped cafe from “The Rocketeer”, a snowspeeder from “Empire Strikes Back” and the house from “The Golden Girls.”

This part of the ride was the closest I’ve ever come from jumping out of a ride vehicle. I would have loved to sit in the cockpit of the snowspeeder and pretend I was Luke Skywalker. This would be enough for most movie buffs, but wait…there’s more! Your tram then drives through a portion of the tour called Catastrophe Canyon that is part of a “live movie set.” You got to see more up close special effects as the canyon begins to shake from an earthquake, a fuel tanker catches fire (still not sure how an earthquake would ‘shake’ a fire from a fuel tanker truck but whatever) and then, a tidal wave of water comes crashing into the canyon! It was a very cool, behind-the-scenes look at how movies were made and added to that Hollywood feel.

never shake gasoline kids, it’ll burst into flames apparently.

Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular

This was as cool as it sounds. You got to see a re-creation of the famous Peruvian temple where Indy is steals the golden idol and then outruns a giant boulder! Plus, there’s a street fight in Cairo and a battle with a giant Nazi pilot while the flying wing catches fire and explodes. So much fun!

Muppet Vision 3D

I’m the typical born-in-the-80s kid who grew up on the Muppets via their exploits on TV, film and appearances on Sesame Street. Getting to see a version of their show on the big screen and in the “Muppet Theater” was incredibly fun. It even has the crotchety old men, Waldorf and Statler heckling the Muppets from the balcony!

The world famous remote-controlled Banana Cream Pie!

The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror

For any of you Disney nerds who are thinking “Tower of Terror was not an original attraction at MGM Studios!!!” I know, chill. There’s a reason I’m including it on this list. The first time I visited Disney World was 1994, the first year of Tower of Terror’s operation, so as far as I was concerned it was part of the original MGM Studios lineup. On top of that, the fact that it uses The Twilight Zone as the backdrop for the ride, makes it a seamless fit with the old Hollywood feel of the park.

Here’s the premise for this ride: The Hollywood Tower Hotel was the crown jewel of 1930s Los Angeles. Everyone wanted to stay in this swanky spot on the “dark side of Hollywood.” One fateful night, an unexpected lightning storm hit the hotel and caused an entire tower to disappear, with an elevator full of guests on board. This event caused the hotel to shut down immediately, left to be forgotten. That is until you and your party of guests, for no reason other than morbid curiosity apparently, decide to venture into the dilapidated hotel.

Disney, in their infinite attention to detail and creating an engrossing atmosphere, makes this hotel feel like it’s direct from the 30s. All the decor is covered in dust and cobwebs, left untouched since the last time the hotel was occupied.

After you get to see a little teaser video courtesy of the digitally resurrected Rod Serling, you move into the bowels of the hotel and get on a maintenance elevator for your own trip into….the Twilight Zone.

Typically, when it comes to the standard pull-you-to-the-top-of-a-tall-structure-and-drop-you rides, I am a hard pass. They’re lame, they’re unexciting and more importantly, not worth the wait in line. The Tower of Terror is similar in that it is a drop ride, but it is the Sistine Chapel of drop tower rides. Disney pulls out all the stops as you ride through the hotel horizontally as well before the big vertical shot up to the top of the hotel. There are points where the doors open and you can see those long-thought-lost elevator passengers from the 30s and all sorts of other weird, creepy, 5th dimension Twilight Zone stuff.

When you finally get to the top of the hotel, it’s not your typical drop either. The elevator messes with you and fakes you out a few times before the drop. When you do go down, it’s not straight free fall either. The ride is designed to pull you down even faster so that you actually achieve weightlessness for a moment. What a fun, spooky ride. I enjoyed the heck out of this ride and still love it to this day.

Disney’s Hollywood Studios is in the midst of a massive makeover that is changing the park’s soul. Now, this may sound like an indictment, but what is coming should be incredible. A few years back, they added a small Toy Story section around the Midway Mania ride that has now become a full on Toy Story Land. I have yet to see this but I will report back after our trip in December. Plus, Star Wars Land should be debuting by 2019 or 2020. That is going to be an incredible event that I will have to attend, but it will further change the landscape of Hollywood Studios. In fact, there has been discussion they may change the name of the park to better fit their new vision. Will it be exciting? Of course. Have I always wanted to visit a Star Wars themed amusement park? You’re flingin’ flangin’ right I have! But there is something magical and wondrous about that first trip to MGM Studios. Being immersed in that old Hollywood feel, getting to be a part of the movies, and seeing the behind the scenes inner workings was incredible. I will truly miss the old MGM Studios, but I can’t wait for the new Star Wars Land and the other incredible add-ons that will be surely coming to Disney in the near future.