Disney Rides That Never Got Made
Disney’s Animal Kingdom appears ready to begin construction to convert DinoLand U.S.A. into something new.
Similarly, executives involved with the DisneylandForward project have hinted that they’re ready to start building, too.
Change is coming to the Disney theme parks, but sometimes, the projected plans don’t work out as intended.
Let’s talk about eight Disney rides that never got made.
Banthas on Batuu
I spent part of March playing Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, which means I’ve been riding lots of Chocobos lately.
For this reason, I’ve been thinking about the Bantha tour through Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.
Several years ago, during the earliest days of reporting on a Star Wars-themed land, Peter Sciretta of SlashFilm scooped everyone.
A known Star Wars fan, Sciretta reported on the proposed third ride at this themed land.
The conceit was that guests would have boarded those giant Bantha from the Star Wars franchise.
The lumbering beasts would have bounced guests through Batuu, showing everyone the splendor of the Star Wars realm.
Alas, throughput and financial concerns forced Disney to cancel this project.
Regrettably, we’ll probably never explore Batuu via Bantha, although Star Wars Land could use a third attraction.
Dear Disney: please reconsider this idea!
The Excavator
I’ve also thought about this attraction quite a bit lately because it will definitely never happen.
Some of the attractions we discuss in these “what might have been” articles remain a possibility as long as Disney remains.
However, The Excavator was explicitly intended as a roller coaster at DinoLand, U.S.A., which is about to go extinct.
The original plans called for a longer version of The Boneyard. A ride would be on the far side of this playground.
Specifically, Disney would create a wooden roller coaster as the outdoor experience beside what we now know as DINOSAUR, the indoor ride.
The theming on this one would have involved bored students at the Dino Institute.
Conceptually, they had created a mine cart ride to entertain themselves during downtime in their studies and research.
Guests would have seen this work as the coaster drove past various fossils, including dinosaur skeletons.
Sadly, the escalating costs to populate Disney’s Animal Kingdom with living creatures forced the cut of a cheap roller coaster.
Later, Disney added Primeval Whirl instead…and we all know how that worked out.
The Excavator would have been modest but better.
The Japan Pavilion Bullet Train Ride
Over the years, Disney has debated any number of attractions at the World Showcase.
For the longest time, this section of EPCOT only hosted two rides, both of which feel like iterative takes on other rides.
For instance, Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros is unmistakably an It’s a Small World clone.
Meanwhile, Maelstrom was a cleverly themed attraction, but it was still just a Disney boat ride at its core.
Since then, Disney has rethemed Maelstrom to Frozen Ever After and added Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure at the France pavilion.
However, park officials contemplated a much different kind of attraction variant for the Japan pavilion.
When was the last time you experienced one of the Circle-Vision 360 attractions at EPCOT?
Well, can you imagine one of them…as a ride? That’s the core concept for a failed Disney attraction.
The Japan pavilion would have hosted a ride based on arguably its most famous form of transportation, the bullet train.
Disney would have used Circle-Vision 360 tech to create a simulated experience of the Japanese countryside whizzing by your window.
This would have been a motion simulation ride akin to Star Tours – The Adventures Continue or a dozen rides at Universal Studios.
Guests would have sat on a vibrating platform and “entered” the bullet train.
Thanks to the Circle-Vision 360 features, the Bullet Train ride would have seemed like a high-speed travelogue.
How quickly would people have gotten tired of that concept? Management didn’t like the answer to that question.
Thus, we never got the intended version of this attraction, but I’d still love for it to happen.
Thanks to emerging technologies, Disney could create a room of digital walls to tell the same story via motion simulation.
Quest of the Unicorn
Here’s a concept that was a full generation ahead of its time, underscoring Imagineers’ anticipatory brilliance.
When planning Animal Kingdom, Disney intended some fictional creatures to inhabit this park as well.
The park would have hosted Beastly Kingdom, an entire section of the park that you could argue contained one or two themed lands.
Disney would have subdivided Beastly Kingdom into a good realm and an evil realm.
In the evil realm, the Dragon Tower roller coaster would have functioned as the weenie AND the thrill ride.
Meanwhile, Disney planned something a bit more esoteric in the good realm.
Part of the area would have featured Fantasia Gardens, an attraction devoted to creatures from the beloved movie.
Then, Disney would have added a quest at the center of Beastly Kingdom.
Guests would explore a mythological maze. Presuming they could decipher all the clues, they would have discovered the path.
Their reward would have been a walk to the grotto home of the legendary unicorn and an encounter with the mythical creature.
Sadly, the earlier budget cuts I referenced with The Excavator prevented Disney from building Beastly Kingdom.
Park officials claimed it’d arrive as part of a later expansion, but we’re still waiting.
Amusingly, Imagineers from this development cycle later left and went to Universal Orlando Resort.
One of the attractions there, a now-defunct ride called The Flying Unicorn, was inspired by those plans.
So, when you ride Flight of the Hippogriff today, you’re experiencing what remains of the idea of Quest of the Unicorn.
Western River Expedition
This ride died so that Pirates of the Caribbean could live. And that’s a fact, not hyperbole.
When Walt Disney World opened in 1971, Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland Park was only four years old.
In the four years since the Pirates ride’s debut, it had become an international sensation and a destination attraction.
Since Disney World resides close to the area where the real-life pirates menaced society, the fit seemed natural.
However, Disney executives found the concept superfluous. Why would Floridians want a fake version of the real thing?
According to this thought process, guests could explore the pirate museums and historical areas in the region instead.
So, Disney designed the Western River Expedition as a thematic tribute to the United States’ Western Expansion.
Guests would have set sail on the Mississippi River near St. Louis and circled around a structure named Thunder Mesa Mountain.
Marc Davis designed this ride, which would have shared surface similarities with Pirates of the Caribbean.
After Disney heard the public outcry about no Pirates ride, it pivoted to build one at Magic Kingdom.
Meanwhile, Western River Expedition fell victim to a numbers game and never got made.
Davis created Big Thunder Mountain Railroad instead.
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Feature Photo: Disney Wiki